Summaries of Reading

What is Modern Architecture? Mark Crinson

An initiation to modernism is given a rough start as Corbusier gathers avant garde and reformer personalities to sign and publish a protest to award the commission for the Palace of the League of Nations to academic architects. Even though it failed, it became a critical moment in defining what modern architecture would mean. Corbusier mentioned how modern technology like the typewriter, telephone, radio, etc would force a new style, it could not be with the vernacular, the function had changed – how could it be housed in baroque churches or renaissance chateaus. The modern architects were even characterized as “barbarians” by certain academic architects.

The modern architect is “a creator of an ethical and social character” whose buildings encourage better behavior and mutual dealings – functional and implicitly anthropological in nature. This created a tension, there was a feeling that “too much history may be the problem.” There is no hiding the fact that modern architecture looked and felt so much different than almost everything that surrounded it. The juxtaposition was jarring and evident.

By the 70’s and 80’ new sub groups of modern architecture were being created and it became harder to define, further reinforcing the points Solmaz makes in class that there is no chain of events in history. Instead there is mixing and overlapping. The emergence of the Vienna Method: visual dictionary, visual grammar, and visual style – simplifying and eliminating the unnecessary is a force of creating pictorial grammar and continuity. However, this idea of universalism and progress can be used as a tool for colonial exploitation and leave scars. One example is the idea of foreign nations needing “unskilled labor” housing. This can also create mise en abyme

Modern architecture has an ever changing target and is never settled in the ability to name it, instead it is an ever-receding horizon as people, technology, and culture changes.

Non West Modernist Past: Rethinking Modernisms and Modernites Beyond The West

By: Jiat-Hwee Chang and William S.W. Lim

The idea of “non-west” and the cultural category of “modernist” and the implicit nature of the titles – creates homogeneity on regions that is in fact heterogenous and hard to limit. History pillars itself on the “master architect” and major movements in Europe and North America – Places of the “other” were only highlighted when built from a periphery master architect such as “Corbusier” in India Non-Western architecture’s handicap is expanded by the given “sub-culture” that is often associated in Universities teaching. There is work to be done in changing the narrative from a single modernity to a complex and multiple, dynamic modernity.

Modernism is constantly linked with forces such as industrial capitalism, political and economic condition, and industrialism in the 19th and 20th centuries – instead of focusing on the bourgeois culture intertwined with colonialism, nationalism, and developmentalism outside the West. Then welfare programs enacted in order to usher in a new non colonial rule still led to the building of modern and “imagined community” structures – the quote “Modernism was the ‘hand-maiden’ of colonialism” seems highly poignant as it led to cultural loss.

The idea of the “old city” and the “new town center” is an interesting dynamic that can create a laboratory for western life and a conservatory of non western life” I experienced this in Morocco. Modernism assumes “a pure root creation, then a passive recipient” This creates a universal civilization that surpasses the other forms and delegitimizes other cultures.

“Counter modern” culture where building traditions are revived, alongside cultural and sacred practices (can create a highly fractured and fragmented architectural and urban landscape)

“Inverted development” the idea that new forms and buildings will change society and not that society and new technology leads to new forms.

Crafting Architecture Criticism by David Leatherbarrow

Author’s clarification of the practice of architecture: “mainly describe it as a craft with its own tools of the trade” that can be evaluated. The author finds that everyday opinion and Journalism often clash with academic theory. Buildings can offer critique in the sense that they are the learned and formed evaluations and judgements by the designers, builders, architects, clients themselves. This opens them for interpretation.

The author believes without criticism the field will fail, as there is no basis to move forward. Criticism allows architecture to be enriched as a craft and would be impoverished without its existence. Informed critique comes from multiple visits at different times, reviewing documents, and understanding of the social, cultural and situational context. This must be built over longer periods of interaction with a building.

Today much of the criticism can be seen online without people ever having experienced the building, largely just seeing the facade of the building – which becomes a larger metaphor for a facade of a critique. However this does expand the public dimension with which buildings are composed. More people enjoying a larger relationship with architecture is something positive, however it can lead to quicker judgment and a non informed, persuasive dialogue.

Verbal reconstruction can be constant with the shifting target of how a community evolves in need and experience. Standards, knowledge and assessment will vary over time – this will redefine the process of developing criticism. Other works will position themselves near the buildings and the context will not allow for a static interpretation. Different critics can have regional dialects and understanding that will further contribute to the discipline as a whole.

Wang Shu used materials from old ruins that were being extinguished and used them to shape the new identity, while maintaining stories and culture of the past to create a “new building” – this could be considered misuse or the alternative reuse.

Criticism is in three steps – recording, reconstructing, repositioning (disciplinary criticism), however the idea of “see what one sees” offers informal critique, but will continue to change the future of architecture itself.

Critical Response

I would like to further the argument of Mark Crinson in “What is Modern Architecture?” – specifically the idea of Welfare programs and the need of modular and prefabricated materials for “success” building in non Western nations. The reading indicates modernism to be easily employable with the term “unskilled labor” which is inherently creating a level of subordination. This creates a colonial mindset that brushes over building and craftspeople cultures that have existed in non Western cultures, often times passed along through families and traditions. The so called welfare programs did not implement anything that will last in the cultural dialogue, instead leading to the ornamentation of older city centers in tension with a modern city area nearby. I believe modular and prefabricated architecture can be tools for colonization by Western nations using materials that are not in synergy with their surroundings.

Application and Interpretation

Quinta Monroy in Chile is an example of modernism placing importance on the architect as the creator and not an understanding of the social, economic, political, and environmental factors that truly create architecture. The implied idea of repositioning people who had already lived on the land with a “higher” modern standard of living disregarded the cultural norms and space the families had occupied previously. The initial goal of changing the favelas have returned to “slum like” conditions today – as they put most of the future building responsibility on the residents without a cogent and coherent set of materials and plans for the future, thus leading to a fractured building in modern times.

Quinta Monroy social housing in Chile, Elevation Architects

Takeaways

-Modernism has an ever drifting horizon with a plethora of sub groups making it difficult to define.

-Much of Modernism is predicated on the architect as the creator when really social, cultural, economic, ecological factors and more are the creators of projects

-Modernism implies a pure root of the creation, and because of this an innumerable amount of culture has been lost

-Critique has an analytical, academic side and a more informal and journalistic style that usually have a tension or deeper story, but both with shape architecture in the future