architecture
London,
Project for the commissioned by Wallpaper* editor-at-large Suzanne Trocmé London Design Festival entrance to the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition ‘Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–90’
Antonino Cardillo
Less is more. — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Less is bore. — Robert Venturi
Mies + Venturi. Modern in plan and ‘Post’ in elevation, Postmodern Cafe is a divertissement, a quest between Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Robert Venturi.
Urban baroque strategy. Two façades capture glances across the V&A’s 1970s Exhibition Road hall.
Symmetry and negation. Although symmetrical, they are perceived from diagonal points of view. The front view seems to be denied by the pathway.
Inflection. On the façades, figures converge toward the centre. Though symmetrical overall, each side is unequal.
Archetypes. Like huge frescoes, the façades recall the pre-modern bond between painting and architecture. Vinyl graffiti refigure themes of Tympanum and Arch: two contrapositive triangles in a Suprematistic broken tympanum and a stretched arc framing a shard of the Aston Webb screen behind.
Stripes. Crossing the space, there are stripes everywhere, evoking ephemeral structure on a shoreline and retroactive presages close to Gio Ponti and Postmodernism: Art is fluid. Although categorised, it escapes boundaries.
2011
London Design Festival
To complement the V&A’s keynote exhibition ‘Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–90’, the LDF invites you to the specially commissioned Postmodern Cafe, designed by architect Antonino Cardillo.
The London Design Festival 2011, London, Sept. 2011, p. 183. (en)
2011
London Design Festival 2011 exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Aston Webb, Exhibition Road Screen, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1909, demolished in 2014. Photography: Antonino Cardillo, 2011
2011