Super Postmodern Fall 2010, Princeton Thesis Robert Cha Constantly alternating from focus to blur, noise is always culturally defined.(1) Architecturally, the two-decades-long tendency to escape signification and narratives has resulted in tectonic visual noises: formal inventions aimed to be devoid of communicative potential through abstraction.(2) Giving into the repressed desire to communicate through buildings, we are witnessing a recursion to Postmodern intellectual positions: a nascent architectural movement that may be described as the Super Postmodern.(3) Contemporary culture is far more complex and contradictory than the pre-globalization era of the Postmodernists. Instead of creating singular (or at best dualistic) iconic gestures, I am interested in seeking ways to exponentially expand the narrative potential of architecture through visual noise. (4) These recent visual noises --with their capacity to alternate between focus and blur of multiple signs and communic! ative effectsâ€"is the instrument toward more nuanced and complex architectonic narratives.(5) Thereby, as a demonstration of the theory's universality, the thesis is tested with a design of Park51, aka, the "Ground Zero Mosque," in Downtown Manhattan. As a controversial project, Park51 cannot escape signification and narratives: it will be read by the public. This project is an attempt at affecting multiple appropriate narratives (focus) in architecture while subjugating the rest of the formal qualities ...
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