"Less is more, more is confusing" originated from Laozi's Tao Te Ching. There are a few words in front of it: "Flexion is complete, waste is straight, depression is surplus, embarrassment is new, less is more, and more is confusing." It means:
An unjust state can save itself, but bending can prolong it;
Low-lying areas can be irrigated, and the old ones can be reborn;
If you don't pursue it deliberately, you can gain something, but if you pursue it too much, it will only increase your troubles.
The following should help you:
Postmodern design
Postmodernism is the decorative development of modernism and internationalism design. Its center is against Misba Van der Rohe's "less is More" (LESS? Is it? More) Simplification style, advocating enriching the vision through decorative means. Advocating to meet psychological needs, rather than only focusing on monotonous functionalism. Postmodernism uses a lot of historical decorations in design and compromises them to break the monopoly of internationalist style for many years. In the 1960s, American architect Robert venturi (Robert? The book Complexity and Contradiction of Architecture published by Ventura is regarded as the earliest declaration of postmodernism. In the book, he first affirmed the great contribution of modernism to the process of human civilization, and pointed out that modernism completed its mission in a specific historical period. Outdated modernism will become the shackles of design ideas. Everything has become a mediocre and monotonous blank design. However, contextualism, metaphor and decoration with chaotic style and vague meaning will guide the development direction of post-modern design.
Postmodernism is a reverse movement from modernism and a rebellion against the pure reason of modernism. People are tired of facing the cold and inflexible design all day, which expresses people's desire for humanized and humanized products. Modernism and postmodernism are two extremes in style, but they have similarities and differences in many aspects. For example, Hassan made the following comparison between these two parts in The Turn of Postmodernism:
Philosophically, modernism is based on rationalism and realism, while postmodernism is based on romanticism and individualism.
Ideologically, modernism emphasizes the worship of technology and the rationality and logic of function, while postmodernism advocates high technology, high emotion and people-oriented.
In methodology, modernism follows the absolute role of physical attributes, standardization, integration, industrialization, high efficiency and high technology. Postmodernism follows the dominance of human experience, the unity and continuity of time and space, the interpenetration of history, individuality, laxity and liberalization.
In terms of design language, modernism follows the form of function determination, "less is more" and "useless decoration is a crime"? (Russian); Postmodernism follows the diversity, fuzziness and irregularity of forms, neither this nor that, nor this nor that. It emphasizes historical background, images and metaphors, and "less boring" (less? Is it? Boring)
The famous saying "function determines form" which is regarded as a classic by modernism. The principle of "less is more" ignores social progress and people's needs. Da Lu said: "Materials and decorations are the cells that make up products." Functionalism opposes decoration because it treats design with a rational and logical attitude. The present era is different from before, the relationship between people and the world has become more complicated, and people's aesthetic taste and quality of life have also become higher. ?
Characteristics of "Postmodernism Design"
1, "postmodern design" is manifested in the following aspects:
First, it opposes the simplification of design forms and advocates the diversification of design forms, which is obviously different from the approach pursued by modernism in line with the principles of high efficiency and high technology such as standardization, specialization, synchronization and centralization in industrial society.
Second, oppose rationalism and pay attention to human nature. Modernism emphasizes the rationality and logic of functional structure, rationalism and postmodernism are consistent with post-industrial society, and tend to be humorous and meet the instinctive needs of human nature.
Third, emphasize the metaphor of form, symbol, culture and history, pay attention to the humanistic significance of products, advocate the combination of old and new, and advocate tolerance.
Fourth, pay attention to the relationship between design works and the environment, and realize that the consequences of design are closely related to the sustainable development of society.
2. Under the post-modernism design characteristics, architecture, as one of the most important branches in the design field, has the following characteristics:
First, emphasize the spiritual function of architecture and pay attention to the change of design form.
Second, postmodern architecture emphasizes history and culture, which is called "contextualism".
Thirdly, postmodern architectural language has the characteristics of metaphor, symbolism and polysemy, which is manifested in the entertainment of architectural modeling and decoration and the fuzziness of decoration details.
The representative figure of post-modernism architectural design;
Post-modernist architectural design began in 1955 with the American Embassy in New Delhi designed by Edward Dulles Si Tong. In Europe, America, Japan and even some countries in Latin America, many designers have designed a large number of famous works with postmodern architectural characteristics. These designers mainly include robert venturi, Charles Jencks and Sterling James (James? Stirling), Nemeyer (Oscar? Nemeyer? Suarez. Filho), philip johnson (Philip? Johnson), Greaves (Michelle? Graff), Wu Zhong (Jorn? Utzon) (representative works are Sydney Opera House), Kenzi Ge Tan (Kenzo? Ge Tan) (The masterpiece is Yoyogi Gymnasium, the largest gymnasium designed for 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. ) and so on
Among many people who explore modernist design theory, Robert Winduri (Robert? Venturi) and Charles Jencks have done some positive research, which represents the mainstream of post-modernism design thoughts and is widely representative.
