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Charles
Jencks
Postmodern
Inquisition
to its morning
In October
announced
readers, under
1981, Le Monde
that a
headed
the section of its newspaper
"Decadence,"
ominously
was
of
What
the
Postmodernism.1
specter
specter
haunting Europe,
is
Frenchmen made of this warning as they bit into their croissants
as
came
it
with
the
familiar
Marxist
anybody's guess, especially
image
of a ghost looming over their civilization
(and coffee). But they proba
bly soon forgot the phantom and looked forward to next morning's
"Decadence"
column, for in our culture one ghost grows boring and
must be quickly replaced by the next. The problem, however, has been
that critics will not let this one dissolve,
especially hostile Modernist
critics. They keep attacking the phantom with ever-increasing
hysteria
until it grows into quite a substantial force, upsetting not only le petit
on the
dejeuner but international conferences and the price quotations
If they are not careful, there will be a panic
international art market.
and crash at the Museum
of Modern Art as certain reputations dis
solve like dead stock.
as the theorist of American
Clement Greenberg,
long acknowledged
in 1979 as the antithesis of all he
defined Postmodernism
Modernism,
loved: that is, as the lowering of aesthetic
standards caused by "the
of culture under industrialism."2
democratization
Like our "Deca
dence" columnist,
he saw the danger as a lack of hierarchy
in artistic
in calling it
judgment although he did not go so far as the Frenchman
art critic, Walter Darby Bannard, writing
simply "nihilism". Another
in the same prestigious magazine
five years later, continued Green
the heathens
and restated the same (non-)
berg's crusade against
"Postmodernism
is
definitions,
except with more brutal elaboration:
aimless, anarchic, amorphous,
inclusive, horizontally
self-indulgent,
31
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structured, and aims for the popular."3 Why does he leave out "ruth
that the
less kitsch" or the standard comparison with Nazi populism
to
list
critic Ken Frampton
adds
the
of
horrors?
architectural
always
Ever since Clement Greenberg made his famous opposition ?"Avant
a 1939 article, certain puritanical
Garde and Kitsch"?in
intellectuals
have been arguing that it has to be one thing or the other, and it is
they classify Postmodernism,
although of course if it is
structured"
and
it cannot be at the
"democratic,"
really "horizontally
same time neo-Nazi and authoritarian.
But consistency has never been
a virtue of those out to malign a movement.
(RIBA) has
Quite recently, the Royal Institute of British Architects
that are noteworthy
for
been hosting a series of revivalist meetings
Aldo Van Eyck, the Dutch
their vicious attacks on Postmodernism.
clear where
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are determined
to be just as para
that today's old-time Modernists
s persecutors were
as
their
Beaux-Art
and
noic, reactionary,
repressive
before them. Indeed, the slurs against Postmodernists
occasionally
and
sound like the Nazi and academic vitriol poured on Le Corbusier
in the twenties. Is history repeating itself in reverse? I
Walter Gropius
am not sure, but I do believe that these characterizations
have not
were
to
?stem
done what
do
Post
the
tide
of
they
supposed
modernism?but,
rather, helped blow it up into a media event. My
will be nice and civil.
is that suddenly the reactionaries
nightmare
but particularly
the press, loves an abusive argument car
Everyone,
and the otherwise
it is always enter
ried on by professors
intelligent:
it has hidden
taining, even if it obscures as much as it explains. What
are
the
root
causes
Postmodernism
of
the movement.
Defined
like Modernism,
varies for each art both in its
Postmodernism,
and time frame, and I will here just define it in the field with
motives
which I am most involved, architecture. The responsibility
for coining
this sinful term goes to Joseph Hudnut who, at Harvard with Walter
Gropius, may have wished to give this pioneer of the Modern Move
ment a few sleepless nights. At any rate, he used the term in the title of
an article published
in 1945 called "The post-modern
house" (all lower
it in the body of the
case, like Bauhaus practice), but did not mention
text or define it polemically.
Except for an occasional
slip here and
itwas not used until my
there, by Philip Johnson or Nikolaus Pevsner,
own writing on the subject, which started in 1975.8 In that first year of
in Europe and America,
I used it as a
lecturing and polemicizing
to describe where we had left rather
label, as a definition
temporizing
than
where
we
were
going.
