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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

on postmodernism « Previous | |Next »
December 12, 2011

In London’s Apocalypse Then & Now in the New Review of Books Martin Filler says that postmodernism came nowhere close in quality to Modernism at its apogee, not least because that later style wholly lacked the social impetus that animated the designs most emblematic of the Modern Movement.

Even though Modernism in its postwar American Corporate phase departed from the reformist program of such interwar German landmarks as Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus of 1925–1926 in Dessau or Ernst May’s Frankfurt housing estates of 1925–1930, it still could bring forth occasional masterworks, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building of 1954–1958 in New York and Eero Saarinen’s John Deere headquarters of 1957–1963 in Moline, Illinois.If there had been any doubts that Postmodernism was not a movement but merely a style—or perhaps even more accurately a “look”—any such uncertainties were erased by this unintentionally deflating exhibition.

Postmodernism in the United States was generally characterized by historicizing motifs (often quotations from well-known architectural landmarks) recombined in collage-like form. Postmodernism is known for its penchant for jokey historical recall and the commercial self-promotion now known as “branding.”

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:12 AM |