What is Deconstructvist Architecture? A critic once described it as “an explosion at a chopsticks
factory.” Others think Deconstructvism is horrific and dehumanizing. Onetime, in 1982,
when Architect Peter Eisenman, who is often associated with the Deconstructivist movement,
spoke at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, he claimed that the best
architecture was incongruous and disharmonious. Another panelist,
Christopher Alexander responded by saying “One of the reasons the world appears to
Mr. Eisenman to be so f—ed up is because Mr Eisenman’s buildings are f—ing them up.”
So what is Deconstructivist Architecture all about?
Is it even a real style? And if it is, why is it so f—ed up?
The term “Deconstructivist Architecture” was coined by organizers of the exhibition of the same name,
held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1988, curated by architects Philip Johnson and Mark
Wigley. There were seven architect/architectural firms featured in the show: Bernard Tschumi,
Peter Eisenman, Daniel Liebskind, Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Coop Himmelb(l)au.
Philip Johnson also curated the landmark 1932 MoMA exhibition “International Style.” Where
he and Henry-Russel Hitchcock famously presented post-WWI European Modern architecture to America,
and the wider global audience. Some people credit them, and this 1932 show as a defining progenitor
that popularized Modernism in America, and the rest of the world. Others believed Johnson and
Hitchcock oversimplified Modernist principles into a “dumbed down” visual style, by stripping away
the progressive, social mission that was important to most European Modernists at the time. However,
MoMA clearly thought Johnson was still an important figure in architecture 56 years later.
So they invited him back in hopes of discovering the next big new trend in architecture.
In the “Deconstructivist Architecture” exhibition catalog – Johnson stated that Deconstructivist
architecture is “not a new style, movement, nor creed.” He claimed the seven architects
in the show were chosen because they “represented a good cross-section of a broad group” who shared
a confluence of similar themes in their works, demonstrating a “similar approach,
with similar forms as an outcome.”
I’m sorry Mr. Johnson, isn’t that what a style is???
Different people creating works that share common features, including form and structure? He says
all the works in the show have commonalities like “warped, dislocated and jagged” forms,
and “diagonal overlapping of rectangular or trapezoidal bars.” Was Mr. Johnson
trying to reduce nuanced architectural practices into simplified geometry again?
According to Johnson’s co-curator, Mark Wigley, architecture, historically, has been
a conservative and formal discipline that demanded stability and order. Hence why any deviation from
the values of harmony, unity, and purity has not been present. He claims Deconstructivist
architecture is a recent challenge that disrupts this norm by revealing inherent complexities and
dilemmas within “perfect” unified structures. He also attributes Russian Constructivists as
a direct influence that led Deconstructivists to incorporate internal disturbance, dislocation,
deflection, deviation, and distortion into architecture, resulting in buildings that
appear structurally compromised but are in fact structurally sound. His position was
that – while Modernist architecture appears to be a radical departure from Classical architecture,
it was still full of formal rules that must adhere to harmonious ratios and proportional
arrangements. Modernism, to him, was just “re-skinned classicism.” Deconstructivist
architecture is “truly” Modern and Avant-Garde because it throws architectural rules out the
window. Wigley also emphasized that all of the designs in this show are buildable “because they
do not play in the sanctuaries of drawing, theory, or sculpture." He’s alluding to this concept
called “paper architecture” where some architects tend to design buildings that can only exist on
paper and could never be built in the real world. So he wants to present these works as definitely
not Paper Architecture. Not everyone was convinced of this of course, but more on that later.
First, we need to understand Russian constructivism, and how it’s supposed
to relate to this show. Constructivism is an art and architecture movement that emerged out of the
Russian Revolution post-1917. Aesthetically – it has roots in the Russian Suprematism movement and
borrows elements from other European avant-garde movements including Cubism and Futurism.