The
observable
fact
was
that
as
architects
various
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an architecture
defined as Postmodern:
that was professionally
based
and popular as well as one that was based on new techniques and old
and
patterns. Double
coding to simplify means both elite/popular
reasons for these opposite pairings.
new/old
and there are compelling
and are
architects were trained by Modernists,
Today's Post-Modern
as
as
to using contemporary
committed
well
technology
facing current
are enough
to distinguish
social reality. These committments
them
a point worth stressing since it cre
from revivalists or traditionalists,
ates their hybrid language, the style of Postmodern
The
architecture.
same is not completely
true of Postmodern
artists and writers who
in a
may use traditional
techniques of narrative and representation
more straightforward
creators
who
Yet
all
the
could
called
be
way.
some intention
Postmodern
keep something of a modern
sensibility,
that distinguishes
this is irony,
their work from revivalists, whether
or
realism,
any num
eclecticism,
parody, displacement,
complexity,
at the onset,
ber of contemporary
tactics and goals. As I mentioned
of
the continuation
Postmodernism
has the essential double meaning:
Modernism
and its transcendence.
the
The main motive
is obviously
for Postmodern
architecture
"death" announced
social failure of modern architecture,
its mythical
In 1968, an English tower block of housing,
by critics such as myself.
Ronan Point,
suffered what was called "cumulative
collapse" as its
In 1972, many
slab blocks of
gave way after an explosion.
at
were
in
St.
Louis. By the
blown
up
Pruitt-Igoe
intentionally
housing
were becoming
a quite
these explosions
mid-seventies,
frequent
of dealing with the failures of Modernist
method
building methods:
"defensible"
lack of personal
space, and the
cheap pr?fabrication,
and its
alienating housing estate. The "death" of modern architecture
to social problems,
techical solutions
ideology of progress, offering
was seen by everyone in a vivid way. The destruction of the central city
and
and historical fabric was almost equally apparent to the populace,
we
should stress these popular, social motives because they are
again
not quite the same in painting,
film, dance, or literature. There is no
floors
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mTmui?mm?
|Jjyr
building.
(Photo:
C.
Jencks)
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Modern
reminscent of De Stijl, that quintessential^
language, but
are
onto
Thus
the
Modernism
traditional
background.
they
collaged
to such an extent that both Modernists
and Clas
confronts Classicism
if not offended.
There is not the simple
sicists would be surprised,
It is as if
of either language or worldview.
harmony and consistency
Stirling were saying through his hybrid language and uneasy confron
tations: "We live in a complex world where we cannot deny either the
past and conventional
beauty, nor the present and current technical
and social reality." Caught between this past and present, unwilling to
our situation,
the most
"real"
Stirling has produced
oversimplify
to
of
Postmodern
architecture
date.
beauty
As much of this reality has to do with taste as it does with technol
failed as mass housing
and city building
ogy. Modernism
partly
with its inhabitants and users. They
because it failed to communicate
might not like the style, might not understand what itmeant, or even
the essential definition
how to use it. Hence,
the double coding,
of
was
as
a
on
of
used
various
Postmodernism,
strategy
communicating
levels at once. Virtually every Postmodern
architect ? Robert Venturi,
Charles Moore,
Hans Hollein,
Robert Stern, Michael Graves, Arata
Isozaki are the notable examples ?use popular ?ta?c.elitist signs in their
work to achieve quite different
ends, and their styles are essentially
at
To
hybrid.
Stuttgart, blue and red handrails and vibrant
simplify,
in
with
the youth that uses the museum ?it
fit
polychromy
literally
resembles their dayglo hair and anoraks ? while the Classicism
appeals
more to the lovers of Schinkel. This is a very popular building with
young and old, and when I interviewed people there ?a group of plein
air painters,
school children, and businessmen ?I found their differ
ent perceptions
and tastes were accommodated
and stretched. The
so
on
to
that
is
often
called
Postmodernism
is here a
pluralism
justify
tangible reality.
This is not the place to recount the history of Postmodern
architec
and social intentions
that
ture, but I want to stress the ideological
in the bitter
underlie this history because they are so often overlooked
Even traditionalists
debate with Modernists.10
often reduce the debate
to matters of style, and thus the symbolic intentions and morality
are
If one reads the writings of Robert Venturi, Denise Scott
overlooked.
or myself,
one will find the con
Brown, Christian Norberg-Schultz,
stant notion of pluralism,
the idea that the architect must design for
different
"taste cultures"
(in the words of the sociologist Herbert
Gans) and for differing views of the good life. In any complex build
there will be varying
ing, in any large city building such as an office,
tastes and functions that have to be articulated,
and these will inevita
bly lead, if the architect follows these hints, towards an eclectic style.
He may pull this heterogeneity
together under a Free-Style Classicism,
37
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D.C.,
1985, aerial perspective.
of Washington,
Fig. 2. Leon Krier, The Completion
L'Enfant's
is finally filled out and given the fabric which
Baroque
plan of Washington
so desperately
need. Four large towns, based on a traditional
the monuments
typology
to urban
of small blocks,
and measure
life which Modernist
schemes
give the density
at first and then one realizes
have lost. It looks nostalgic
that the relation between
an opti
and infill, courtyard
and street, living and work areas-is
parts-monument
mum achieved
in few periods; with the Roman
castrum and occasionally
in the Renais
sance and eighteenth-century
the present
France. Krier's use of the past to challenge
as pertinent
D.C.-is
that isWashington,
the suburban,
present
especially
agoraphobic
as his notion of the 'Masterplan
notion of the 'Plan as Dictator.'
as Constitution.'
