Postmodernism explained
Chris Burd
Christopher Egan <ce...@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu>, in the midst of his
interesting comments, wrote:
> [After World War I] European cities were devastated and in need of
> massive re-building...
Actually WWI saw very little urban destruction (compared to WWII, anyway).
The cities needed rebuilding because so much of the pre-war working class
housing was dreadful.
Chris Burd
Christopher Egan
On 14 Mar 1996, Andrew Werby wrote:
> Emily wrote:
>
> I was wondering if anyone could explain post-modernisim to me? Every time I
> ask someone to do it they just laugh. Aparently it is very complicated and
> everyone I talk to thinks I am too stupid to understand. Or maybe its some
> kind of subversive movement that no one is supposed to know what it's really
> about. Anyway, I would like to know what, exactly, are the motivating factors
> behind it. Is it simply a reaction to modernisim? What? Any information or
> opinions on the subject would be great! Thanks.
>
> emily
>
(There follows a reasonable discussion by Werby...already posted on the
group. I would like to offer some additional observations.)
Post-Modernism gets a bit confusing because, like most schools of thought
in architecture, it borrowed a term from other disciplines, and then
turned it into a style. First, the idea...."modern" includes an attitude
of optimistic faith in progress, of belief that social problems and human
nature can be improved by stripping away the "old, decadent debris" of
previous cultures. It assumes a nearly messianic faith in a new age
which is fundamentally different from ages past. Much of the "modern"
attitude in Europe, in the early part of this fading century, sought to
transform society through the gifts of new rational housing forms.
Remember that the remnants of monarchy were fading...the czar was
gone...the Austrio-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire did not
survive World War I...European cities were devastated and in need of
massive re-building...Einstein has announced that matter and light were
relative...humans began to fly, and drive automobiles....it was an
intoxicatingly new time, dominated by what seemed to be miracles of the
new age of technology and engineering. At the same time, medical
researchers were beginning to understand the importance of simple
cleanliness in preventing disease...they learned that tuberculosis
spreads in cramped urban housing devoid of light and ventilation. For
these and many reasons (see William Curtis' text on "Modern
Architecture") the early part of this century was driven by the Jazz Age
optimism of a new world of clean lines and aerodynamic form. When modern
architecture entered The US, however, there was no decaying monarchy,
there had been no devastation of the housing stock, and there was no
apparent social need for revolution...the country seemed to be doing just
fine. And so, in the US, modernism appeared as a style loved by educated
elites enamored of European culture, and was never really embraced by
Americans as the vision of the new age, except in office buildings,
airline terminals, etc....but not in housing.
Now let's skip forward to the late 50's and early 60's. The US had been
victorious, but the use of the atomic bomb, and the devastation, made
many feel the victory might have been tainted. Look at the general
anxiety expressed in all the movies in which various life forms had been
dangerously mutated by exposure to radiation...giant
ants...Mothra...fifty-foot women, etc. People all over the world were
beginning to wonder if technological advances were always such purely
positive events. Skepticism and doubt entered the picture. Similarly,
there was considerable unease with the patterns revealed by WWII...After
all, if contemporary society with its new technology was always positive,
then one might expect that a technologically advanced society in the
heart of civilized Europe might be the highest form of civilization
ever...but that is exactly where the holocaust took place...and it was
done with all the cool detachment of science and technology. The darker
concerns were visible in the US only for a few years after the war, but
were quickly swept under the cover in the early 50's as "unamerican".
For many, the realization that the "best and the brightest" could entrap
the country into a civil war in the Far East, where unfortunately some
atrocities were committed by a nation that did not like to think of
itself as the perpetrator, led to further skepticism about the steady
march of progress. For many Americans, the assassination of Kennedy, the
turmoils of the race troubles, the nightmare of Viet Nam, all raised
questions about the shiny future promised by "modernism".
Architecturally, what ultimately came to be called "post-modern"
actually can be described as beginning with the generation of young
architects in Europe after World War II. Once again, Europe had to
re-build their cities after devastation of war. But this time the
younger architects were not so easily convinced that the model of the
modern city would automatically improve human society...after all, only
thirty years earlier their predecessors thought they had just fought "the
war to end all wars" and that the new modern architecture would lead
humanity into a "new age" with an "esprit nouveau." Obviously that
hadn't happened, and so the younger architects were a bit less
enthusiastic about the idea of wiping out the old and replacing it with
the new. Partially this is because many had grown up in the "modern"
housing built after WWI...but also many felt that the older form of the
city, with its allowance for human imperfection, and not constrained by
"rational" social engineering, offered a more humane setting for human
society. This idea gradually took hold in Europe and later in the US.