Philosophically, Constructivists were looking to disassociate artists from the traditional
art studio and the easel. They saw high art as elitist and viewed the applied arts as socially
engaged and progressive. Additionally, they wanted to find a form of expression consistent
with their newfound Communist worldview – including employing arrangements of basic
industrial geometric forms to represent a new Soviet language of industry and modernity.
Mark Wigley believes Russian Constructivism broke “the classical rules of composition” by
rearranging and morphing pure forms “to produce ‘impure’” and “skewed, geometric compositions.”
While these designs appear revolutionary, Wigley points out that they were never truly realized.
The Constructivist buildings that were built ended up losing a lot of the revolutionary
characteristics and distinctive geometry that defined their original design sketches. They ended
up looking more like typical, uniform geometric modern buildings with little to no dynamism.
Wigley characterizes Deconstructivism as essentially picking up after where the Russian
Constructivists left off. However, he seems to completely ignore the philosophical and political
dimensions of Constructivism. It’s as if the only relevant aspects of Constructivism are the
intricate, woven, conflicting, and structurally disintegrated geometry. Political radicalism,
communist ideology, and industrial materialism didn’t seem to matter. Okay,
it’s probably because the architects featured in his show were not communists.
But can you really associate someone with Constructivism when you’ve stripped away
most of the important inspirations and principles that defined the movement?
Also, if Deconstructivists followed Constructivists, then where did the
“de” come from? Well, it looks like Johnson and Wigley were doing a play on words – by making
a portmanteau of two different philosophical movements: Constructivism, and “Deconstruction.”
Deconstruction (also sometimes known as Post-Structuralism)is a literary and
philosophical analytical theory that's mainly derived from the works of French philosopher
Jacques Derrida. Derrida questioned fundamental distinctions, opposing binaries, and hierarchy
systems in traditional Western philosophy, language, and literature. He identified problems
like how the meanings of a work can be unstable, and how there’s not always a direct relationship
between signifiers and the signified. His theories were important because they opened doors for more
complex and multi-faceted considerations to problems, as well as skepticism towards
certain traditional “black and white” thinking. But what does this have to do with architecture?
THAT was Derrida’s question too! When he first met Architect Bernard Tschumi,
the person who’s often credited as designing the first “Deconstructivist” architectural work,
Derrida asked "Why would you architects be interested in deconstruction, when deconstruction
is antiform, antistructure, antihierarchy?” Tschumi responded: "Precisely for that reason.”
Tschumi wasn’t totally nuts. Arguably, there are aspects of architecture that
can be examined by Deconstruction theory – binary systems and hierarchical systems are
prevalent through architecture, especially Western architecture. Classical orders,
the hierarchy of geometric forms, binary relationships like masculine/feminine,
uniform/organic, order/disorder, form/function, rationality/expression, symmetry/asymmetry,
modern/traditional, built/unbuilt, etc. Additionally, according to architecture professor
and Derridean scholar Catherine Ingraham, there are many contemporary critical questions facing
architecture that have to do with formalist repression, historical reformulation, nostalgia,
architectural meaning, intentionality, and so on that can be explored through
Deconstruction/Post-Structural analyses. Except Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley’s MoMA show
didn’t do any of that. Instead, according to Ingraham, they presented a trivialized,
superficial, and confused conflation of Deconstruction theory with a very loose
association to Russian Constructivism that seems to wander aimlessly in narrative and direction.
Another glaring problem with this show was that other than “diagonal lines.” There are
not that many principles tying the works of all seven architects together. Some,
like Eisenman and Tschumi, do directly attribute Deconstruction as an influence,
while others like Zaha Hadid might have been inspired by Constructivism. The rest don’t have
much to do with either of those movements, and there’s no evidence any of them are influenced
by a combination of Deconstruction and Constructivism. Yes, these words sound
similar - but it doesn’t automatically make them related. It’s not ok to conflate them or mash them
together into a singular ideology just because they both have the word “construct” in them.
