Index

The Book

A Bit of Barthes

Modernism

Postmodernism

Decentred

Author Options

Hypertechniques

Bibliography

Firstly, postmodernism was a movement in architecture that rejected the modernist, avant garde, passion for the new. Modernism is here understood in art and architecture as the project of rejecting tradition in favour of going "where no man has gone before" or better: to create forms for no other purpose than novelty. Modernism was an exploration of possibilities and a perpetual search for uniqueness.

Modernism's valorisation of the new was rejected by architectural postmodernism in the 50's and 60's for conservative reasons. They wanted to maintain elements of modern utility while returning to the reassuring classical forms of the past. The result of this was an ironic brick-a-brack or collage approach to construction that combines several traditional styles into one structure. As collage, meaning is found in combinations of already created patterns.

We see a pattern in the arts and everyday spiritual life away from universal standards into an atmosphere of multi-dimensionality and complexity, and most importantly--the dissolving of distinctions. In sum, we could simplistically outline this movement in historical terms:

1. premodernism: original meaning is possessed by authority The individual is dominated by tradition.

2. modernism: the enlightenment-humanist rejection of tradition and authority in favour of reason and natural science. This is founded upon the assumption of the autonomous individual as the sole source of meaning and truth--the Cartesian cogito. Progress and novelty are valorised within a linear conception of history--a history of a "real" world that becomes increasingly real or objectified.

3. postmodernism: a rejection of the sovereign autonomous individual with an emphasis upon anarchic collective. Collage, diversity, the mystically unrepresentable, Dionysian passion are the foci of attention. Most importantly we see the dissolution of distinctions, the merging of subject and object, self and other. This is a sarcastic playful parody of western modernity and a radical, anarchist rejection of all attempts to define, reify or re-present the hum an subject

Built by Scott Spicer. [email protected]