postmodernism and the post modern context in design
Chris Lynn
Léotard put it succinctly: "Postmodernism is the expectation of the modern
within modernism"
Chris
"rob" <rbbe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4e74690a.0201...@posting.google.com...
> Post-Modernism is more often defined by what it is not rather than
> what it is but this generally does not help to de-mystify it. One
> important aspect and accepted difference between Modernism and
> Post-modernism is Modernism’s unified idea systems (in theory
> anyway) and the pragmatic structured socio-scientific (even
> totalitarian) practices of the era. Obvious examples of Modern idea
> systems are Capitalism, Marxist Communism, Darwinism, Fascism,
> rationalism and Nazism. Post Modernism on the other hand is
> pluralistic and eclectic with fragmented ideologies, subcultures and
> diversified idea systems (coalition governments, global tribalism and
> cultural disorder). In a sense everything that has ever been conceived
> may be used and re-contextualised to serve the insatiable appetite of
> the post-modern culture for images and signs - particularly in the
> realms of marketing and media - serving the religion of consumerism.
> Post-modernists are often criticized for being too populist reducing
> culture to it’s lowest common denominator and the way they
> juxtapose various values, languages, religions, signs and symbols,
> styles and periods, theories and ideologies etc. - bringing them
> together in a kind of fantastic fruit salad of metaphors and semantics
> without any regard for traditional or "proper" context. However, to
> fully understand Post-modernism requires a heightened perception of
> high and low culture as well as a good understanding of contemporary
> and Modern intellectual, sociological and political theory and the
> myriad of isms Post-modernism has given rise to. What may appear to
> be democratic and open to a wider audience can often be misleading in
> that it does not reveal it’s true nature or significance to the
> uneducated or uncultured viewer - a disguised form of discrimination
> perhaps? -
>
> The re-contextualising of early Modern design - from anonymous
> utilitarian object to the Post-modern concept of "Modern design
> classic" - saw the shift from social object to consumer icon. This
> contextual shift has happened right throughout the design and
> architectural universe and now culminates in a raft of popular
> assumptions and misinterpretations of Modernism and Modernist design.
> Objects that were conceived and once understood in terms of specific
> intellectual, cultural, and ideological contexts have been
> re-contextualised and reborn as consumable items to which we may
> attach our own meanings. A very good example of this is the post-war
> interest and revival of tubular steel furniture from the Bauhaus
> school and its many followers. What once were objects that proposed
> specific social values conceived with strong left-wing ideology have
> become no more than another product choice that we may pick and choose
> from according to our own desires and tastes. We may have Le corbusier
> and Giuseppe Terragni furniture together in the same room - both
> designed around the same time in the first half of the twentieth
> century, both made from tubular steel - one, however, was conceived
> from a left leaning socialist perspective the other from a right-wing
> Fascist perspective - and the whole thing may be joined with a late
> twentieth century sofa by one of the litany of young fashionable
> designers who see early modernism simply as a stylistic reference - a
> point of departure for creating dream objects for an image conscious
> market. But perhaps this is all a bit too cynical, design is not all
> about ideology either.