At the beginning of the 20th century, the representatives of modernist architecture made a comprehensive discussion on the practical function, technology, economy, art and social function of architecture, and put forward a set of views on reform and innovation. In contrast, the advocates of postmodern architecture are mainly concerned with form and art. The emergence of modernism is the product of a comprehensive and drastic revolutionary change in the history of human architecture, while postmodernism is only an evolution of modern architecture in form and artistic style. The appearance of postmodern architecture does not mean the "extinction" of modernist architecture. Now it can be considered that postmodern architecture is also a partial revision and expansion of modernist architecture in the 1920s, and it is another manifestation of the diversified development of modernist architecture. Its center is to oppose the reductionist style of Mis van der Rohe and advocate enriching the vision with decorative means. Advocating to meet psychological needs, rather than only focusing on monotonous functionalism. Postmodernism uses a lot of historical decorations in design and compromises them to break the monopoly of internationalist style for many years. The book Complexity and Contradiction of Architecture, published by American architect Robert Ventura in 1960s, is regarded as the earliest declaration of postmodernism. In the book, he first affirmed the great contribution of modernism to the process of human civilization, and pointed out that modernism completed its mission in a specific historical period. Outdated modernism will become the shackles of design ideas. Everything has become a mediocre and monotonous blank design. However, contextualism, metaphor and decoration with chaotic style and vague meaning will guide the development direction of post-modern design.

After the 1960s, one of two creative thoughts appeared in the field of western architecture. Late modernism pushes the concept and form of modernism to the extreme, exaggerates the structure and technical image of architecture, and strives to make architecture entertaining or aesthetically pleasing, thus creating a refined, complex or artificial "ultra-modern" style. Modernism in the later period often uses highly logical and repetitive modular components to create, and overemphasizes structural details, structure, some fascinating metaphors and some sensory images. It has several tendencies, such as: extreme theorization, extreme emphasis on traffic lines, extreme emphasis on exaggerated performance of mechanical characteristics and so on. , are "ultra-modern". It turns technical factors into decorative factors, pays attention to abstract modeling (single decoding), tends to be pretentious, and forms a unique "ultra-modern" style.

Post-modernist architecture has three characteristics: decorative; Symbolic or metaphorical; Integration with existing environment.

Modernism advocates purity, while postmodernism advocates mixing; Modernism advocates rationality, while postmodernism emphasizes sensibility; Modernism advocates the consistency of standardization and stylization, while postmodernism advocates the compromise of diversity and contradiction; Modernism advocates that "a house is a living machine" (le corbusier's language), while postmodernism advocates that "architecture is a container of thoughts and a spiritual home of human life" (Charles Moore's language). Therefore, to sum up, postmodernism is a profound reflection on the overall failure of modernist architecture in human spiritual life and human nature, and a fierce rebound on modern science and technology and radical rationalism involving architecture in an all-round way. At the beginning of its birth, modernist architecture is characterized by adapting to modern science and technology, the pace of modern life and the trend of the times. Therefore, the operation form and pursuit goal of modernist architecture completely adopt a set of modern scientific and technical norms, namely "Old Four"-standardization, synchronization, centralization and large-scale. Therefore, the technical requirements of modernist architecture are as follows:

(1) according to rational logic, emphasize function and design from the inside out;

(2) Pay attention to the application of the latest technology and the latest building materials, such as slipform construction and glass curtain wall.

③ Pursuing simple, lively and abstract geometric shapes, opposing decoration and pursuing "new, bright, straight and thin";

(4) The traditional physical combination is replaced by spatial combination, and the external form of the building is advocated to reflect the internal function, and the same space takes the same form.

However, when modernist architects with their disciples and grandchildren showed their skills in the field of architecture with full passion and slogans and achieved "brilliant achievements", people were surprised to find that the whole world was covered by cold square boxes with the same materials, the same glass, the same elevator, the same space and even the same column spacing-is this passionate modernist architecture? Is this the way out for modern architecture? ! At the same time, all cities in the world are rapidly losing their cultural characteristics, traditional characteristics, regional characteristics and environmental styles. Even many ancient European cities with unique cultural background and historical origins have become like new york and LA! In other words, all the cities in the world have become like machines of the same model. This is a great sorrow. Here, modernist architecture is characterized by the lack of traditional inheritance of sensibility, individuality, characteristics and historical context.