Postmodern Procedures

The show at the SCI-Arc gallery in Los Angeles embed the imagery of postmodernity within a dense tangle of regulations, production specifications and technologies.

“The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures” features a series of fragments, from handrails to facade panels, salvaged from canonic buildings of the late 20th century. Typically associated with drawing and the circulation of media images, postmodern architecture is generally understood to have been largely a matter of style and surface ornament, freed from the exigencies of political and technical systems by the force of architectural autonomy.

The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures, exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017
The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures, exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017
The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures, exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017
The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures, exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017
The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures, exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017
The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures, exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017
The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures, exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017
The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures, exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017

  “The Duck and the Document” challenges this view by embedding the expected imagery of postmodernity within materials that demonstrate the dense tangle of regulations, production specifications and technologies that constrained architectural design rather than liberated it. While these “True Stories of Postmodern Procedures” describe a less heroic and autonomous architect, they also produce a more persuasive account of architectural ingenuity as it sought to survive the bureaucratization not merely of the architectural profession but of the very idea of architecture.

"The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures", exhibition view, SCI-Arc gallery, Los Angeles, 2017


until 28 May 2017
The Duck and the Document: True Stories of Postmodern Procedures
curated by Sylvia Lavin with Sarah Hearne
SCI-Arc gallery
960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles