Word: vernacular
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...culture for their own purposes. Not all of them, needless to say, did. You won't find the visual argot of advertising, news photography, graffiti or comic strips in the work of the great Apollonians of the past hundred years, from Monet and Matisse to Richard Diebenkorn. But this vernacular, Gopnik and Varnedoe rightly argue, is essential to a grasp of Cubism, Dada, Russian Constructivism, Surrealism and their European offshoots, along with a great deal of American art produced after...
...sure, the text has been nudged into modernity in the new translation and adaptation by Adrian Mitchell. His version took London by storm last season, winning an Olivier Award, and makes its U.S. debut at California's Berkeley Repertory Theater. The language is vernacular, sometimes vulgar, and even titled characters are stripped of grandeur and persiflage. The multiracial casting reflects contemporary America more than feudal Spain. Stylistically, the 20th century influence of Bertolt Brecht is evident throughout in the Marxist class analysis, didactic political sloganeering and use of song and dance to preach...
...there the similarities end, for Rossi is serious and original, deeply persuaded of his vision and never calculatingly fashionable. His work recalls the local vernacular (the silos, campaniles and old-fashioned factories of his native land) and the international architectural pantheon (Andrea Palladio, Etienne-Louis Boullee, Adolf Loos). Seamlessly, he combines the down-to-earth austerity of the former with the self-conscious erudition of the latter...
Much of the attention to what critics call the "vernacular architecture" of the postwar era comes from baby boomers nostalgically intent on preserving the roadside attractions of their youth. Groups in six states are seriously studying some of the teepee-shape motels and iceberg-shape gas stations that still dot U.S. Route 66, once the main route from Chicago to Los Angeles. "These places are a part of our history," says Richard Gutman, author of American Diner. "They are being swept away at a pace that is astonishing...
...debate over the historic worth of these roadside wonders is sure to continue. Landscape theorist J.B. Jackson thinks saving car washes and doughnut stores is absurd. Says he: "There's a fake folksiness at work." Although Liebs somewhat agrees, he feels it is necessary to study vernacular architecture. "This century," he says, "is also highways and strips and suburbs." As Chuck Berry told the doo-wop generation, Roll over, Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news...