Discover why some think Chicago's Harold Washington Library Center is a perfect example of postmodern architecture
Learn about Chicago's Harold Washington Library Center (1991) as an exemplar of postmodern...
© Chicago Architecture Foundation (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
NARRATOR: For every architectural movement there is a countermovement. The purpose of the countermovement is to oppose the original movement and change the status quo. Perhaps the most vocally represented countermovement in architecture is postmodernism. Postmodernism sought to supplant the strict architectural canons of modernism with diverse aesthetics and alternative meanings. Postmodern architects replaced modernist's minimal form with exaggerated ornamentation, formalism with wit, and concepts of universality with multiple meanings and references.
The Harold Washington Library Center, designed by Hammond, Beeby, and Babka, is a uniquely postmodern homage to Chicago. As a postmodern structure the building references the past, making it seem somehow familiar, while also blending in well with its 19th-century neighbors. The design pulls elements from Chicago landmarks-- the rusticated walls of the Rookery; the swirling terracotta design of the Marquette Building; the thick, sloping base of the Monadnock Building; the stepped-back, arched windows of the Auditorium Building; and the triangular pediment of the Art Institute of Chicago. These references firmly root the Library in its landscape and provide the illusion that the building is much older than it is.
Lead architect for the Library, Thomas Beeby, is one of the first generation of architects who split with modernism in the 1970s. Dubbed the Chicago Seven, for its original seven members, these architects adopted form for its own sake, often combining styles in entirely new ways. Their buildings questioned established ideas of architecture, revived an awareness of traditions that were long abandoned by modernism, and encouraged the creation of new, remixed ideas.
With the help of postmodernism and the ideas of the Chicago Seven, architecture was freed from the straitjacket of modernism and evolved into a wide-ranging set of movements that exist today.
The Harold Washington Library Center, designed by Hammond, Beeby, and Babka, is a uniquely postmodern homage to Chicago. As a postmodern structure the building references the past, making it seem somehow familiar, while also blending in well with its 19th-century neighbors. The design pulls elements from Chicago landmarks-- the rusticated walls of the Rookery; the swirling terracotta design of the Marquette Building; the thick, sloping base of the Monadnock Building; the stepped-back, arched windows of the Auditorium Building; and the triangular pediment of the Art Institute of Chicago. These references firmly root the Library in its landscape and provide the illusion that the building is much older than it is.
Lead architect for the Library, Thomas Beeby, is one of the first generation of architects who split with modernism in the 1970s. Dubbed the Chicago Seven, for its original seven members, these architects adopted form for its own sake, often combining styles in entirely new ways. Their buildings questioned established ideas of architecture, revived an awareness of traditions that were long abandoned by modernism, and encouraged the creation of new, remixed ideas.
With the help of postmodernism and the ideas of the Chicago Seven, architecture was freed from the straitjacket of modernism and evolved into a wide-ranging set of movements that exist today.