And
it's far better
of Leon Krier)
(Courtesy
than Le Corbusier's
as do many Postmodernists
today, but a trace of the pluralism will and
should remain. I would even argue that "the true and proper style" is
but some form of eclecticism because only
not, as they said, Gothic,
this can adequately
the pluralism
that is our social and
encompass
reality.
metaphysical
Many people would disagree with this last point, and some of them,
like the great visionary and draftsman
Leon Krier, are almost Post
I bring him up as a borderline case and because he shows how
modern.
traditions may influence each other in a positive way. Krier
different
worked for James Stirling in the early seventies, and since then he has
evolved his own form of vernacular classicism
(fig. 2). In his schemes
for the reconstruction
of cities such as Berlin and Washington,
D.C.,
shows how the destroyed
repaired and how a traditional
to these cores. The motivations
he
38
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Umberto
returned
plural reality.
This may be true, and yet Krier
as on others, because
modernists,
current planning and architecture
fragments as the centers of Siena
is of
of the French Revolution,
because it shows what a modern
streets,
lakes,
arcades,
and
effect on Post
has had a beneficent
his ideal models act as a critique of
in the same way as do such surviving
like that
and Venice. His nostalgia,
the very positive and creative kind
city might be if built with traditional
squares.
and
Moreover,
this
does
make
him a Postmodernist,
his drawing manner derived equally from Le
is based on practical urban
and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
Corbusier
He is not simply a Mannerist,
sprinkling biplanes and
knowledge.
1920s technology
through the sky, but someone who thinks through
fabric before he draws. His
all the public buildings
and private
comments on the desirabil
biplanes are, of course, ironic Postmodern
ity of technical regression.
There are, inevitably, many more strands of Postmodern
architec
ture than the major two that the work of Stirling and Krier represent,
and
I have
tried
to
show
the
as
plurality
consisting
of
six
basic
tradi
tions, or "species" (fig. 3). There is some overlap between these identi
tree of my diagram, and archi
fiable "species" within the evolutionary
tects,
unlike
animals,
can
jump
from
one
category
to
or
another,
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1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1960-1980.
In any major move
Tree of Postmodern
Architecture,
Fig. 3. Evolutionary
ment
there are various
have to be distinguished
which
strands
running
concurrently
of Postmodernism
show their
because of differing
values. Here the six main
traditions
common
the fact that since the late 1970s Post
and illustrate
and differences
ground
modern
Classicism
have been unifying
forces.
and urbanism
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eighteenth-century
and then painted
In the early eighties,
and
painted
an
allegory
he transferred
of
Postmodern
this mythology
Parnassus
to the present
with
his
friends
day
and
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del Leone
Costellazioni
1980-1, oil
(La Scuola di Roma),
Fig. 4. Carlo Maria Mariani,
on canvas,
133V8 x 1779/16 in. An elaborate
School
allegory on the current Postmodern
one part critical
satire. (Courtesy
of Rome ?one
of
part eighteenth-century
pastiche,
New York)
Gallery,
Sperone Westwater
concerned
with
abstraction
reality of modern
42
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life,
that
is, a secular,
mass
culture
dominated
by
economic
and
prag
matic motives. This gives their work the same complexity, mannerism,
and double coding that Postmodern
architects have, and also an eclec
tic or hybrid style. For instance, Ron Kitaj, who is the most concerned
with literary and cultural subject matter,
combines Modernist
tech
with Renaissance
niques of collage and a flat, graphic composition
traditions. His enigmatic allegory If Not, Not
is a visual counterpart
of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, on which it is partly based (fig. 5).
Survivors of war crawl through the desert towards an oasis; survivors
of civilization
(Eliot himself) are engaged in quizzical acts, some with
representatives
of
exotic
culture.
Lamb,
crow,
palm
tree,
turquoise
it represents.
Indeed, the burning
suggests the death camps, which
inferno of the sky, the corpse and broken pier, the black and truncated
trees ?all
suggest life after the Second World War: plural, confused,
but containing
islands of peace (and a
and tortured on the whole,
The title, with its double negative ? If Not,
search for wholeness).
Not?was
taken from an ancient political oath that meant roughly: if
the
you
King do not uphold our liberties and laws, then we do not
of broken promises
and frag
the consequence
you. Thus,
culture are the content of this gripping drama, one given a
classical gravitas and dignity.
nar
of this type of hidden moralistic
could be multiplied
Examples
Ian Hamil
David Salle, Hans Haacke,
rative: Robert Rauschenberg,
ton Finlay, Stephen McKenna?all
make use of the classical tradition
in portraying our current, cultural situation. Their political and ethi
but their intention to revive the tradition
cal views are often opposed,
art is shared, and since they all do this conscious
of
of moralistic
will
double
find
the
Modernism
and secularization,
you
irony,
coding,
uphold
mented
architecture.
that is present in Postmodern
Thus, the
that I have given above holds true for
of Postmodernism
such literary figures as Umberto
artists and, I believe,
Eco, David
Luis
and
John
Barthes,
Borges, among many others. It
Jorge
Lodge,
so
not
of
hold true, however,
does
many artists lumped or thrown
a
Postmodern
label for whom there are much better
together under
and mannerism
definition
appellations.
