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Are we still modern?According to Charles Jencks, modernism ended at 3.32pm on 15th July 1972. That was the moment that a huge complex of modern blocks of flats were demolished in an enormous explosion at Saint Louis in Missouri in the States. For Jencks this signalled a loss of faith in the modern style of architecture in particular, and a loss of faith in the modern project in general. The modern style of architecture was supposed to be THE truly international style - a purely functional approach, supposedly making the best use of new construction techniques to make the most efficient use of limited urban space. The towerblock was the trademark of this style - a huge, imposing structure, made up of repeated squares without any silly decoration or distracting colour. The assumption was that anyone who thought rationally about the problems of architecture would come to the conclusion that this was the only style worth having. Just as Descartes felt that with his approach to knowledge we would free ourselves from all the prejudices and narrow-mindedness of our local cultures, the archpriests of modernist architecture felt that they were promoting ideas which everyone from Missouri to Malaysia would recognise as valid. This was true not only for architecture, but for modernism generally. The two extremes of political theory were equally modern in this respect. On the left, for Marx there was only one truly rational social order for all the peoples of the world: communism. On the right, Adam Smith made exactly the same assumption for his model of a market economy - only this, supposedly, could stand the test of human reason (a reason that was singular and universal). Christ was supposed to save us. For the theorists of modernity the only saviour was Reason. To be saved all we had to do was start paying more attention to Reason, identify ourselves with the One True Rational Order and the promised land would start to materialise. There would be world peace and everything would be groovy. Long before 1972 this kind of modernism had come in for a lot of criticism. One line of criticism focused on the arrogant, domineering, totalitarian and inhuman character of this drive to rationalise everything. For some of these critics the holocaust during the second world war (in which so many millions were cooly and rationally rounded up, classified, gassed and converted into soap) was not an aberration but a logical consequence of the modern project. As a reaction to this totalitarian character of modernism we now have post-modernism. This doesn't refer to a whole new way of life but to a number of critiques of the modern project. What the people in this very diverse movement share is a desire to identify alternative ways of being rational that are more human, more in tune with our different histories and more democratic. So was Jencks right: Did the modern world come to an end in 1972? If the dominant forces in the world are still eroding differences between cultures and globally imposing a uniform way of life, then the modern world is still alive and kicking. To round this little section off, how about a quick test to see if you are a modernist or a post-modernist? Question: How do you feel about being able to get a good beefburger with french fries and tomato ketchup wherever you go in the world? a. happy. (In this case you are an unrepentant modernist.) b. pretty miserable. (In this case you are obviously keen on plurality and difference - two of the buzzwords here - so you may well be a post-modernist. Welcome to the club.) CLICK HERE for a little vocabulary revision. MORE ARTICLES
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