Deconstructivism

Deconstructivism was a trend in the modern architecture of 1980-1990, based on the application of the ideas of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida about the possibility of architecture, which comes into conflict, “debunks” and cancels itself, manifesting its desire to reflect the contradictions of the era, declares the reduction of Euclidean geometry to a formal image. The first who sought to transform the philosophical idea of a constantly changing indefinite text into architecture, emphasizing the decentering of the human subject, was Peter Eisenmann.

Architectural deconstructivism is associated with postmodernism, but the principle of constructing an architectural form in it has changed: a new form was constructed on the basis of irregular geometric bodies.

Deconstructivism is based on the compositional motives of constructivism, but resorts to some deformation (“distortion of abstraction”), which gives the compositions dynamism and poignancy.

Distinctive features of deconstructivism:

•  Uniqueness and atypicality, (replication is impossible and inadmissible), author’s (personal architecture), innovative;
• The architecture of deconstructivism has striking aesthetic differences. Structuredness and geometrization or plasticity, sculpturedness, activity, disharmony, asceticism or redundancy;
• Irregular shapes. Unexpected broken shapes, unpredictability. The composition is abstract-geometric or abstract-plastic, the dominant figures are triangles and rectangles, or irrational figures, asymmetric, dynamic, mostly complex (visual chaos) and illogical;
• Aggressive invasion of the urban environment is emphasized. Contrast to the environment, dominating instead of fitting into the environment, subordinating the environment;
• Additional informative or symbolic load, intellectual architecture (mandatory presence of the “idea” of the structure);
• Atectonicity;
• Visual complexity;
• Complex surfaces. Figuring shapes and surfaces that can distort the perception of space;
• Lack of logical proportionality of forms;
• Offset center of gravity;
• Active dynamics and deformation, the violation of spatial connections of horizontals and verticals that allows to achieve the effect of distortion of internal and external spaces. The play of internal and external spaces between each other;
• The lack of colour (white, gray, “glass”, “metallic”, “concrete”);
•  The latest technologies and materials, authenticity, non-concealment of materials and textures, the use of unique (specially designed) technologies and structures; the predominance of concrete and reinforced concrete, glass, metal, as well as stone, wood, grass, water; metal frame, reinforced concrete volumes, suspension elements, self-supporting curtain walls, prefabricated frames, concrete shells, gluing elements of various materials;
• Lack of decor and details.

The main constructions:

Frank Gehry, Gary Home in Santa Monica, California;

Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao;

Frank Gehry, Dancing House in Prague;

Frank Gehry, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles;

Frank Gehry, Seattle Museum of Music;

Daniel Libeskind, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto;

Daniel Libeskind, City Edge Berlin, 1987;

Daniel Libeskind Holocaust Museum Berlin;

Coop Himmelblau, Cinema UFAPalast in Dresden;

Rem Koolhaas, Seattle Central Library;

Rem Koolhaas. Apartment building and observation tower in Rotterdam;

Peter Eisenman, Biocenter of the University of Frankfurt-Main;

Zaha Hadid, The Peak in Hong Kong;

Bernard Tschumi, Parc de la Villette in Paris;

Representatives:

Frank Owen Gehry;

Daniel Libeskind;

Rem Koolhaas;

Peter Eisenman;

Zaha Hadid;

Bernard Tschumi;

Zvi Hecker,

Gunther Domenig;

Enric Miralles;

Herbert Kokhta;

Hiromi Fujii;

Coop Himmelblau (Wolf Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky);

Peter Pran;

Carlos Zapata;

David Leibovitz;

Gilbert Balogh;

Karen Van Langen;

Lars Lerup;

Stephen M. Hall;

Adolf Schmelzer;

Alessandro Mendini;

Philippe Starck;

Thomas Lister;

Lebbeus Woods.

Peter Eisenman. Biocenter in Frankfurt am Main. Designed as a research laboratory with ancillary facilities. The Biocenter is an extension of the existing premises of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. The project is characterized by three features: maximum interaction between functional departments and the people who use them; predictions of expansion opportunities due to today not yet foreseen movements, as much involvement of the surrounding green zone as possible. First of all, it meant removing the traditional autonomy of architecture as a discipline, softening the firmly established hierarchies of space. So, there was an idea to fill architecture with the influences of biology. In the biocenter project, architecture broke tradition, just as modern biology broke the tradition of natural sciences. It is traditional for architecture to create space for functions and represent them. This project not only creates a space for methods that facilitate the discovery of biological processes, but also articulates these processes by itself. The architecture of the project is borrowed and enriched from these processes. The biological inventions of DNA processes became an architectural version in which they were expressed as geometric processes. The image of the project is the result of the influence of three elementary processes by which DNA proteins are built (replication, transcription, translation). The project is laid out as an expression of the DNA-color code of biologists. The four colors themselves remain constants, and their meanings vary to indicate different processes. The original figures are painted in light colors, which, through replication, produce dark ones: figures that have an average colour saturation also appear.

Bernard Tschumi. The Parc de la Villette in Paris is an example of deconstructivist architecture in urban planning. Bernard Tschumi rejected the traditional landscape concept of the park and turned it into an active and complex city-like form, which he opposes to the sluggish and amorphous environment of the urban periphery. The geometry of shapes, lines and planning, not nature, became the starting points of the project. As a compositional tool, the method of imposing a number of clear and autonomous functional-spatial structures on the surface of the site was used: they form a “diffraction” pattern that cannot be obtained using other design tools. The new park is formed as a three-system set. Each system has its own logic, features, boundaries: a system of objects, a system of movements, a system of space. The points of activity are arranged in a regular grid with an interval of 120. Each is an indivisibility of the building structure – a 10-meter cubic frame. It is being worked out, filled or expanded to include restaurants, bars, gyms, workshops, shops, gardens, etc. Three different systems docked deliberately randomly in relation to each other, this reflects the author’s concept of “discontinuity” of architectural form and fragmentation.