Gehry and Koolhaas were probably only included to lend legitimacy to this show because,
at the time, they were established architects with a recognizable body of work. But their connection
to Deconstruction and Constructivism was quite dubious. Neither of them claims to be influenced
by Deconstruction or Derrida, Gehry’s buildings do share some similarities with some Constructivist
designs but only in a purely aesthetic sense. And Koolhaas has stated that he opposes fragmentation.
Some architectural theorists would classify him as more of a Modernist Revivalist which
would make him the opposite of what Johnson and Wigley claim Deconstructivism to be.
Zaha Hadid is the only architect whose work appears to have been directly
influenced by Constructivist. The MoMA exhibition featured her proposal for the
Peak – a club situated in Hong Kong’s hills. It’s filled with disorienting
angles and vertigo-inducing viewpoints that recall Constructivist forms. Additionally,
Hadid expressed her designs through painting, which she did in stylistic
ways very similar to Constructivist artists like Tatlin, and Rodchenko. However, again,
Hadid did not share the same philosophical and political values as Russian Constructivists.
You may ask – why do you care about philosophical and political values?
Why can’t architectural styles just be about aesthetics? Because architectural style is
meaningless when you divorce it from its context. Why do historians study styles?
Because styles reflect and are influenced by history, economics, politics, technology,
art, music, literature, fashion, and almost everything else in society.
Anyway, that was a tangent. Back to the Architects. But before we do that, I want to take
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Now let’s get back to deconstructing Deconstructivists.
What about the two people who were inspired by Deconstruction? Peter Eisenman was friends
with Jacques Derrida. Derrida’s writings also inspired his interest in separating
structure from meaning. His designs are often non-sensical and non-functional because he was
more interested in removing the “traditional sense of logic or symbolism” while introducing
the “pure manifestation of an idea” without limitations of physics. The Eisenman project
featured in the MoMA exhibition was the Biocenter for the University of Frankfurt. And the idea he
wanted to express was the binary pairs system within DNA code. The ironic thing is, Eisenman
would be the first to admit his designs are best represented as theoretical concepts on paper or in
cardboard models. In a 2007 interview, he said “I would never live in anything I design.” So,
why is he even included in Mark Wigley’s “radical” show of “buildable” architecture?
What about Bernard Tschumi, the architect so often cited as the first Deconstructvist with his iconic
design for Parc de la Villette? Well, he doesn’t think this “movement” has any legs to stand on
either. Tschumi claimed the “Deconstructvist Architecture” show presented his and his
fellow architects’ works “out of context and showed a lack of understanding to their ideas.”
So why was this show, held by such a prestigious institution like MoMA, so poorly put
together – where they lumped a group of architects with vastly different ideologies together,
referenced historic styles in misguided ways, presented philosophical concepts in dangerously
naive terms, and contradicted themselves at nearly every turn? Well, because it’s not the first time
they simplified and misconstrued a movement. It also seemed like they hired Philip Johnson for
name recognition only but he barely did any actual curation. Some believed the person in charge of
this exhibition was actually Peter Eisenman. This is probably why the exhibition catalog
seemed so incoherent – the people who wrote it didn’t even understand what they were curating.
You might ask, so why is Deconstructvism seen as a legitimate movement? Why is it taught in
architectural schools? I have a theory. Well it’s not really my theory, it’s a theory I
adapted from the writings of an architect known as Mr. Manners, who I will now paraphrase. It’s
because people got distracted by the pretty pictures. Deconstructivism looks “edgy” and a
lot of people think edgy is cool, but mostly in an “I’m 14 and this is deep” kind of way.
So do you think Deconstructivism is a real architectural style? Do you like
Deconstructivism? Whatever it is. Why or why not? Let me know in the comments below.
Thanks for watching everyone! If you want to hear me talk more about art and architecture,
I encourage you to check out my podcast Pictorial. And if you enjoyed this video, feel free to drop
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