Architecturally, they rejected the orthodoxy of modernism, that
everything had to be "clean, pure, and rational", preferring richness,
the unpredictable, and the possibility for complexity. Then, Louis
Kahn began to make buildings which, although modern in construction, were
admittedly historical in their sense of volume. Among his students were
architects such as Robert Venturi, whose 1967 book "Complexity and
Contradiction in Architecture" presented a rationale for rejecting the
narrowness of "modernism." Unfortunately, much of what was built under
the new philosophy collapsed into cheap tricks and pastiche. Architects
like Robert A.M. Stern (not to be confused with Robert F.M. Stern...sorry,
an old Morningside Heights joke) borrowed the term "post-modern" from
historical and literary description of a condition when the optimistic
progressivism of "modernism" had lost its credibility. "Post-Modern" as
a word acknowledged the ironic position of not knowing what comes next. I
remember Bob Stern once giving a lecture in which he said he would love
to be "Pre-Something" instead of "post-Something." In general the
historical moment in the 60s and 70s was dominated by the lack of a
common vision of a future. Finally, and simply, the "style" known as
"Post-Modern" can be described as a tongue-in-cheek borrowing of
historical styles, without any real conviction about substantial ideas.
The deeper idea that modernism made a mistake in throwing out history is
a solid idea; unfortunately, too much of the work built as "Post-Modern"
never gets past a cheap and uneducated gloss of superficial style...drawn
for the visual arts of photography, instead of the experiential and
volumetric art of architecture.
"Whew"...don't get me started!!!
(Like Andrew Werby, I just felt "Emily" deserved a reasonable answer to a
reasonable question. Hopefully, those of you who feel we've missed or
distorted something will fill in the gaps.)
Christopher K. Egan
Assistant Professor of Architecture
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Rijco
<a reaction against the historicism that prevailed at the time its
original
<adherents were coming of age, those who grew up in a built environment
<reflecting the triumph of modernism, and who were taught to revere early
<modern artists as great masters, have generally not mustered the energy
to
<react against modernism per se. Instead they have co-opted it, relying on
it
<as a framework to which they feel they can add various historical
references
<and details as long as these are quoted somewhat archly, with tongue in
cheek.
Very entertaining and irreverent "Cliff's Notes" definition! Can you give
us an equally entertaining definition of deconstruction? I'd also like to
hear your acerbic comments on Michel Foucalt and the cross fertilization
between literary criticism and architectural puffery. While we are at it,
lets clear up the importance of Martin Heidegger and Phenomenology to
architectural didacticism.
And after that, let's go have a cheeseburger and head back to the
trenches.
Rijco
and concise answer. You are undoubtedly an asset to your students. Glad
to have your postings around to keep things in reasonable perspective.
Claudia Mesch
>
>Very entertaining and irreverent "Cliff's Notes" definition! Can you give
>us an equally entertaining definition of deconstruction? I'd also like to
>hear your acerbic comments on Michel Foucalt and the cross fertilization
>between literary criticism and architectural puffery. While we are at it,
>lets clear up the importance of Martin Heidegger and Phenomenology to
>architectural didacticism.
>
>And after that, let's go have a cheeseburger and head back to the
>trenches.
Ha ha. Excellent response. :) At least that woke me up.
Teachnsc
press. Architects just design. The press worries itself with the names, as
if design needs a name.
Claudia Mesch
>In article <4iq9cm$6...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, teac...@aol.com (Teachnsc)
>wrote:
>
>> The only people inetereset ed in movements are gastroenterologists and the
>> press. Architects just design. The press worries itself with the names, as
>> if design needs a name.
>
>historicist prescriptions of critics.
You shouldn't project your anti-intellectualism onto artists and architects.
Chris Burd
<Bruce.Attah-21...@support-neptune.isltd.insignia.com>,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
> In article <4iq9cm$6...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, teac...@aol.com (Teachnsc)
> wrote:
>
> > The only people inetereset ed in movements are gastroenterologists and the
> > press. Architects just design. The press worries itself with the names, as
> > if design needs a name.
>
> True for fine artists, also. Good artists, whatever the genre, ignore the
> historicist prescriptions of critics.
Indeed, a good artist (or architect) may not know the style they're working
in. But, looking back, the critic may be able to tell. Michaelangelo
invented an entirely novel style of architecture, which in retrospect
became known as baroque.
On the other hand, critics who pretend to chart theoretical developments as
they happen (or even before) are: (1) usually wrong; (2) guilty of
promoting the worse kind of academicism; and (3) usually fashion arbiters
rather than scholars.
Chris Burd
Bruce Attah
Bruce Attah
<cme...@rainbow.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> You shouldn't project your anti-intellectualism onto artists and architects.
>
> cme...@rainbow.uchicago.edu
Before you accuse me of anti-intellectualism, be sure that you understand
what "historicism" means, and why it should be rejected. May I suggest
Karl Popper (who coined the term) as your first point of call?