On The Cultural And Social Background Of Post-modernism Architecture

Architectural activities of human beings are always closely related to the development level of a certain society, economy, politics and culture. The formation and development of an architecture style definitely has its deep social and historical origin. So does the post-modernism, which responds to certain social economic level and cultural development.Post-modernism appeared in the prosperous stage when the western economy developed at a drastic speed. Nevertheless, the growth of economy and abundant materials didn't bring people the sense of happiness they sought for. People were driven out of the poetic inhabitance by the luxury of consumption society, the discrepancy between the rich and the poor, the destruction of natural environment and cruel war. In utmost pains, emptiness and loneliness, people turned to irrationalism and nihilism, objecting to alienation, metaphysics and ration, they preferred sensation to analysis, plurality to monism, definition to redefinition, and games of common culture to essential culture reflecting and complaining against the abnormal society. Architects of post-modernism catch acutely the changes of such social cultural mentality. After a cautious and clean observation of modernism-architecture, they "rewrite " them. By means of irony and of crack joke, they achieved the theories of their own through historical segments anddaily life for casual pasting while resisting metaphysic, power language and structural bondage, they strived to form their plural and compromise thought, while claiming "the liberation of desire ", "the objection to ration ", "decentre", and pursuing "disarchitecture", they tried to make the visitors know that they had the understanding of higher level they disagreed with the aloofness of modernism architecture which neglected history and context and surpassed everything. Meanwhile they cared for human belongingness trying to create meaningful form through means such as metaphor. Post-modernism architecture deplored the cultural connotation modern architecture doesn't cover and brought architecture into a new stage, reforming and surpassing the forms styles and expression approaches to modernism architecture.