Supermoderism by Hans Ibelings - an analysis http://socratesarchitects.com

1. Nicholas Socrates 2008
Analysis: Architecture - In The Age of Globalization, by Hans Ibelings
Biography
Hans Ibelings is a Dutch art historian and independent architecture critic, exhibition
maker and writer of numerous works including:
Supermodernism: Architecture in the Age of Globalization (1998 / 2003)
Twentieth Century Architecture in the Netherlands
Amercians: Dutch architecture in the Netherlands
Twentieth Century Urban Planning in the Netherlands
The Artificial Landscape: Contemporary Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape
Architecture in the Netherlands
Un-modern Architecture: Contemporary Traditionalism in the Netherlands.
He was a professor at the Polytechnic school of Eindhoven (2003 – 2004), and a member
of the scientific committee of the ‘Ciudaded, Esquinas’ exhibition in Barcelona.
Hans Ibelings , is also the editor of the international architecture magazine ‘A10 New
European Architecture (since 2004).
Postmodernism
Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement’.
The movement of modernism and the following reaction of postmodernism are defined
by a set of perspectives. It is used in critical theory to refer to a point of departure for
works of literature, drama, architecture, cinema and design, as well as in marketing and
business and the interpretation of history, law and culture in the late 20th century.
Postmodernism is an aesthetic, literary, political or social philosophy, which was the
basis of the attempt to describe a condition, or a state of being, or something concerned
with changes to institutions and conditions.
The major influence in this architectural theory was the difference between the degree of
the construction: its theory in relation to its practice - it is easy to agree with the theory of
postmodernism (its idea), but when its actual building is built, some people critize it for
being un-human, with no charcter…techno-cratic.
Postmodernism in Architecture is any of various movements in reaction to modernism
that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms, which is
marked by the re-emergence of surface ornament, reference to surrounding buildings in
urban architecture, historical reference in decorative forms, and non-orthogonal angles. It

2. may be a response to the modernist architectural movement known as the International
Style
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More
specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated
cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to
Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The term encompasses
the activities and output of those who felt the "traditional" forms of art, architecture,
literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated in the
new economic, social and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world.
often led to experiments with form, and work that draws attention to the processes and
materials used (and to the further tendency of abstraction).
To, "Make it new!". However, the break from the past was not a clean break.
Modernism: It is in its broadest cultural sense the assessment of the past as different to
the modern age, the recognition that the world was becoming more complex, and that the
old "final authorities" (God, government, science, and reason) were subject to intense
critical scrutiny.
Modernity affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their
environment, with the aid of practical experimentation, scientific knowledge and/ or
technology.
This movement encompassed the notion that architectural solutions can be international,
such as: ‘The Matching House’ idea – that each space in each house has a special
function which optimize its space. The critezen was strong. Some parts of this idea are
very important, like the significance of the international architect, but in general this idea
was very distant to the people, this is globalization too: one international architecture.
In my opinion this is not nesseccary, and it is more important to have particular
archictectures for each country, relating to their context: their history, culture, economy
and enviroment.
Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce
to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was 'holding back' progress, and
replacing it with new ways of reaching the same end.
These diverse aesthetic expressions are also a reflection of individual architects and
industrial designers’ personal expression, based on designers’ tendency to experiment
with form, materials, and ornament to create new aesthetic styles and aesthetic
vocabulary