Modern
Defined
a
as I have suggested, was, in architecture,
The Modern Movement,
faith in the liberating aspects of
Protestant
Reformation
putting
and mass democracy. Le Corbusier pursued his "cru
industrialization
sade," as he called it, for a "a new spirit," as he also called it, and his
reformed religion was meant to change the public's attitude towards
mass production.
So convinced was this prophet of the beneficent
?
that he ended his bible
environment
effects of a well-designed
"Architec
the ringing exortation:
Towards a New Architecture?with
can be avoided." Walter Gropius,
Revolution
ture or Revolution.
founded the Bau
saint of the Design Reformation,
another militant
haus as a "cathedral of the future" and declared in 1923 the standard
:A New Unity." Ludwig Mies van der
doctrine: "Art and Technology
Rohe made any number of plans to the Spirit of the Age,
that it could
and proclaimed
of the new industrialization,
problems,
even
"social,
economic
and
artistic"
the Zeitgeist
solve all our
ones.12
44
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45
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values and little left of a common symbolic system. All one can do in
an agnostic age of consumer pluralism
is sharpen the tools of one's
of
the
and T. S. Eliot
the
trade, "purify
tribe," as Mallarm?
language
defined the poet's role.
This idea relates closely to the nineteenth
century's notion of the
on the myth of a
of
is
and
Modernism
course,
based,
avant-garde,
romantic advance guard setting out before the rest of society to con
and social order. The
quer new territory, new states of consciousness
as
a
artistic military was
of
and
the
political
metaphor
avant-garde,
formulated
in the 1820s, and although there were very few artists who
were politically active, like Gustav Courbet,
and even fewer that were
the
effective politically
myth of social activism sus
(like Marinetti?),
a patronless
class.
tained an elevated role for what was becoming
were
of
at
and
the
often
like
mercy
architects,
Artists,
underemployed
a heartless, or at least uninterested,
economic
system. Where before
a
a
to
had
defined
social
patron, the state, church, or
relationship
they
to
a
now
that was competitive
related
individual,
they
marketplace
and
agnostic.
ent meanings.13
is the healing
and feeling"
Modernism."
tional
versus
These
schismatic
two meanings
Modernism,"
relate to what
humanism
Stern
versus
labels "tradi
agonism,
con
tinuity versus "the Shock of the New," optimism versus nihilism, and
the second of
so on. For Stern, and other writers such as lhab Hassan,
?
itself
or
?has
Modernism
Resistant
schismatic
these traditions
"Post
writes:
Thus
Hassan
into schismatic Postmodernism.
mutated
in form and
subversive
on the other hand, is essentially
modernism
in art even
of
its
lack
faith
It
dramatizes
in
cultural
its
anarchic
spirit.
46
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of art intended
to hasten
both
cultural
and
mentions
the literature
of Genet
and
Beckett ?also
what George Steiner calls the "literature of silence" ?
art of Tinguely and Robert Morris,
the self-abolishing
the mechanistic
and repetitive art of Andy Warhol,
the nonstructural
music of John
Fuller.15 All of this
Cage and the technical architecture of Buckminster
to an
takes Early Modernism
and its notion of radical discontinuity
to
the
hermeticism
of
the
sixties
and
seventies.
extreme,
leading
Because
the later tradition was obviously
different
from the Heroic
Modernism
of the twenties, quite a few critics loosely applied the
and
prefix "post-." For instance, the popular critics Paul Goldberger
to dis
Douglas Davis used it in the New York Times and Newsweek
cuss the ultra-Modern
work of Hardy Holzman
and Pfeiffer, Cesar
Pelli and Kevin Roche, all of which exaggerate
the high-tech work of
Mies and Le Corbusier.16 The art critic Edward Lucie Smith,
like
Center.17 In
others, even applied it to Rogers and Piano's Pompidou
meant
that was different
from High
short, Postmodern
everything
and usually, this meant
Modernism,
skyscrapers with funny shapes,
brash colors, and exposed technology.
That such architects actually
as I was defining
it, was beside these critics'
despised Postmodernism,
a current phrase for discontinuity
and
point. They
just adopted
lumped every departure under it.
