First, the post-modernist performance of architects
"Postmodernism" and "Postmodernism" are hot topics in the academic and cultural circles of contemporary western developed countries. Especially after 1968 "May Storm", western popular ideas such as Marxism, existentialism and structuralism suddenly lost their influence in the intellectual world. Postmodernism is easy to combine with post-structuralism in France and neo-pragmatism in the United States in the 1960s, and it has become a comprehensive philosophical and cultural trend prevailing in the West today, and spread to the whole world.
However, as a philosophical trend of thought, postmodernism did not originate in the field of philosophy. On the contrary, its main components come from postmodern literature and art, architectural art style and social science in post-industrial society. The first person to use the word "postmodern" was the British painter John? Watkins? In 1870, JohnWatkinsChapman used the word "postmodern painting" to evaluate the more avant-garde painting method than French impressionism, which determined that the word "postmodern" showed transcendence and negation at the beginning of its use. The use of "postmodernism" to describe new architectural forms appeared in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1970s and 1980s, the western architectural circles showed a strong aversion to the purism and formalism in the heyday of modern architectural styles. Modern architects are happy. Corbusier's utopian ideal of trying to create a better world has not been presented to the world. On the contrary, it is a dull skyscraper and a condemned living machine.
1966, the Chicago architect Venturi issued the voice calling for postmodern architecture for the first time in Complexity and Contradiction of Architecture, which set off the historical prelude of postmodern architectural design in the architectural world. 1977 Charles, a famous British architectural critic. In his influential book Modern Architectural Language, Jencks advocated a new post-modern architectural style which broke away from modern architectural style and was based on eclectic style and popular value orientation, and summarized six characteristics of post-modern architecture: ① Historicism; ② Direct retro-ism; ③ New local style; ④ Contextualism; ⑤ Metaphor and fantasy; ⑥ Postmodern space (or super-technicalism) [1]. It is through the rapid performance of avant-garde architects such as Venturi in architectural design and the theoretical summary of architectural critics that the obscure post-modern philosophical debate is visualized, and then experienced and understood by ordinary people, which further promotes the spread and influence of post-modernism. In a sense, the field of architectural design, which has been influenced by various philosophical thoughts and schools in society, has become the soil for cultivating post-modern philosophical thoughts.
Of course, these avant-garde architects not only seek a reasonable explanation for post-modern design in theory, but also devote themselves to design creation. They not only show creative enthusiasm in their own professional field-architectural design, but also extend the vocabulary of postmodernism to landscape design. The Franklin courtyard designed by Venturi in 1972 is not the reconstruction of the original building on the original site, but has created a particularly effective history with its "ghostly" imagination and stainless steel skeleton that simulates the original building. 1977, he designed the Freedom Square on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., combining historical fragments with flat design vocabulary, vividly and concisely showing the historical information and emotion contained in the place, thus dispelling the towering central composition of the traditional memorial square. 1980 Charles? The Italian Plaza designed by Moore for a commercial and industrial complex in New Orleans, with its collage of historical fragments, stage-like scenes and playful details, has given this place a "chaotic and crazy landscape" experience, which has almost become synonymous with post-modern public space design.
These radical post-modern architects flaunt themselves and please the public through historical fragments, symbols, metaphors, kitsch and banter. Although their fellow landscape architects seem to be somewhat slow to respond to post-modernism, there are still some avant-garde landscape architects inspired by this new trend of thought, from Picasso, Robert? Artists such as robert morris learn to create the most impactful design with the least elements; A landscape architect like Rob. R smithson, Michael? Learn new visual concepts from artists such as Michael Heyzer; From Venturi, Frank? Frank Gehry and Michael? In the works of architects such as Michael Graves, they learn the skills of defining space with historical fragments, light and color, and actively explore postmodernism in the field of landscape design.
Second, the postmodern experiment of landscape designers.
The exploration of postmodernism in the field of American landscape design began with small-scale places. 1980 Martha, a famous American landscape architect. Martha schwartz's "Baggy Garden" published in the first issue of "Landscape Architecture" magazine has aroused extensive discussion on postmodernism in American landscape design circles, and is regarded as the first example for American landscape designers to try postmodernism in modern landscape design. Bagel garden is located in an area called Back Bay in Boston. Lovely low brick houses are arranged on both sides of each narrow street, which embodies the architectural style of the past historical period. Each building has an open courtyard facing the street. Bagehouse Garden is a small courtyard in front of the house, covering an area of 22×22 feet and facing north. The garden space is divided into Italian concentric rectangles by hedges with a height of 16 inch. Between the two rectangles, there is purple gravel with a width of 30 feet, and 96 bagels are arranged on it.
