Green Guide of Global Awareness
in Postmodern Architecture
Amy Dempsey once described Postmodernist architecture as
“willfully individual in terms of style” but adventurous in spirit (Dempsey
269). The last quarter of the 20
th century has indeed marked the
rise of a new era in the history of architectural design that in many ways has
become an adventure of metamorphosis. Long gone were the days of precisely
carved moldings of Renaissance ornaments, the heroic elegance of tall
Neo-Classical columns and industrial minimalism of Modernism. Postmodernism,
however, was not a revolution, brushing aside the styles and preferences of the
times past, but an evolution, a synthesis of all the technological advances and
creative artistic innovations that have fueled the pace of art history and
moved it forwards. The California Academy of Sciences by Renzo Piano is an
exemplary archetype of the adaptation of styles, science and social awareness
programs that characterizes Postmodernist construction in progressive time of
global integration.
Reopened
in 2008, after three years of ground-up construction, the California Academy of
Sciences is a sight to behold. Starting from its façade, the building surprises
with the selection of materials. The steel frame of the grand entrance that
flows in the air like a weightless cube supports what seems like a complete
transparency of glass (Figure 1). The row of 36-feet-high steel columns holds
the canopy roof that looks air thin. But what intrigues, is the backdrop of
concrete forming the rest of the building, giving it reinforcement while
continuing its elongated rectangular shape. Two stylistically different walls,
containing no windows and lining the two exhibition halls, hug the glass
curtain walls of the entrance. The wall on the right is a simple
poured-concrete wall while the wall on the left is the Academy’s original
Neo-Classical limestone wall that has survived the earthquake of 1989.
According to Amy Dempsey, “Postmodernism is both a rejection of modernism and a
continuation of it” characterized by “diversity of materials, styles,
structures and environments” (Dempsey 269). Even prior to entering the museum,
visitors can see the Postmodernist characteristics of the California Academy of
Sciences building: while the minimalist glass entrance of the building and
simple factory-like concrete walls radiate Modernism, the overall symmetry of
the buildings with its steel colonnades and the carved limestone vault are
references to Neo-Classicism. The limestone walls bearing reliefs of Doric
columns as well as a restored African Hall, full of original dioramas and
ornamented vaulted ceilings, are a reminder of Neo-Classical style of the old
Academy brought into symbiosis with the flat roof and linear forms of the new
Modernist building. The lobby entrance is reminiscent of Mies van der Rohe
creations with their Miesian formula of “exposed metal-framed glass box based
on a grid” (Dempsey 144). The California Academy of Sciences is an example of
Postmodernism at its best, a fusion of two seemingly contradictory styles that
nevertheless work together in harmony, uniting function with aesthetics, the
technological advances of the new and the elegance and beauty of the old.
Figure 1
As
the visitors pour inside the glass lobby, they notice the multitude of recycled
steel bars
pushing the roof upwards into the sky, erasing the separation of the
horizon outside from the exhibition spaces inside. The entire space of the
lobby seems to breathe with the see-through glass walls opening up into the
lush scenery of the Golden Gate Park. The rows of narrow windows line the top of
the building letting the warm air escape making it a temperature-balanced
environment. The focus on the unity with nature is emphasized and present
throughout the museum. Even though the two 90-ft tall spheres of planetarium
and rainforest are heavy-set and space-cutting structures, their positioning
within the museum works to their stylistic and functional advantage (Figures
2&3). The planetarium sits on the pool of coral reef, with skate fish and
baby sharks lurking in the waters, while the spiraling ramp takes visitors from
the base to the top of the rainforest’s microclimates. The incorporation of the
park landscapes, animals and climate variations, however, are not the only
scientific explorations the young and adults are exposed to in the California Academy
of Sciences. Since 1853, the Academy’s motto is “to explore, explain and
protect the natural world,”
and with this mission the museum has become the center for interactive
educational programs with over 20 daily events per day, from penguin feedings
to specimen spotlights. There is a working laboratory with see-through walls
within the building premises where passing visitors can observe the scientists
busy at work, collecting samples or analyzing the chosen specimen under the
microscope. Under the roof of the Academy, the visitor no longer only wishes
for the Modernist integration of science and technology into architecture, he
lives this dream in a feasible way by walking the floors and observing
scientific discoveries as they are being made.
Figure 2
Figure 3
In
their book, Learning from Las Vegas, Robert Venturi and his colleagues argue that Postmodernism
has come to existence at the time when “complex programs and settings require
complex combinations of media beyond the purer architectural triad of structure,
form and light at the service of space” suggesting “the architecture of bold
communication rather than one of subtle expression” (Venturi, Brown, Izenour
9). Social interaction in search of answers to global issues becomes the
central theme of both Postmodernist thinking and the particular example of the
California Academy of Sciences. The effort at social awareness is seen
throughout the building, from its construction choices to the free “Green
Guide” pamphlets available to visitors explaining sustainability in easy to
understand terms (Figure 4). The California Academy of Sciences is a
masterpiece of environmental sustainability. As multiple educational boards
within the museum explain, ninety percent of demolition materials used in
constructing the building were recycled and used for new projects within the
museum. Aquarium salt water comes from Pacific Ocean and water tubing is
embedded in the concrete floor to heat and cool the entire building while
conserving energy. About ten percent of the energy itself comes from solar
panels installed on the roof of the building. Recycled concrete is mixed with
fifty percent industrial by-products, such as blast furnace slag and coal fly
ash, cutting the cost of materials as well as their waste. Recycled jean scraps
are used for heat insulation promoting repurposing of the used materials for
various construction goals. The social awareness unfolds not only via multiple
media of written materials and the Academy’s educational programs and films but
is also felt through the walls and floors of the museum itself, marking
complete Postmodernist synthesis of communication with architectural form and
space.
Figure 4
When
one analyzes the California Academy of Sciences it is hard to remove oneself
from the Modernist notion of architecture as pure “application of mathematical
and physical laws” described by Ventury, Brown and Izenour (Venturi, Brown,
Izenour 133). Indeed, the Academy seems like a passionate scientist’s greatest
object of desire with everything made of science and for science alone,
incorporating the laws of nature and the rules of reason. Science, popularly
believed to be a rather strict and orderly system of knowledge, one might think
would leave very little place for the creative symbolism of the artistic nature.
Yet the California Academy of Sciences surprises again. Maya Lin’s sculpture, Where
the Land Meets the Sea,
gently embracing the roof of the West Terrace, is a vision of an artist who
incorporates symbolism based on technology to show how intertwined everything
is in the natural world (Figure 5). The form of the sculpture is based on
topography of San Francisco Bay near Angel Island and Golden Gate Bridge. The
data for this topography mapping is based on the U.S Geological survey on a
scale of 1:700 with a claimed vertical exaggeration of 5 times above sea level
and 10 times below. The adjacent columns are marked to indicate sea level at 18
feet above the café terrace. The sculpture follows the weightless feeling of
the building’s open plan and flat glass roof, forming a perpendicular body to
it that highlights its measurement scale while surrounding landscape becomes a
natural backdrop and grounds for pondering its deeper meaning.
Figure 5
The
façade, roofline, interior structure and symbolic sculptures of the museum
reinforce its Postmodernist character, highlighting multiple stylistic
adaptations and integration of form and function into the great realm of public
communication and environmental education. However, when one speaks of the
California Academy of Sciences, the significance of its roof becomes imminent
in understanding the project as a wholesome vision of the modern age. In his
building workshop, Renzo Piano points out the metaphor for the entire project:
“I saw it as topography. The idea was to cut a piece of the park, push it up 35
feet – to the height of the old buildings – and then put whatever was needed
underneath.”
The rooftop,
indeed, looks like the Golden Gate Park surrounding the museum has never
stopped, confronted by the rising edifice of the Academy, but simply rolled
over it, like a gentle wave, leaving its lavish greenery behind.
The mounds of earth, hollow inside, overlap the spheres
contained within, creating waves that could be a visual symbolism for the hilly
terrain of San Francisco area. The roof is a living laboratory observing many
plants and animals inhabiting it. Photovoltaic cells, installed on the edges of
the roof convert sunlight to electricity as skylight windows open and close
automatically to accommodate the temperature shifts within the interior of the
museum (Figures 6&7). Karen E. Steen meticulously describes the
environmental impact of the green roof in her Green Architecture’s Grand
Experiment article:
The planted roof is not just a
wildlife corridor; it also insulates the building, reducing energy consumption,
and absorbs 98 percent of storm-water runoff. Meanwhile, Piano’s ‘waves’ mean
that most of the building doesn’t need air-conditioning: cool air from outside
flows down the hills and into the building’s central piazza, while hot air on
the exhibit floor rises, hugging the planetarium and rain forest, and is
released through automated skylights in the hills.
The roof, thus, becomes both a functional structural
necessity, prompted by environmental awareness, and the symbol of unity with
nature surrounding it. It becomes a living and breathing organism that
regulates and safeguards natural resources while using them to survive as well.
It is a symbol of total symbiosis of give and take with nature that speaks to the
visitors of the California Academy of Sciences by its own example and creates
awareness for the pressing issues of sustainability at the time of alarming
shortages of natural resources in the global community. The California Academy
of Sciences aims to awaken its visitors and express the experience of living at
the time of change and facing it with confidence of a gentle natural scientist,
observing yet avoiding disturbance to the environment of its target specimens.
Figure 6
Figure 7
It
is important to note that California Academy of Sciences falls under the
category of the late Postmodernist work that strongly contrasts with the tacky
color mishmash and stylistic extravaganza of its Las Vegas counterparts of the
late 1960’s vividly described by Venturi, Brown and Izenour. Instead of drawing
attention to its function and relevance by the garish flamboyancy of signs and
symbols, the Academy concentrates on the merging of energy and resource-saving
scientific advances, spatial efficiency and environmental awareness. It creates
favorable educational environment that is interactive and promotes a two-way
communication of scientific dialogue between the audience and resources instead
of its one-way alternative of signage dominance. It is still eclecticism that
defines Postmodernism, but that of the most advantageous concepts and
innovative ideas put to use in the place that combines public educational
program and aesthetically harmonious unity with nature. Venturi claims that
people are never truly free from the past and illustrates his point by quoting
Alan Colquhoun: “we are not free from the forms of the past, and from the
availability of these forms as typological models, but that, if we assume we
are free, we have lost control over a very active sector of our imagination and
our power to communicate with others.”
So let us not forget and sacrifice imagination but, instead, put in to good use
in promoting global integration of communicational “structure”, educational
“form” and finally shine that “light” on the global issues, creating awareness
while promoting esthetical principles of architecture and art.
Bibliography:
Dempsey, Amy. Postmodernism. Styles, Schools & Movements. London: Thames & Hudson
Ltd, 2010
Venturi, Robert; Brown, Denise Scott; Izenour, Steven. Learning
from Las Vegas. The MIT Press, 1977
Colquhoun, Alan. Typology and Design Method. Arena, Journal of the Architectural Association. June 1967. pp. 11-14 Quoted in Venturi, Robert;
Brown, Denise Scott; Izenour, Steven. Learning from Las Vegas. p. 131
