Thoughts on post-modernism..

I’m down to the wire here with the semester.

I only have a few classes left. My class, modern architectural history since 1900, has to cover so much ground that I’m not able to dig in as deep as I would like to. I’ve been going chronologically, which means that I’m FINALLY getting to the fun stuff… Deconstruction, British Hi-Tech, etc… The problem is, they will be so focused on finishing up their studio projects and working on the final research paper I’ve assigned that they probably won’t pay much attention…

Yesterday I did Post-Modernism and I really struggled with how to convey the notion of the period because I’ve always hated Po-Mo. Plus, it’s continued success today makes me scratch my head even further. In class I took the stance that Po-Mo is really a populist language with immediate communicability which allows ‘everybody’ to feel like they ‘get it’ right away. But in actuality it is a farce, it is a mask that hides the technological and social developments of society.

Even the name is such an oxymoron. If being modern is existing on the cutting edge, than being POST-modern is on the bleeding edge I suppose. If you're post-modern than you are just so damn modern that you're way beyond what the modern folks are doing already.

It's funny how in archi-speak, modernism has an ending date.. It was somewhere in the 60's or 70's. So now we're in the 'contemporary' phase of architecture. I wonder when the 'post-contemporary' phase will begin?

For me, Po-Mo is about ordinary, comfortableness, and the mundane pretending to be something special, and it works. People buy into it, and it reduces the profession of architecture to an exercise of large scale packaging. ...which is why I hate po-mo.

I’m rethinking my stance though… Maybe the whole thing is not so pointless as it sells very well. As a ‘business model’ approach to architecture, maybe it’s quite genius. Developers have proven you can sell the same house to everyone, place them right next to each other and the lack of individuality isn’t any cause for concern or alarm… Actually, the house that tries to be different on any given block is usually the one that receives the ridicule…

Contextualism, blending in, disappearing is what the American middle class is supposed to be all about right?

Or is it?

~C

CD of the moment: Gilles Peterson - "In Brazil"