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Deconstructivism

dee-kon-STRUK-tiv-iz-um
Postmodern and Contemporary Architecture

The late twentieth century tendency toward fragmentation, skewed geometry and apparent instability, named by the 1988 Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, which gathered Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi and Coop Himmelblau. Computer-aided design later made its impossible-looking forms buildable, the Guggenheim Bilbao most famously.

Facts
Period
from 1988 1
The naming exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art opened in 1988; the tendencies it named were visible in unbuilt projects earlier in the decade.
Origin Region
United States and Europe 1
Deconstructivism
Filter Results4 entries
Connections

Associated With

Included in the naming 1988 exhibition, though he resisted the label.

Source Encyclopedia Britannica

Included in the naming 1988 exhibition.

Source Encyclopedia Britannica

Zaha Hadid was included in the defining 1988 MoMA Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition.

Influenced

Blobitecture digitally-generated curvilinear forms emerged from Deconstructivism earlier experiments with unconventional geometry.

Source Parametric architecture (Wikipedia)

Influenced By

Deconstructivism takes both its name and some of its fractured, diagonal formal language from Russian Constructivism, filtered through late-twentieth-century critical theory.

Source Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of ArchitectureBanister Fletcher, edited by Dan Cruickshank (20th edition)

Notable Examples

Source CCTV Headquarters (Wikipedia)
Source Frank Gehry (Wikipedia)
Source Guangzhou Opera House (Wikipedia)
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Source Jewish Museum Berlin, Wikipedia

A landmark Deconstructivist concert hall known for its curving stainless steel form.

Source Zaha Hadid (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
  • britannica.com/art/Western-architecture/Architecture-at-the-turn-of-the-21st-century, Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition passage
    The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “Deconstructivist Architecture” (1988) included a number of architects whose angular spatial compositions appear to be tangible realizations of chaos theory, but which are also in many ways reminiscent of Russian Constructivist and German Expressionist architectural forms from the early 1920s.
  • Notable Examples: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
  • Associated With: Zaha Hadid
  • Associated With: Frank Gehry
View the Source
Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture
Banister Fletcher, edited by Dan Cruickshank (20th edition), Architectural Press, 1996Influenced By: Constructivist Architecture
CCTV Headquarters (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationNotable Examples: CCTV Headquarters, Wikipedia category tag: DeconstructivismView the Source
Parametric architecture (Wikipedia)
Influenced: Parametricism, Origin section (redirect target Parametric architecture)
Quote, Influenced: Parametricism, Origin section (redirect target Parametric architecture)
Early instances of proto-Parametricism, as manifest through the prolific generation of innovative designs and radical experiments within the transitional styles of Deconstructivism and Folding
View the Source
Frank Gehry (Wikipedia)
Notable Examples: Frank Gehry, included in the 1988 MoMA Deconstructivist Architecture exhibitionView the Source
Zaha Hadid (Wikipedia)
Notable Examples: Zaha Hadid, included in the 1988 MoMA Deconstructivist Architecture exhibitionView the Source
Guangzhou Opera House (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationNotable Examples: Guangzhou Opera House, infobox architectural_style field: DeconstructivismView the Source
Jewish Museum Berlin, Wikipedia
Notable Examples: Jewish Museum Berlin, Wikipedia article
Quote, Notable Examples: Jewish Museum Berlin, Wikipedia article
Essentially, it consists of two buildings, a baroque old building, the "Kollegienhaus" (that formerly housed the Berlin Museum) and a new, deconstructivist-style building by Libeskind.
View the Source
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