Anxious Modernisms – Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture: Experimentations in Postwar Architectural Culture - Hardcover

Goldhagen, Sarah Williams

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262072084 ISBN 13: 9780262072083

Publisher: MIT Press, 2001

Synopsis

The two decades after the Second World War are typically viewed as an interregnum between an expiring modernism and an incipient postmodernism. Yet this tidy narrative tells only half the story leaving out a second, concurrently developing trend in an insurgent modernism. The 12 essays in "Anxious Modernisms" reveal that a wide range of postwar architects and theorists -including Neutra, Saarinen and Rudofsky in the United States; ATBAT-Afrique; the Italian Neo-Realists; Alison and Peter Smithson in England; and the Metabolists in Japan - were united in their determination to renew rather than abandon the legacy of 20th-century modernism. Each essay, presenting new research, analyzes an individual or movement that sought to reconceptualize modernism in response to developments both within and outside the architectural profession. They reveal a nexus of preoccupations that dominated the discourse of the postwar era. These include calls for architecture to create an identifiable sense of place, to address new social phenomena such as consumerism, and to advance individual freedom in the democratic state. Together, these essays remap the emerging field of postwar architectural studies, refocusing attention on work that has had a critical, lasting impact on architectural culture in the years after 1945.

About this title

Review:

"The collection brings together a broad range of projects and architects, many of which have not been subject to scholarly analysis. This is a sufficient accomplishment, but the editors aim for more; they propose a broad theoretical framework for pre- and post-World War II Modernism."--Diane Ghirardo, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

About the Author:

Sarah Williams Goldhagen is Assistant Professor of Architectural History at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Rejean Legault is Head of the Study Centre, Canadian Centre for Architecture.

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0262072084
• ISBN 13: 9780262072083
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336