3. Three different principles are identified: the expression of volume rather than mass,
balance rather than preconceived symmetry and the expulsion of the applied ornament.
By the 1920s the most important figures in modernist architecture had established their
reputations. The big three names are commonly recognized as Le Corbusier in France,
and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius in Germany. The common
characteristics of this Modernism/ International style include: a radical simplification of
form, a rejection of ornament, and adoption of glass, steel and concrete as preferred
materials. Further, the transparency of buildings, construction (called the honest
expression of structure), and acceptance of industrialized mass-production techniques
contributed to the international style's design philosophy. Finally, the machine aesthetic,
and logical design decisions leading to support building function were used by the
International architect to create buildings reaching beyond historicism.
Deconstructivism
The philosopher, Jacques Derrida is the father of the idea known as ‘deconstructivism’.
This thought was applied to architecture, and in 1988 MoMA (the Museum of Modern
Art in New York held the Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition, organized by Philip
Johnson and Mark Wigley) promoting this new movement as very important and
significant, which propelled this school of architecture into the mainstream contemporary
design circuit.
Deconstructivism in architecture, also called deconstruction, is a development of
postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of
fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-
rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of
architecture, such as structure and envelope. The finished visual appearance of buildings
that exhibit the many deconstructivist "styles" is characterised by a stimulating
unpredictability and a controlled chaos.
Supermodernism
Today globalization plays an important role in public opinion.
It is precisely because so many phenomena are associated with globalization that its
capacity to explain specific conditions is so limited and tricky to English.
After postmodernism and its deconstructivist off-shoot , a new architecture now seems to
be emerging, an architecture for which such postmodernist notions as place, context, and
identity have largely lost their meaning.
A new trend towards abstract, neutral architecture, which in various respects can be seen
as the last word of modern architecture of the postwar International Style.

4. My personal opinion is that when philosophical movements and schools of thought are
applied to architectural design it is fundamentally absurd and ridiculous. Architecture
should be architecture: no explanations about poetry and philosophy needed –
architecture is architecture.
Its relationship with the people, the environment and the economy are the practical issues
which are important, and should take precedence.
Globalization
Today we lived fascinated by the image of the great city;
its technological glorification.
Fascination of architecture, is a modern passion.
In the modern world local & global tensions infuse all places.
Globalization is taking place in virtually every field - exerting all kinds of direct and
indirect influences on contemporary thinking.
Globalisation is very complex;
Not just the expansion of Western capital and its simultaneous spread of products, culture
and style, but Free trade, instant communication & pre-9/11 open travel;
The growth of cross-cultural contacts; stores of new categories of consciousness and
identities embodying cultural diffusions.
Seeking to increase one's standard of living and enjoy foreign products and ideas,
adopting new technology and practices, participating in a "world culture".
The cosmopolitan, with an enthusiasm for urban expansion,
seeks spectacles of experience that lure an on the move elite (and the labour to serve
them) from one world-city to the next.
Globalization in its literal sense is the process of making, transformation of some things
or phenomena into global ones.
As a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and
function together. This process is a combination of economic, technological, socio-
cultural and political forces.
Globalization is often used to refer to economic globalization, that is, integration of
national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct
investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technology.
Thomas L. Friedman "examines the impact of the 'flattening' of the globe", and argues
that globalized trade, outsourcing, supply-chaining, and political forces have changed the
world permanently, for both better and worse. He also argues that the pace of
globalization is quickening and will continue to have a growing impact on business
organization and practice.

5. Herman E. Daly argues that sometimes the terms internationalization and globalization
are used interchangeably but there is a slight formal difference. The term
"internationalization" refers to the importance of international trade, relations, treaties etc.
International means between or among nations. "Globalization" means the removal of
national boundaries for economic purposes; international trade becomes inter-regional
trade.
Supermodernism is post-postmodernism, a high tech-inspired aesthetic movement that
reacts against the heavy-handed, '80s-era promotion and deconstruction.
Auge, in 1995, portrays the increasingly fleeting and fragmented nature of
'supermodernity' as a disappearance of place, suggesting that non-places are the real
measure of our time.
These include spaces of transit and temporal occupation as well as the informational
spaces of telepresence; increased mobility and telecommunications and the rise of new
media being ascribed to globalisation, are altering our experience of time and space.
the virtual space through telephone, television and computer have transformed the
experience of place. The layerings of virtual and 'real' are not seamless.
International interrelatedness and the emergence of cyberspace have changed our
perception of cities. With increasing mobility space is being reduced to a transit zone, in-
between spaces.
Auge's non-places are identified as the placelessness of the modern urban landscape.
The experience of the meaningless of the built environment is mainly related to the
difference between place and space
While such sites and their placeless experiences proliferate, they surely cannot be defined
as outside social relations, history or identity.
Augé’s remarkable observation was that, in the contemporary world, place is giving way
to “non-place.”
Places are made up out of social interactions between people, accumulating in memory to
form historical meaning.
Contemporary life, however, is a relentless procession through spaces of transit. Airport
lounges and freeways, high speed trains are non-places, but so are less obvious spaces:
street corner ATMs, the tube, computer workstations, and supermarkets in these spaces
the global meets the local in travel and transit.
In these spaces shared experiences between humans rarely develop.
Non-places, Augé concluded, remain empty, meaningless environments that we pass
through during our solitary lives.
Airports, themed amusement parks, planned communities and shopping centres are
utterly cut off from their surroundings.