In artistic theory and criticism,
the same permissive
categorization
was practiced,
were held on the subject,
and so, when conferences
as to whether
artists were confused
the post
they were supporting
or were against
it.18 In fact, a whole
modern,
book, The Anti
Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern
to this con
Culture, was dedicated
fusion.19 Here,
the editor Hal Foster uses it to mean a cultural and
to the critical use
political resistance to the status quo; Craig Owens,
of postindustrial
in art (computers and photography)
and
techniques
the "loss of master narratives"
in this).
(he follows J. F. Lyotard
Frederic
Jameson
uses
it as
an
umbrella
term
to cover
all
to
reactions
the
High Modernism
(again, John Cage and William
Burroughs),
of
distinctions
between high and mass culture, and two of its
leveling
features": pastiche and schizophrenia.
Jean Baudrillard
"significant
refers to it as epitomizing
our era and its "death of the subject,"
caused basically by television and the information
revolution
("We
live in the ecstasy of communication.
And this ecstasy is obscene").20
And most of the remaining authors use it in different ways, some of
which may have a relation to resistance, or "deconstructing"
the com
mon assumptions
of our culture. In short, itmeans almost everything
and,
thus,
Before
nearly
I discuss
nothing.
this "Nothing
Postmodernism,"
where
very little is
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and essentiality,
but she
in order to maximize
their differences
"One after
presents their expansion as a "rupture" with Modernism:
Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, Richard
another Robert Morris,
Robert
de Maria,
Irwin, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman
Serra, Walter
(between 1968 and 1970) had entered a situation the logical conditions
In her diagram
of which can no longer be described as Modernist."22
matical,
logical terms, this is quite true, but then she goes on to make
a false inference. "In order to name this historical
rupture and the
of the cultural field that characterizes
structural transformation
it,
one must have recourse to another term. The one already in use in
There seems no reason not
other areas of criticism is postmodernism.
use
the not way of not definition,
to use it." Oh, yes, there is not, to
one
it is that you cannot define
for if
things
thing is not obscure
are
not.
All
the things in this room that are not
usefully by what they
men are not necessarily women,
but they are a near infinity of other
are
and not sculptures she mentions
of
And
those
artists
classes
things.
like
not Postmodernists,
but really Late Modernists.
Why? Because
or
and
take
Modernist
ultra-Modernists
neo-,
they
disjunction
to an extreme. Essentially,
their practice goes against the
abstraction
those
I have mentioned
?all
of Postmodernism
thirty or so definers
historical memory, metaphor,
semantics, convention,
for
existing cultures. Their work is much
symbolism and the respect
?
to
closer
except ismore extreme, exaggerated
Agonistic Modernism,
connected
in short,
with
"Late."
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Schismatic
Postmodernism
Is Late Modernism
where
the
two
escalators
are
shifted
at
an
angle
to accom
modate
the Chinese principle of Feng Shui. Is it contextual or related
to the buildings surrounding
it and the vernaculars of Hong Kong and
China? Only in the most oblique sense is it "high-tech," and one side
has a thin, picturesque
group of towers. Is it involved with the "taste
cultures" of the inhabitants and users? Only in the marginal
sense that
these bankers
like the colors gray and silver. Does
it
traditionally
incorporate a symbolic program or set of consistent metaphors?
Only
in the subliminal sense that its "skin and bones" suggest muscle power.
to the permissive definitions
of "Nothing Postmodernism,"
According
it should be a member
of this class because
it is a "rupture" with
Modernism
and fully committed
to the tradition of the New. Indeed,
most of its parts, adopted
are
from airplane and ship technology,
purposely built in different parts of the globe precisely to be new. It is
?
the first radical "multinational"
in
parts were fabricated
building
and
America
?resolved
Britain, Japan, Austria,
Italy,
by all the tech
nologies of the Postindustrial
society, including, of course, the com
49
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to
and, therefore, according
puter and instant world communication
and others,
it should be a prime
of J. F. Lyotard
the definitions
But it is not and if it were, it would be a
example of Postmodernism.
complete failure.
and
No, it has to be judged as the latest triumph of Late Modernism
celebrated
for what it intends, and this is to be the most powerful
and huge
of structural
trusses,
lightweight
expression
technology,
in the air. The cost of the building
open space stacked internally
for when one finds out where the
directly reflects these intentions,
in the
went ?and
it is called the most
money
expensive
building
world ?it turns out to be the bridgelike structure and the superb use of
finishing materials,
surprising areas to take up so much of a budget.
