In De Arquitectura, Vitruvius lists three interrelated Latin terms – firmitas (strength or structural stability), utilitas (functionality or appropriate spatial accommodation), and venustas (beauty or attractive appearance), as being the basis of good architecture. Regarding firmitas, he implies that a good architect needs to choose the best and most solid materials, regardless of their cost. Yet, perhaps dismissing Vitruvius's advice, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, most Postmodern architects went on to erect buildings that often looked more like stage sets than anything strong and durable.

Postmodern designers applied colour, pattern, and ornament to buildings, transferring ordinary and everyday popular imagery, forms, and material into high culture. By rejecting modern design and aesthetics, they also dismissed the building techniques and materials used by their predecessors. As explained by experts from the Portland-based architecture firm Peter Meijer Architect, PC (PMA), ‘there is an inherent impermanence of the original materials based on a default decision making process that limited a building's longevity to a twenty-five year life-cycle’ for Postmodern architecture. In other words, Postmodern buildings were often built as ephemeral constructions, for which longevity was not an absolute value.

Like modernism, postmodernism was an international phenomenon with significant regional variants. Britain played an important role in mediating between the very different postmodernisms developing in North America and Continental Europe. It helped that London was at the centre of architectural discourse in the 1970s. The Architectural Association attracted international figures such as Charles Jencks, Léon Krier, and Rem Koolhaas, while publications such as Architectural Design and Andreas Papadakis's Academy Editions imprint combined coverage of new buildings with excursions into theory and history. James Stirling, John Outram, and Edward Jones won important overseas commissions, while the work of Terry Farrell, Jeremy Dixon, and others was exhibited at the seminal 1980 Venice Biennale.