Robert venturi is a famous American architect, the real founder of postmodern design theory and one of the representatives of postmodern architects. In his monograph Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, he pointed out that "less is more" and "less is boring" put forward by Mies van der Rohe. He advocated replacing the "obvious unity" of modernism with "chaotic vitality"; Replace the "purebred" of modernism with hybrids; Advocate detours instead of straight roads; Advocate vagueness rather than clarity; Advocating impermanence rather than constancy and directness; Advocate both, not "either one or the other"; Advocate "white and black are sometimes big" instead of "either white or black"; He advocates rich meaning "rather than clear meaning". Subsequently, on the basis of studying how to use some historical design styles to supplement, promote and develop modernist design, the paper "Learning from Las Vegas" was written on 1969. From where? Lascegas) clearly put forward his own "post-modernism design" principle, further elaborated his own design thought, and regarded the bizarre and colorful architectural design of Las Vegas as a model of popular culture. He believes that designers should not ignore and ignore the influence of various cultures in contemporary society on their own designs, but should pay attention to absorbing various contemporary cultural spirits in their own designs. Only in this way can we enrich our architectural design. He divides architecture into two types: one is the so-called "duck", which refers to those buildings that are single, indifferent and lack the sense of the times; First, the so-called "decorative shell" refers to the architectural style caused by those good decorative means. He called on architecture to pay attention to form, and proposed that some decorative styles and design styles in history should be rationally utilized to enrich the monotonous design of modernism. These theories run through his architectural design practice. In the halls of Della china residence and St. Sabri in the National Museum of London, he pursues elegant, decorative, historical and eclectic architectural forms, with simple and lively shapes. Jencks said in his book Postmodernism: "The postmodernism we observed and defined can be explained as follows: an architectural art with both professional foundation and popularity is based on new technology and old style, and' double decoding' is the abbreviation of' celebrity-mass' and' new-old'". His so-called "double decoding" theory makes many critics regard what they think of as "postmodern design" as "hodgepodge" and "mule style".
Exploration after modernism
A. High-tech style-High-tech style originated from the machine aesthetics in the 1920s and 1930s, which reflected the technical characteristics represented by machinery at that time. After 1970s, some designers and architects thought that modern science and technology were advancing by leaps and bounds, and cutting-edge technologies were constantly entering human living space, and a design aesthetics corresponding to high technology should be established, so the so-called high-tech style appeared. The word high-tech style was also coined by Joan Krone in 1978. Krone) and Susan Slesing (Susan? Slesin) first appeared in their monograph "High Technology". High-tech style begins with architectural design. The Pompidou Cultural Center in Paris 1977 and Lloyd's Building in London 1986, designed by Italian architect renzo piano and British architect Richard Rogers, are typical representatives of high-tech style buildings. In the design of industrial products, hi-tech de stijl likes to use the latest materials, especially high-strength steel, hard aluminum or alloy materials, to create the product image in an exaggerated and exposed way, often exposing the internal parts and mechanical structure of the product, and sometimes painting complex parts with bright colors to show the "mechanical beauty", "time beauty" and "precision beauty" in the high-tech era. In essence, it refines the technical factors in modernist design and exaggerates them to form a symbolic effect;
B. Transitional high-tech style-also known as "improved high-tech style", is based on the design of modernist high-tech style, and then wantonly ridiculed, showing the designer's disgust and confusion about industrialization and high-tech through absurd details. With a high degree of personal expression characteristics, it is essentially the embodiment of punk culture and neon culture, and it is impossible to be widely loved and recognized by consumers.
C minimalist style-characterized by pursuing the aesthetics of minimalist design, the less the better. It has the style characteristics of simplicity, precision and modernity that modern people like, and also caters to the psychological characteristics of modern people pursuing simplicity, exquisiteness and quickness in high-tempo life, but it is easy to go to the extreme of formalism; French designer Philippe Stark (Philip? Starck) is the most important representative of minimalist style.
D. Deconstruction style-it is a design exploration style with great personality, randomness and expressive characteristics, and it is a denial and criticism of the principles and standards of orthodox modernism and internationalism; Deconstruction, as a design form, first started in the field of architecture, and its most important and influential figure is Frank Gehry. Gary) and Peterson Peter eisenmann.
E. Microelectronics style-it pays attention to the unification of design function, material science, ergonomics, display technology and miniaturization technology, so as to achieve good function and formal effect of products;
F. "Soft and high-tech" design style-it embodies a kind of "high emotion" and is a concrete expression style of humanized design theory. It pays attention to the use of lively colors, smooth curves and rounded corners, and friendly and light materials.
G. Neo-modernist style-It not only has the rigorous functionalism and rationalism characteristics of modernism, but also has unique personal expression and symbolic characteristics. Although rationalism, functionalism and minimalism are still design principles, they are more vivid and diverse. Modernism began to appear in the 1960s, which was largely manifested in architectural design. I.M. Pei, an American Chinese, designed the entrance to the Louvre in 1989-"Crystal Pyramid" which is a masterpiece of neo-modernism design.