Thus, I do not mean to only criticize the building for its Postmodern
but to support it for its Late Modern virtues. These are,
shortcomings,
as usual, the imaginative and consistent use of the technical language
consists in this integ
of architecture. The morality of Late Modernism
defense of Mod
rity of invention and usage; like Clement Greenberg's
the work has to be judged as an hermetic,
ernist morality,
internally
are self-referential.
related world where the meanings
Literally, does
and function
the high tech fit together and work visually, poetically,
to be positive,
to all these questions
appear
ally? The answers
it is too soon to be sure.
although
of Postmodernism
with Late Modern
to the confusion
Returning
lapse in the
ism, we can locate the chief cause of this embarassing
because
with
Postmodernism
of
the
conflation
society
postindustrial
a
a
common
between
Of
there
is
connection
share
course,
they
prefix.
these two "posts-," but not the simple and direct one that the philoso
implies. He opens his book The Post
Lyotard
pher Jean-Fran?ois
with the elision of the
A Report on Knowledge
modern Condition:
in
two terms: "The object of this study is the condition of knowledge
I have decided to use the word
societies.
the most highly developed
...
as
I define postmodern
to describe that condition,
postmodern
.
.
.
is
that
Our
metanarratives.
toward
working hypothesis
incredulity
is altered as societies enter what is known as
the status of knowledge
the post industrial age and cultures enter what is known as the post
in
modern age.25 Lyotard's
study is mostly concerned with knowledge
is legitimized
our scientific age and the way knowledge
through the
the
such as the liberation of humanity, progress,
"grand narratives,"
so
forth.
These
and
increased
of
the
power,
proletariat,
emancipation
"master
narratives,"
he
contends,
have
gone
the way
of
previous
ones,
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of
his
cultural
evidence.
Thus
we
are
at
a "crisis"
point,
to use
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that uses
Haacke
The
Counter-Reformation
in Architecture
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1960
1965
1970
FMAGRITTE
METAPHYSICAL
CLASSICAL
LATE
DECHIRICO
BALTHUS
k LATE
1975
1980
1985
f C.Bertocci
MODERN
BAROQUE
DeStasi
LBonechi Rit
G.GAROUSTE
R, I
Annigonni
Tibur
CsernusA&PPOIRIER
TRANSAVANTGARDE
Varujan
Boghosian
AI.Abate
U.Pagliari
Fr.Piruca
Oliva
A.B.
MELANCHOLIC
CLASSICAL
CARLO
MARIANI
EXPRESSIONIST
CLASSICAL
MARIA
M.Pistoletto
M.MORLEY
A.LOPEZ
GARCIAG.Gillespie LA
M Paladino
PITTURA
COLTA
ENIGMATIC
ALLEGORIES
F.Botero
J. Ipousteguy S.CHIA
S.CoxG.Paolini
O.Galliani
CLASSICALM.Ramos D.Sinclair
F.CLEMENTE
SELF-CONSCIOUS
INCONGRUITY
kKITSCH
SalvoS.Sosno
/.Tongeren
O.Nerdrurr,
P.Georges
THE
RON
HUMAN
CLAY
76 EROTIC
CLASSICAL
KITAJ
D.HOCKNEY
SUGGESTIVE
NARRATIVE
MEDIA
STYLE
E.Fischl
D.SalleSUBVERSIVE
A.Kiefer
CLASSICAL
G,Segal
IT
SUBJECTS R.Longo
H.HaackeA.Kiefer
R.Dudley
V.Adami
MORALISM
-I,FINLAY J.Brown
A.Panzera
E.Murphy
\l.Bailey N.Charkow
REAUST
CLASSICAL
R.Estes
I.
PHOTO
REALISMW.Bailey G.Segal
Mcllvain
ROBERT
GRAHAM
ANDREATRANSCENDENTAL
HYPERREALISM
J.DE
OBJECTS
'The
Hard-Won
URBAN
REALISM
Image',
W.Beckman
P.Pearlstein
PRECISIONISM
M.Leonard
American
Realism
Since
1981S.F
I960',
'Contemporary
Philadelphia,
U.
A.Katz
B.
G.Pita
MONUMENTALISED
MIMESIS
JOHNSON
Uglow
'TRENDS
INCONTEMPORARY
REALIST
1975'8FIGURATIVE
1980S.Hawley
S.Gjertson
PAINTERS',
PAINTING',
S.Goodman
N.Weymouth
REALISM
P.Saari
PSYCHOLOGICAL
L.Riches
Classical
the five main
traditions.
1960-80,
Fig. 6. Postmodern
Art,
there is a common
which
shows differences
architecture,
approach
artists also tend to work concurrently
within
several traditions.
as with
Again,
of focus. Some
as the philosophy
claimed by Nietzsche
of the superman, was aimed
directly at a creative elite, and it is not surprising that the young Le
and Walter Gropius were brought up, as were so many
Corbusier
artists of the early 1900s, on Zarathustra's
oracular pronouncements:
"He who must be a creator in good and evil ? verily, he must first be a
. . .And whatever will break
destroyer, and break values into pieces.
our truths, let it break! Many a house hath yet to be built [it is clear
. . .Dead are all Gods; now we will
why this appealed to architects].
that superman live. ... I teach you superman. Man is something that
shall be surpassed. What
have ye done
to surpass him?"28
53
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role to "transvalue
all
The avant-garde
took on this Darwinian
even adopted
the
Le
these
values" and
Corbusier,
passages,
reading
If one reads art and architecture
biblical
intonation of his mentor.
to Paris, they all
of the twenties, from Berlin to Moscow
manifestoes
sound like this scripture but sent by telegram, and their evangelical
Le Corbusier:
style is basically Nietzsche's.