6. Hans Ibelings accepts the spatial foreclosure of these new developments. He simply
wishes they were better, and by better, he means less preoccupied with representation and
symbolism.
The non-attachment phenomenon is regarded as one of three forms of abundance
characterising the supermodern condition;
abundance of space, of signs, and of individualisation.
The latter affects the use of public and semi-public space.
Therefore non places are those places to which nobody feels any special attachment, and
which are particularly common in the sphere of mobility and consumption.
Public spaces have changed from a meeting place into a highly regulated domain with
surveillance, rather than social control mechanisms, but by a third party.
For Ibelings, this is simply a fact of globalization.
“The ideal of boundless and undefined space is predominating an age of information and
technology, a kind of supermodernity” - (Ibelings 1998).
These non-places, are typical expression of ‘In the age of globalisation’, and with the
collapse of time and space, everything can happen anywhere and everywhere, thus
undermining the postmodern dogma that architecture must have a unique, authentic
relationship with its context, of identity and meaning.
Hans Ibelings has cited an example for the future of the city in the Western World; as an
endlessly urbanised area with no coherent form, no hierarchical structure, no centre and
no unity;
Hans Ibelings, writes that modern architecture has lost all contact with context; ‘an
architecture in which superficiality and neutrality have acquired a special significance’.
Metropolis cities, such as Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai & Generic city, have
architecture characterised by an absence of distinguishing marks, by neutrality,
particularly in relation to its context.
"Here we are in Robert Venturi's [post]modern city, not just Las Vegas but any
[post]modern city, a media-scape of office buildings and stores transformed by their
corporate identities into the new language of consciousness: the sign moulded in glass
and light, splashed over with the insignia or characters of logos . . . Buildings are no
longer mass and weight, stone and iron, but an array of sentences spelling out the
consciousness of a city, what a city means when we enter it and use its services, consume
its goods. The city's language of buildings and streets of glass and light, is a declaration
of ideals . . . which the city achieves by transforming things into words, objects into
signs, the dark of nature into neon abstraction and codes. . . the media-scape devours the
literal materiality around it." (Christensen 1993, p.9-10)

7. Supermodernism adopts the philosophy of computer product design. Structures appear
portable and therefore disconnected from their surroundings. As with computers, all the
detail is on the inside, while exteriors are neutral and unassuming.
‘Today's minimalism, incidentally, is purer than ever before, thanks to improvements in
technology and materials.’ Hans Ibelings
Globalized commercial architecture has developed a symbiotic relationship with a new
breed of global star architects.
As cities, more than nations, now compete to attract global investment and global
tourism, they seek brand differentiation and symbolic modernity.
The commissioning of public buildings by star architects is now an established marketing
technique.
The buildings must be extra-ordinary and designed by one of a small band of
international global architects.
A new architecture is emerging; large-scale and stylistic forms of building; monumental-
conceptual architecture – signature buildings, many of them gestural, on a vast
architectural scale.
This rise of a “Supermodernist” architecture is epitomized by the work of star architects
such as;
Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, Santiago
Calatrava and Renzo Piano.
These architects deployed sensation through a play of surface and materials to sway the
viewer.
There is a personalized autobiographical dimension in the work of star architects,
reinforced by the media.
Ibelings even compares architects to rock stars:
The personal status of these architects is now so great and the demand for their presence
is so high - from students, the lecture circuit and competitions as well as the cities
themselves.
Their work is strongly conceptual and cannot rely on any detailed study of fine grain or
culture of the locality.
Star architects are continually ‘on tour’: for competitions, juries, teaching posts, master-
classes, interviews, conferences and lectures and the odd construction meeting.
Just like pop stars, these star architects have all developed a clear media strategy.
They have become increasingly preoccupied with merchandising.
The competitive marketing of these buildings by cities has set up an upward demand
spiral.
Out of the work of the star architects, design types and styles emerge and become
identified with successful cities, even before they are built.

