Marilyn Zurmuehlen
Related: postmodern architecture - USA
On postmodern architecture
Possibly, the public is most conscious of Post-Modernism in the visual arts as it is manifested in architecture. The ubiquitous gable that seems mandatory whether in new shopping center constructions or in renovations of campus and commercial buildings may be the most readily identifiable characteristic of this current style for many people. A gable, in the form of a 26-story central pyramid, is the commanding presence for viewers of the Dolphin Hotel which opened at Disney World last year. However, architect Michael Graves also engages visitors with less familiar Post-Modernist qualities. The 55 feet dolphins balanced at the ends of each wing, along with a pair of 28 ton turquoise swans atop the Swan - the Dolphin's companion hotel - are classical references to water. A tented walkway, connecting the two hotels across a lagoon, culminates in a series of columns conceived as palm trees; these forms are both emblems of contemporary Florida fantasy and appropriations from ancient Egyptian columns. Such relations between the past and present are a valued subject of Post-Modernists, as is the irony of additional double coding from juxtaposing living palm trees with their contemporary/historical embodiments. This is one instance of what an architectural critic admiringly described as Graves' "toyings with our perceptions of fantasy and reality..." (Branch, 1990, p. 87). --http://art-education.concordia.ca/memory/article_pomo.html [Mar 2006]]
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