The
The
law inevitably
.
. . We
must
the mass-production
spirit.
houses.
spirit of constructing mass-production
houses.29
spirit of living in mass-production
in New Testaments
This rhetoric of a spiritual rebirth, proclaimed
out
evil and was
Beaux-Arts
drove
the
of
Machine Aesthetic,
finally
in
The white,
1927.
enshrined in theWiessenhof
Settlement,
Stuttgart,
was
architects
built
the
there
Reformist
Protestant
by
major
style
was
not
the
and the impressive
from Europe,
quality of the
thing
buildings so much as the fact that the leaders had all practiced versions
of the same doctrine, a dogma that excluded ornament,
convention,
and most
detailed polychromy,
traditional craftsmanship,
symbolism,
construc
had
enshrined
that
Western
architecture
except
every quality
aesthetics and urbanism
tional beauty and dynamic space. Traditional
were put on the Calvinist
Index.
in Venice, a rope-making
in
later
the old Arsenale
years
Fifty-three
factory of the sixteenth century, all this transvaluation was itself trans
valued.
Paolo
myself,
organized
"The Presence of
bolism, and every
sima, based on a
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con
in Japan ?using materials
the world ?even
such as prefabricated
crete and aluminium.
This Counter-Reformation
has had its new saints and zealous bish
to
who
not
have
failed
establish a renewed orthodoxy.
Aldo
ops,
new
on
the
Italian
of
issued
decrees
Neo
Rossi,
architecture,
Pope
Rationalism
and the importance of memory
for rebuilding
the city
an
The idea of autonomous
(destroyed by Modernism).
architecture,
to
own
architecture
its
laws
of
streets, squares,
responding
typological
and city blocks,
returned. The monument
that Modernists
had
declared
forbidden goods was quickly reinstated
in encyclical
after
a veritable
The most militant
encyclical.
apostle,
Ignatius Loyola,
Leon Krier, established
his following,
called Rational
Architects,
equivalent to the Society of Jesus. And these New Jesuits from Spain,
and France even insisted on building with ancient
Italy, Belgium,
techniques of craftsmanship
ful Saint Ignatius Krier had
structure, is that he was given
High Church of Modernism,
mer of 1985.
55
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but without
the religion. How this is to be achieved he does not spell
out any more than I do in four books on the subject.31 But the exam
standards against which we can mea
ples from the past are objective
sure Postmodernism;
artistic traditions may be more widely defined
then scientific ones, but distinctions
of value can still be defined
critics such as Roger Scruton,
objectively.32 Right-wing
left-wing crit
ics such as Peter Fuller, and liberals such as Ernst Gombrich
(and
the relativism that Lyotard's
myself) agree on this and in condemning
the tradition of Post
position entails.33 In both art and architecture,
to mature,
and we can see limited progress
modernism
is beginning
and development
akin to that in the Renaissance.
NOTES
1
G?rard-Georges
Dimanche
Monde
2Clement
William
lished
"Le
Lemaire,
Spectre
du
Dobell
Lecture
Memorial
Post-Modem,"
in Sydney, Australia,
presented
at
(October
31,
fourth
the
Sir
the following
3Walter
panel
York
Le
"Decadence,"
post-modernisme,"
18, 1981).
(October
"Modem
and
Greenberg,
originally
annual
at a
presented
meeting
in New
lished manuscript),
p.
is with
The comparison
"Royal
Gold
Medal
"RIBA
President's
13., published
Stalin's giving
Address,"
RIBA
II (London)
Transactions
Invitation
Lecture,"
(June 11, 1985, unpub
in part in Building
(London).
Design Magazine
to the people. The Prince of
columns
Corinthian
Wales
Architectural
sation,"
Design
1-2 (1982):
20-1.
(Originally
published
in
in L'Expresso
Italian.)
in architecture
started
8My own writing and lecturing on Postmodernism
was published
in a Dutch
book
Architecture"
"The Rise of Post-Modern
magazines:
Architecture
started
"Footnote
London
Town Government
1975) and
(July
(Eindhoven),
no. 4 (1975). Subsequently
and Stern
Eisenman
Quarterly,
see the
and by 1977 it had caught on. For a brief history,
Architecture?Inner
Association
the term,
using
on the Term,"
Editions
Academy
9Umberto
Brace
in 1975, and
and British
Eco,
Jovanovich,
Postscript
Language
of Post-Modern
1984), p. 8.