8. As star architects are, by definition, limited in number, demand for symbolic and
extraordinary buildings far outstrips the capacity of the star group to provide their own
designs.
The conceptual nature of these star products allows global commercial firms (often, the
executive architects for the star architects) to clone the trademark design characteristics
of the star product.
The reproduction of the spiral or twisted forms, globular glass, planar intersection and so
on, is facilitated by the use of the same sophisticated computer graphics employed by the
offices of the star architects to develop and present their concepts.
This trickle-down effect and the high status of star architects within the architectural
profession has influenced architecture more generally than the global origins of the star
product.
This new architecture has been coined 'Supermodern' by the Dutch critic Hans Ibelings;
'For this architecture the surroundings constitute neither legitimation nor inspiration for
these are derived from what goes on inside the building, from the programme. This
autonomy is in many cases reinforced by the fact that the building has an inscrutable
exterior that betrays nothing of what happens inside ... In many instances these buildings
look as if they might house just about anything: an office or a school, a bank or a research
centre, a hotel or apartments, a shopping mall or an airport terminal.
Architecture and its rated star system have ascended, over the more traditional visual arts,
as hallmarks of global capitalism.
Architecture and design have attained a privileged status in contemporary culture.
Supermodernism was, Ibelings insisted, expressionless and neutral, generally taking
orthogonal form (the Box), but quite possibly also resembling sculptural objects (the
Blob).
'Organic' architecture represents the dislocation of 'nature' into a hyper-real transcendence
of pure technology.
'Nature' now becomes 'contemporary'.
The nature and organic design value is based on the idea that nature (all sorts of living
organisms, numerical laws, sacred geometry, etc) can provide inspiration, functional
clues and aesthetic forms that architects and industrial designers should use as a basis for
designs.
'Bilbaoism', in its pursuit of the artificial representation of the 'organic' as something that
is identifiable - and desirable –
as pure surface representation.
It is the architectural equivalent to Genetic Modification.
The city of Bilbao has Frank Gehry's Guggenheim, the definitive iconic building. This
building has restored the fabric of Bilbaos historic centre.
'Bilbaoism' give forces to (the contemporary) world of replicated versions of techno-
organics;

