Sir Richard Rogers Lloyds Building Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Sir Richard Rogers Lloyds Building - Essay Example This building, started in 1979 but not completed until 1984, is a complex combination of both Modern and Postmodern ideals that manages to evade allowing either framework to dominate. A basic description of the building indicates a tall structure with the unusual feature of having its service features exposed to the exterior and utilized as a decorative element. This follows the Modernist movement in its focus on the mechanical elements of the structure while it also reflects the postmodern element of everything being in a constant state of flux. The building was originally designed to serve as the corporate headquarters of a large insurance firm and is erected in the center of London’s financial district. This context illustrates the importance of its design as a means of reflecting the higher monetary, capitalistic values of the community and thus much in line with the Modernist ideals of the era. However, the building was also required to be highly flexible to be able to ac commodate perhaps as yet unknown technologies and to adapt to often changing uses, thus reinforcing the concepts of Postmodernism. As the following investigation will prove, though, the building itself, in its focus on mechanics and materials, falls more within the realm of the Modernist movement while its means of addressing the concerns of the times and the context incorporates the values and ideas of Postmodernism. The concepts of the Modern approach focus upon the assumption that everything can be classified into specific categories and definitions. â€Å"Modernity is a project, and not only a period, and it is, or was, a project of control, the rational mastery over nature, the planning, designing and plotting which led to planomania and technocracy† (Beilharz, 2001: 6). Emerging as a product and reaction to an increasingly mechanized world in which standardization seemed inevitable; the basic