(New York: Rizzoli,
to the "The Name
of the Rose,"
in The
Architecture,
(New York:
4th
ed.,
Harcourt
56
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lOBesides my
(London: Academy;
ed. (Harmondsworth:
Books,
1985), see Paolo
Portoghesi,
After Modern
Penguin
York: Rizzoli,
version Postmodern
1982) and its updated
(New
del Post-Moderno,
Chiva,
(Venice: Edizioni
1983).
1983), and Immagini
Architecture,
York:
Also
(New
Rizzoli,
Heinrich
Postmodern
1960-1980
der Moderne:
Klotz, Die Revision
Architektur,
und Postmoderne,
der Gengenwart
Architektur
1960-1980,
(Braunsch
/ Wiesbaden:
Friedr, Vieweg & Sohn,
1984). We have debated his notion of post
and Moderne
weig
modern
as "fiction"
in Architectural
and this has been published
architecture
Design,
no. 78 (1984). See also my discussion
in "La Bataille
of users and abusers of postmodern
in Nouveaux
Des Etiquettes,"
d'Architectures
(Paris: Center Georges
plaisirs
Pompi
dou,
1985), pp. 25-33.
11
as
"Some Uses and Misuses
and Rococo
Blunt,
Anthony
of the Terms Baroque
to Architecture
Architecture,
Jencks, Late-Modern
(Oxford,
1973); Charles
Applied
New York: Rizzoli,
(London: Academy;
1980), p. 32.
i
van der Rohe,
"Industrialized
in Pro
1924, reprinted
?Ludwig Mies
Building,"
on 20th Century Architecture
and Manifestoes
Lund Humphries,
grammes
(London:
1970), p. 81.
i3The two basic
are discussed
strands of Modernism
by many critics. See for instance
The Theory of the Avant-Garde.
Mass.:
Harvard
Uni
(Cambridge,
of Bradbury
and McFarlane
is particularly
versity Press,
1968). The discussion
relevant;
see their "The name
in Modernism,
and Nature
of Modernism,"
ed.
1890-1930,
and James McFarlane,
Malcolm
Books,
Bradbury
(Harmondsworth:
1976),
Penguin
Renato
Poggioli,
inModern
46; Frank Kermode,
"Modernisms,"
(London,
Essays
1971). For
"The Doubles
the best discussion
is Robert
of Post-Modern,"
architecture,
Stern,
as my text makes
1 (Spring,
Harvard
Review
Architectural
clear, I
1980), although,
use the term Late Modern
would
for his "Schismatic
Post-Modern."
pp. 40-41,
i4lhab Hassan,
and
Beckett,
"Joyce,
1975), p. 200.
i5lbid., Paracriticisms:
the Postmodern
Imagination,"
34
TriQuarterly
(Fall
nois Press,
1975),
Seven
16For references,
17The work of Archigram
late seventies,
Edward
Tech.
about
Speculations
of
the Times
(Urbana:
of
University
Illi
pp. 55-56.
see Jencks
before
critics
Lucie-Smith
The Language
Architecture,
p. 8.
of Post-Modern
and Richard Rogers was often termed Postmodern
in the
the term and its distinction
from High
began to understand
followed
this usage
in his book
on Modernism,
published
this time.
a symposium
at the Institute for Architecture
and Urban
Stud
is'Tost-Modernism,"
ies (March 30, 1981) was attended
Sherrie Levine, Craig Owens,
Hubert,
by Christian
David Salle, and Julian Schnabel,
in Reallife,
and was published
n.d.
i9Hal Foster,
ed., The Anti-Aesthetic:
send, Wash.:
1983).
(Bay Press,
mbid,
p. 130.
2Ubid.,
Richard
way
pp.
Hertz.
31-42.
See
(Englewood
also
Cliffs,
Essays
on Postmodern
Culture,
the anthology
Theories
of Contemporary
N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1985), authors
Port
Town
Art.
ed.
in a loose
in this anthology.
22Krauss, p. 39.
23The essential definitions
of Modern,
by me inA.D. News
(July 1981) and was
ture: The True Inheritor of Modernism,"
37-40.
24Eco, pp. 66-67.
25Jean-Francois
Lyotard,
The
Postmodern
Condition:
Report
on Knowledge
57
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(Manchester:
published
Manchester
University
in 1979.
in French
Press,
1984),
pp.
23-24,
3. The
book
was
first
p. 25, 82.
p. 79
28Friedrich Nietzsche,
26Ibid.,
vibid.,
bolic Architecture.
32This
idea has
of General
published
in Ideals
pp.
33Ibid.; also
36-42.
Illusions
(London:
Chatto
must
to develop
attempt
in the books cited in n.
and
Knowledge,"
and Idols, Phaidon,
see Peter Fuller's
review
Tradition
of Lost
Modern
The Consolation
"Art History
and the Social Sciences,"
papers
London
1979, esp. pp. 21-3 and 143-66.
"Roger
Scruton
and Right
Thinking,"
op.
cit.
58
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