In a small rectangle, 30 Chinese roses are planted in a determinant of 5×6. Two yew trees, a Japanese maple tree, iron railings and stone boundaries symbolizing historical significance are also preserved in the site. In the design, what Suvaz wants to create is a sense of place that is both humorous and artistic [4]. The biggest feature of this design is the contradiction caused by juxtaposing the geometric form symbolizing arrogance and nobility with bagels symbolizing family warmth and democracy in one space; And the strong visual contrast between yellow bagels and purple gravel. This miniature courtyard is the epitome of post-modernism, and its historical style of flower fences, purple gravel and bagels symbolizes the military camp-like neighborhood environment in Houwan District. This garden opens a new horizon for small-scale landscape design-that is, combining traditional and limited landscape imagination with new concepts to create new landscapes. Therefore, this miniature garden has become the direction of new design under the academic and artistic background.
1983 the famous American landscape design firm SWA is John? Clown Square, the administrative complex building of Colorado Greenwood Village designed by John Madden Company, is a group of office buildings with glass curtain walls. The design not only embodies the characteristics of Renaissance historicism, but also gives the place a strong deconstruction of the subject of landscape experience-people by surrealism. This square space, covering an area of 1 mu, is actually the roof of a double-decker parking lot, located between two glass curtain walls, with some distributed on it. Because it is a roof square, considering the structural bearing capacity of the roof, landscape design can only be carried out in a narrow space with a width of 12m in the middle of 50m× 100m. The main design idea of SWA is to design a square with public functions, emphasizing the landscape of Loki Mountain in the distance and reducing the visual interference of mechanical piping equipment on the roof. In the design, SWA changed the popular traditional axis technique and chose a series of unexpected reference points to solve the relationship between the square and the surrounding glass curtain wall buildings, as well as the relationship with the long and narrow visual axis of Loki Mountain.
First of all, the mirror curtain walls on both sides of the square give the whole space a long, narrow, dazzling and incredible sense of chaos. Looking into the direction of Loki Mountain in the distance along the long and narrow axis of the square, the ventilation pipes and cooling towers wrapped in glass mirrors and protruding from the roof are mysteriously placed in this huge and funny square space by a huge hand, and they form an inclined box with the ground. This dynamic posture and the black-and-white diamond-shaped ground surface constitute a sense of visual illusion and uncertainty. In addition, the designer arranged grass slightly above the ground on both sides of the entrance and exit of the building, and arranged a group of white cylinders with high and low order on them, which were reflected in the glass mirror of the building behind, forming a metaphorical meaning for the trimmed forest. The remarkable characteristics of this design are the use of a large number of mirror materials, the inclined body shape, the wrong black and white diamond terrazzo floor, and the asymmetric geometry.
Designers use mirrors to distort vision, so as to increase the scale and vision they see, thus producing an eccentric surrealism quality similar to Chirico's [5], dissolving the theme of human experience into a part of the psychedelic scene, and sometimes even completely lost in this fantastic scene. Finally, the designer cut a narrow hole in the middle of the square, dividing the square into two parts, so that both buildings have their own square space. In this narrow incision, the designer juxtaposes traditional fountains, canals and flowers, resulting in a traditional rural landscape, which makes people find some realistic fulcrums in this unexpected surreal post-modern space full of fantasy and confusion.
1988 in george hargreaves? The market park designed by george hargreaves for San Jose, California [10] embodies the characteristics of post-modern hermeneutics, emphasizing the historicity, understandability, communicability, dialogue and meaning generation of places. Market Park is not only a huge traffic island, but also the oldest public open center in the city, because it is surrounded by several important public buildings-art museums, large hotels and conference centers in the city. The field consists of two straight lines connecting the two ends of a semicircle curve, forming a shape similar to a sports field. A main road is designed along the east-west long axis of the site. A crescent-shaped sloping dike in the middle of the site divides the site into two parts, and the height difference between them changes with the change of ramps and steps. In the west of the land, Victorian street lamps and wooden seats are arranged on both sides of the main road; The planting method of fruit trees on the grassland is consistent with the crescent line in the middle. At the end of the main road in the east, there are two sharp-angled ramps, which divert the flow of people in the north-south direction. The triangular land thus formed is hard paved, and the planted trees emphasize the boundary. In the middle of the crescent-shaped slope dike, flowers and plants with four seasons change are planted. Rest seats are placed on the upper layer of the slope, the lower layer is the grid fountain area, and the other side is the open grass.
