“Façadism” Returns, or the Advent of the “Duck-orated Shed”

Abstract

Embedded in the culture of modern architecture is the directive that a façade ought to fit tightly around its building, like a well-fitting suit. “False façades,”“façadism,” and the “screen façade” have been derisive terms used by architects and critics to describe buildings whose façades appear either too big or too small for their buildings. Postmodernism changed this, so that façades relatively independent of their interiors were encouraged. The neo-modernism of the last two decades has integrated this “disconnected” façade into the practice of what otherwise is a revival of the system of the heroic period of the movement.