Industrial Revolution & Arch

This form of mimicking a city built over time was the essence of architects such as Jeremy Dixon & James Stirling. chitecture in the pluralist age, one that expresses our 'contradictions and inconsistencies as Venturi and Stirling insist. In shaping the characters of the film.

Overall I believe this article highlights the continued criticism of the modernist architecture through film. The idealist approach of modernism had left many in a harsh and boring reality where any variation through discontinuity was welcomed. This develops a new architecture in its self of response to context rather than the modernists oppressive nature to environment. The characters could be seen as an extension of the architecture or vise versa.

Article 2: Modernism as Enemy, Film and the Portrayal of Modern Architecture, Vol.

French philosopher Jean-Francois argued that there "are no 'meta-narratives' of religion, politics, social vision or aesthetics that can command universal assent today" pg6

Part of the Post Modernist's approach to new building development was not to design large corporate schemes as one but instead to design them as though "imitating the city of memory built over time" pg7, so the building appeared as if "many architects constructed them for different, if related, clients" pg7.

The stark contrast of the modernist movement with its environment was highlighted in the film Mon Oncle where "Everything in the old part of town has its place and is part of a kind of organism that is contrasted with the inorganic harshness of the endless rows of repetitive houses in the new suburb" pg22.

The general criticism of modern architecture is one of cold & dullness, shown by the film "Playtime,1967" with "This world of soulless corridors, glass doors and privacy panels creates a ludicrous balletic vision of legs and feet robbed of their bodies, dancing around gaps in the architecture" pg22.

The postmodern approach of design was seen as more responsive to its environment and social needs "by breaking up his facades into five discontinuous themes he gives them not only an urbane coherence- impossible in an integrated aesthetic at this scale- but a symphonic quality" pg8.

Many films used the dullness of Modernist architecture as a setting for characters with equally boring lives "the existential emptiness, the deep shadows and smooth white surfaces of the soulless modern architecture perfectly mirror the shallowness of the character lives" pg23.

Dixon uses the buildings Façade for such mimicking "And this façade is peeled back at the various stages to show its shallow depth and existence as urban representation, precisely to emphasize its symbolic and visual role" pg7. But it is necessarily incomplete method until it is supplemented by a symbolic program or some unifying plot" pg8.