The fountain posted by China Paper Download Center shows that with the change of time of day, its shape changes from fog and Koizumi in the morning to strong water jet in the afternoon, and the water column becomes more dazzling under the action of lights at night. In addition, the fountain self-drainage design system not only allows people to watch its changes, but also allows people to play in it. In the middle of the venue, the two diagonal lines from south to west and from south to north seem a bit stiff at first glance, which is actually in line with people's psychology of taking shortcuts. It is such a simple landscape design, but it contains a lot of historical metaphors and life fragments. The fountain forms in grid format are inspired by artesian wells excavated near 1800, and their daily changes metaphorically represent the history of the prosperity of Santa Clara Valley by water. The orchards in the west are also to arouse people's memories of the harvest scenes of fruit and wood farms around during the two world wars. Victorian street lamps reflect the city's 300-year history, while the fountain scene illuminated by night lights hints at the high technology of contemporary Silicon Valley. The postmodern text here is not only interpreted by some designers, but also organized these historical elements and fragments into the main public landscape fragments of the park through Hargreaves and passed them on to the public.
The Pershing Square, completed by hanna/Olin and Ricardo Legorreta in 199 1, is influenced by abstract sculpture, earth art, phenomenology and painting, showing the characteristics of post-modernism ambiguity and visual revolution. Pershing Square is located in downtown Los Angeles 15 Street and 16 Street. Its history can be traced back to 1866, and it was designed many times. In 1950s, an underground parking lot of 1800hm2 was built under it. By the 1980s, it had become a gathering place for homeless people and drug dealers. Therefore, it is also the beginning of the grand plan of urban reconstruction of public space and the witness of social progress.
In general graphic design, designers use the right-angle block method to decompose a large space into small narrative spaces with independent functions. The plane division method of repeated rectangular grid format is a reference to the original urban grid historical mechanism. In addition, the designer also erected a purple "bell tower" with a height of 10 on the pink concrete floor, and the canal wall connected with it was also purple. There are square windows on the wall, which limit the visual framework of the square to a small garden area. On the other side of the square is a pale yellow coffee shop and a triangular parking station, and behind it is another colorful wall.
The street in front of the square is the ramp leading to the underground garage, which intersects with a continuous sidewalk and slope. In this group of space landscape design, designers get inspiration from abstract sculpture and post-modern visual revolution, and introduce three-dimensional volume into horizontal square space to create an atmosphere similar to modern art exhibition. In the center of the square is an orange garden, which is a direct hint of the typical characteristics of Los Angeles. The circular pool and the sunken amphitheater provide two regular geometric elements for the park. The pool is a big bowl-shaped circle with gray pebbles inside. Water flows from the wall of the canal into the pool, and then extends to the space outside the square through zigzag cracks similar to those formed after the earthquake. The amphitheater, which can accommodate 2000 people, is covered with grass and pink concrete steps, and four symmetrically arranged pale yellow palm trees form a suggested stage space. The balance of the whole square. In addition, the bell tower and the canal form reflect the reproduction of the traditional symbols of the Mediterranean, and a large number of tall palm trees are used in the venue, showing a strong Latin style. All these show the enthusiasm of the designer in creating this public space with multiple meanings and his respect for this multi-ethnic community city.
Third, the conclusion
The postmodern exploration of American landscape architects in the above historical period is only a few waves of American new landscape design thoughts in the 20th century, but through them, we can still see the general outline of postmodernism in American landscape design. As a concern for people's spiritual level, landscape design has always been centered on the meaning and emotional experience of places, and its existence meets people's spiritual needs of relaxing and cultivating their hearts. Therefore, it is decided that in the complicated post-modern vocabulary, landscape designers draw the most from historical context elements, which represent the symbolic units of metaphor and fantasy. Therefore, compared with the works of their peers, their postmodern tendency is moderate and cautious except for some bright color contrast. In addition, although landscape architects have absorbed many post-modern design concepts and new artistic techniques, such as metaphor of composition, visual changes, color contrast, etc., they have not completely abandoned traditional design elements such as trees, flowers, water bodies and rocks, but organically combined them to create new place meanings. Finally, people don't play a major role in this place. People and landscape always interact, and sometimes people even become a part of landscape elements. Therefore, no matter how avant-garde and arrogant landscape architects are in design, the atmosphere and significance they create will always be the harmony between man and nature.