Personally, my favorite text for introducing Modernism and
Postmodernism in Architecture is:
Architectures: Modernism and After (New Interventions in Art History)
Andrew Ballantyne
Usually runs about $35 new.
The term "Modernist Narrative" is a descendent of the Enlightenment,
the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Reason. The basic ideas that
reason and science will lead the way to a better tomorrow and that new
is superior to old underly modernism and modernity.
Specifically in architecture (in the same time period and similar vein
as literature and art), Modernism coalesced as a movement in the 1930s
and as orthodoxy in the 1950s. The celebration of functionality
(exposing ducts and structural necessities) and minimalism ("less is
more") gradually replaced the more decorative and Classical (looking
back to Greece and Rome) Beaux Arts style with something new, wildly
different, offering a complete break from the past.
The personality with the most force in the movement was Le Corbusier,
who envisioned a world and society remade through the force of modern
architecture (environmental determinism). His book "The City of
To-Morrow and Its Planning" expresses these ideas.
So, valuation of the radically new and the belief that rational
architecture would lead to a better tomorrow (a teleological
argument), brings a Modernist Narrative into the history of
architecture.
Venturi and his landmark book "Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture" put the cracks in the damn that would eventually burst
into a distinctly postmodern movement. A return to the past (retro
styles, decorative motifs, and the New Urbanism) as well moving away
from curtain walls and the purely functional (Gehry is the standout
example) characterize a breaking away from modernist principles.
****In the interest of full disclosure, I am NOT a researcher for
Google. I am, however, a graduate student at UC Berkeley. The books I
have cited will provide more authoritative and nuanced answers than
me. |
