Metamodernism Unveiled: A Contemporary Aftereffect in Architecture

Abstract

In the setting of ecology-based architectural design and post-postmodern sensibility, there's a deflection from the functional rationalism of modernism and the critical discourses of postmodernism, as we continue to create in the alleged Anthropocene era. This shift towards pragmatic societal idealism draws from diachronic oscillations and overlaps between past architectural paradigms. The study aims to research, adapt and discuss metamodernism, which has been previously studied in various disciplines, as an environmentally friendly and authentic after-effect in architecture. It employs a qualitative and exploratory research approach. The conceptual definition of metamodernism as a synthesis of dialectical perspective, is adapted to architecture using comparative content analysis. Metamodernism shares pluralism with postmodernism, but instead of fracturing it like deconstructivism, it seeks continuity as a hopeful opposition to modernism's strict normativity. The metamodern approach emphasizes atmospheric sensitivity, redefining the in-between. Using the analytical generalization technique through preliminary, preparatory and primary case studies, the basic features of metamodernism in architecture are compared on the design synthesis of form, context and program adhering to site-specific geographic and social contexts. It combines organic and artificial elements, addressing building mass, scale, and articulation while synthesizing sustainable, pluralistic programs that bridge the past and present through function, technology, and spatiotemporal organization, stimulating the atmospheric sensitivity. In an era marked by distinct sustainability and ecology concerns, designing with an atmospherically sensitive metamodernist tendency can affect the recognition and memorability of the contemporary architecture.