9. Nature gets remade by technology into the representation of the essentialist forms of
'nature'
Organic designs tend to be characterised by free-flowing curves, asymmetrical lines and
expressive forms.
The high technological development in glass and steel and other material over the last ten
years is an important factor for this surge of modern architecture.
Integrating the latest construction technology in architecture has become an accepted
trend, underlying a truly modernist belief in progress and reason.
These latest technological developments make it possible to
design and build buildings which the modernists had
envisioned and dreamed about in the early phase of
modernism, but did not have the technology to actually
build buildings which could be so sleek and almost translucent.
Mies van der Rohe’s vision of glass tower high rise buildings, conceived in the early part
of the century, for the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, which could only be realized 70 years
later. Also buildings as the ‘Bibliotheque Nationale’ in Paris by Dominique Perrault, the
‘Fondation Cartier’ by Jean Nouvel or the Louvre pyramid by the Amercian architect Pei
– are a few examples.
Only at this point in history modernism in its pure form and
dissolution of materiality can be fully realized.
Hans Ibelings labels these contemporary works of minimal form, minimal material, and
minimal character as “Supermodern.”
He describes their disabling abstractions and transparencies in profound & critical terms:
“Today’s [architectural] minimalism, incidentally, is purer than ever before, thanks to
improvements in technology and materials. This purity is found both in the extraordinary
aesthetic architecture of the likes of Tadao Ando, Wiel Arets, and John Pawson, and in
the ‘almost nothing’ of today’s average glass box, the shape of which is also more
abstract than ever before [...] This simplicity is not primarily a reaction to the aesthetic of
visual excess, although that aspect certainly plays a role. In essence, the new abstraction
is an expression of a fundamentally different attitude to architecture, which it sees less
and less as significant and filled with symbolic meaning, and more and more as a neutral
object.”
Minimalism is the design of simple forms, in aesthetics without considerable ornaments,
simple geometry, smooth surfaces etc.
Apparently the more cultivated a person becomes, the more decoration disappears.
Simple forms will free people from the everyday clutter, thus contributing to tranquillity
and restfulness.

10. The banishing of unnecessary ornament was articulated as a sign of hope, freedom and
authenticity.
Local distinctiveness is often not a desirable characteristic.
The intention is that the building should be an iconic global product.
John Chase states in contemporary architecture: ‘Icy images of monuments, strictly by
architects of global stature, float in a sea of seductively neat observations celebrating the
promise of a homogeneous worldview.’
Postmodernist buildings—and some design products— are designed in accordance with
the particular characteristics of a specific place, achieving visual harmony between a
building and its surroundings, as well as achieving continuity in a given area.
Striving to create a connection between past and present forms.
Postmodern practitioners always tried to find some way of expressing the building’s
purpose, either by following the conventions of building typology or by adding symbolic
pointers;
Preserving and creating regional and national identity
Supermodernism would argue that even if this intention is present it will not necessarily
be apparent to the users.
Hans Ibelings, focuses on ‘the undefined, the implicit, qualities that…find powerful
expression in a new spatial sensibility.”
All design involves preconceptions about the nature of the community in a broader sense,
whether they are conscious or not.
Experiential richness cannot be created by accident, or without a basic understanding of
the sensibilities of those who will be using the space.
The development of the aesthetic reality, which characterises contemporary architecture
and industrial design, by means of
individual self-expression or one’s inner spiritual self and creative imagination, inner
resources and intuition are utilized as the base used when designing.
This philosophy is closely linked to a number of artistic values found in movements like
Expressionism and the Avant-garde art movement. This design value is closely related to
abstract forms and expression, personal creative liberty, elitism and being ahead of the
rest of society.
Expressionistic form, which can be found, to some extent in the “air” of a given time and
each generation, should generate an aesthetic style that expresses the uniqueness related
to that time.
Every age has a certain spirit or set of shared attitudes that should be utilised when
designing. The Spirit of the Times denotes the intellectual and cultural climate of a
particular era, which can be linked to an experience of a certain worldview, sense of taste,
collective consciousness and other-than-conscious greater awareness.
The 20th century has been marked by the re-emergence of environmental values within
Western societies.

11. Environmental problems and challenges found in the 19th and 20th centuries led to a
development where environmental values became important in some sections of Western
societies. These values can also be found among individual architects and industrial
designers.
Environmental technology, along with new environmental values have affected
development in cities across the world. Many cities have started to formulate and
introduce; eco-regulations concerning renewable resources, energy consumption, sick
buildings, smart buildings, recycled materials, and sustainability.
50% of all energy consumption in Europe and 60% in the US is building-related.
The future of architectural will be tested in this latest and most urgent global crisis; the
survival of the ecology of the planet, such that it will continue to support our global
civilisation.
This is the supreme challenge for globalization: the cause, the effect and the resolution
are and will be global and local.
It will affect all aspects of social, political and economic life and it will have a profound
impact on architecture.