The Bonaventure Hotel.
After reading through the article I was initially drawn to the discussion regarding the Bonaventure hotel in LA, for one because it was a direct relation to architectonics and design and secondly because I am going to LA in a few weeks, so this intrigued me to research the hotel even further.
The architect is John Portman, someone that I have never heard of before but according to the article he focuses on commercial design around the US. The reason that he particularly discusses the Bonaventure Hotel is because it is a direct play of post modernity against the ‘elite and great architectural modernists’.
“these newer buildings are popular works on one hand and that they respect the vernacular of the American city fabric on the other, that is to say they no longer attempt as the masters and monuments of high modernism to insert a different, a distinct, an elevated, a new utopian language into the tawdry and commercial sign system of the surrounding city”(172).
• So basically this form of architecture has chosen to look to our modern precedence and is then able to respect and appreciate the vernacular architecture in order to further integrate and into its surroundings
• The architect isn’t hung up on ‘reinventing the wheel’ as they say, but instead looks at indulging he wheel in order to design a sensible language which is in sync with the language of the rest of the city
• Obviously architects today are interested in designing the most amazing buildings yet, but I think the force that drives them is wanting to create something beautiful and functional that responds to the local design culture, rather than purely trying to establish a new architectonic altogether
So with that being said, Jameson makes an interesting reference to the hotel’s ‘insertion into the city fabric’. My understanding from the article is that this building is attempting at creating its own city within the city. So although the architecture itself responds to its urban surroundings, there are also aspects on the entire complex, which begins to take on an entirely new presence.
So are there in fact glimpses of a new ‘postmodern architecture’ prevailing?
-the walkways take on a ‘new category of closure governing the inner space of the hotel itself’
-this building appears to create a unified space within itself, which references back to the beginning of the article where Jameson questions whether or not unity can be created ‘in itself or in the very modernism it seeks to displace’
-so is this city within a city a new thing or is the architecture simply making reference to the large scale being the city in itself?
This poses various questions which essentially are discussed in the article such as how do people experience the space in relation to a regular building, how does the organization or space reevaluate the motion through it and what are the connections to the exterior city if in fact Portman is creating something completely separate?
After reading through the article I was initially drawn to the discussion regarding the Bonaventure hotel in LA, for one because it was a direct relation to architectonics and design and secondly because I am going to LA in a few weeks, so this intrigued me to research the hotel even further.
The architect is John Portman, someone that I have never heard of before but according to the article he focuses on commercial design around the US. The reason that he particularly discusses the Bonaventure Hotel is because it is a direct play of post modernity against the ‘elite and great architectural modernists’.
“these newer buildings are popular works on one hand and that they respect the vernacular of the American city fabric on the other, that is to say they no longer attempt as the masters and monuments of high modernism to insert a different, a distinct, an elevated, a new utopian language into the tawdry and commercial sign system of the surrounding city”(172).
• So basically this form of architecture has chosen to look to our modern precedence and is then able to respect and appreciate the vernacular architecture in order to further integrate and into its surroundings
• The architect isn’t hung up on ‘reinventing the wheel’ as they say, but instead looks at indulging he wheel in order to design a sensible language which is in sync with the language of the rest of the city
• Obviously architects today are interested in designing the most amazing buildings yet, but I think the force that drives them is wanting to create something beautiful and functional that responds to the local design culture, rather than purely trying to establish a new architectonic altogether
So with that being said, Jameson makes an interesting reference to the hotel’s ‘insertion into the city fabric’. My understanding from the article is that this building is attempting at creating its own city within the city. So although the architecture itself responds to its urban surroundings, there are also aspects on the entire complex, which begins to take on an entirely new presence.
So are there in fact glimpses of a new ‘postmodern architecture’ prevailing?
-the walkways take on a ‘new category of closure governing the inner space of the hotel itself’
-this building appears to create a unified space within itself, which references back to the beginning of the article where Jameson questions whether or not unity can be created ‘in itself or in the very modernism it seeks to displace’
-so is this city within a city a new thing or is the architecture simply making reference to the large scale being the city in itself?
This poses various questions which essentially are discussed in the article such as how do people experience the space in relation to a regular building, how does the organization or space reevaluate the motion through it and what are the connections to the exterior city if in fact Portman is creating something completely separate?
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