Matthew Turner on postmodern architecture, and inhabiting the meme

摘要

As a young architecture student, Postmodern architecture always reminded me of the fading Italian cookbooks from the 1970s that my parents religiously coveted but never used. It recalled their oversaturated colours and recipes, presenting an idea of Mediterranean cooking that looked like it came from someone who had not bothered to make the journey to check the accuracy. I thought the same of the garish colours of postmodernism, and their reinterpretations of Italian architecture. Much later, my tutor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, Jonathan Hill, wearing his characteristic deep purple shirt, black blazer and minimal spectacles, told me one of his well-practised anecdotes taken from the strange cabinet of curiosities of his career. While working for John Outram, he reported that he had once caught a glimpse of the architect's carefully handwritten recipe book of different concrete colour mixes and finishes. Postmodernism has plenty of image and surface without depth. However, after this story I quickly realised that it also has a nourishing inner content and thoughtfulness. It may be made from recipes of discordant parts, but the end result is a fusion cuisine with an authenticity all of its own.