Postmodernism and Postmodernity (2011)  site area:    The reason
is the top. You have to walk a block or so away to get a sense
of it. The building, originally known after its first corporate
owner, AT&T, is crowned by a broken pediment; a circular space
has been carved out of the apex of the triangle which tops the
façade.  It’s a simple, rather beautiful gesture. It is also a
huge act of betrayal by the architect and the most visible trace
on the New York skyline of Postmodernism, a cultural current
that is the subject of Postmodernism: Style and Subversion
1970-1990, a major new exhibition at the V&A. Why betrayal? The
architect was Philip Johnson, who in 1932 had curated an
extraordinary architectural show at the Museum of Modern Art.
Images and models of buildings by Mies Van Der Rohe, Le
Corbusier, Richard Neutra and others led a generation of
architects to make an absolute break with the styles of the past
and embrace the tenets of Modernism, chief among which was the
idea that form should follow funct