Context
Architectural context defines the setting and physical focus of ideologies. Robert Venturi, in Learning from Las Vegas, describes Las Vegas as a post-modern composition due to its style and imagery that focusses on symbolism and communication, simultaneously Colin Rowe in Collage City, describes the postmodern attitude of collage city through the conglomeration of transcending utopian ideologies and fragments.
Las Vegas imposes its postmodern attitude through the physical misallocation of architectural structures. Las Vegas architecture is strictly focused on symbolism and the spatial relationship that this entities play with its physical context. Las Vegas main casinos and hotels lay along the Strip, as well as their propaganda sentiment that overpowers amongst any other physical entity. It’s their uniqueness in style that denotes their importance, and the ability of symbolism space to win over forms in space. This reinforcement of postmodernism ideas seems to correlate and reinforce the overall approach of Las Vegas which is completely focused on classical and historical architecture. “The commercial persuasion of roadside eclecticism provokes bold impact in the vast and complex setting of a new landscape of big spaces, high speeds, and complex programs.”
Collage City concurrently displays its postmodern character by appropriating multiple fragments of diverse backgrounds. “In an effort to avoid any sort of historical determinism, the architecture of collage becomes trans historical even if historically motivated, collapsing its categories into a set of repetitive variations on the themes of scaffold and exhibit.” The focus of Collage City is to appropriate its artistic misallocations both urban and historic, to enhance its architecture, as this city creates itself.
Las Vegas and Collage City are both targeted with a postmodern setting that is constantly reinforced through their independence and individuality in context.