Aldo van Eyck’s critique against Postmodernism: between the ‘configurative discipline’ and ‘the irritant principle of renewal’

Abstract

This paper focuses on three cases: firstly, Aldo van Eyck’s position in the debate that took place in 1976 in conjunction with the exhibition “Europa-America. Architettura urbana, alternative suburbane” in the framework of the Venice Biennale; secondly, van Eyck’s message to Oswald Mathias Ungers in Spazio e Società under the title “A Message to Ungers from a Different World” (1979); thirdly, van Eyck’s Annual Discourse to the Royal Institute of British Architects entitled “Rats, posts and other pests” in 1981. In his message to Ungers, van Eyck was set against Aldo Rossi, Manfredo Tafuri, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, Leon and Rob Krier, Peter Eisenman, Charles Jencks, James Stirling and OMA and blamed Ungers for being attracted to the stances of the above-mentioned architects. The debate that accompanied the exhibition “Europa-America: Architettura urbane alternative suburbane” was symptomatic of “the growing discontent with the idea of modernism”, which had been apparent since the 50s. The interest of this instance lies on the fact that it exemplifies the conflicts between two generations. The presentation unfolds the reasons for which van Eyck’s notion of “configurative discipline”, which was at the centre of his educational and architectural vision, is not compatible with certain postmodernist views. Van Eyck, despite his interest in the polyphony of reality, believed that the coherence of a whole can only be achieved through “configurative discipline”. In “Steps Towards a Configurative Discipline” (1962), he maintained that “[a]ll systems should be familiarized one with the other in such a way that their combined impact and interaction can be appreciated as a single complex system - polyphonal, multirhythmic, kaleidoscopic and yet perpetually and everywhere comprehensible.” His attraction to coherence is the key to understand his opposition to postmodernist architecture. Van Eyck always intended to enhance the way architecture is inhabited and enriches human relationships. He believed that the postmodernist architects’ visual and narrative “tricks” threatened architecture’s humanist aspirations