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Vol. 2, No. 1, May 1997 |
Modernity of Architecture.
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Gottfried
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Pruitt-Igoe:
Take 3
25 years ago in the town of St Louis
the first three buildings of the apartment block Pruitt-Igoe were demolished. The attempt
to restore the city with simplistic recipes ended in disaster. |
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Philosophical Comments | ||
Erhard John(Leipzig) |
Modern
- Modernism - Architecture and Art
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Theoretical Positions | ||
Hans-Jürgen
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The Cultural-Historical Approach to Modern Architecture as a Contribution to the Self-awareness of the Modern MovementIt is a fact that the objects and matters produced by man
are becoming more and more complex. It appears to the cultural historian as an essential
characteristic of the modern movement. Modern architecture on the other hand is marked by
a radical reduction in complexity: The architectural bodies are reduced to elementary
geometric figures; ornaments are banished; similar constructive elements are used in
series; structural elements are consciously emphasized. These structural elements are
determined by the transition from traditional to industrial building techniques. The
reduction in complexity concerns the field of construction itself, insofar as the
multifunctional combination of structural elements (common e.g. in pre-modern
half-timbered building) is succeeded by their monofunctional relation. All of this leads
us to the question why there is this deviation in this particular field of modern culture. |
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Claus Dreyer(Detmold) |
On Aesthetics of Architectural Modernism after PostmodernismArchitectural modernism, for a long time, was condemned by the one-sided critisism of functionalism (Adorno, Mitscherlich) or, the complete opposite, was celebrated as a sensation of social utopias or constructive phantasies (Gideos, Joedicke). Only after passing through postmodernism, classic" architectural modernism can be perceived as a complete aesthetic movement, spreading in the 1920s as "International Style" for example. The aesthetics of modernism now appears as a formal aesthetics, and is determined by e.g.:
Although some aesthetic of content is neglected, it is revived through postmodernism by e.g.:
The aesthetics of classical modernism is a condition of
postmodernism and was extended by the phenomenons mentioned above. In this way the
artistic character of architecture recovers that, which classical modernism attempted to
fight, (although not really being able to or not wanting to entirely dispose of it). |
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Svetozar
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Avantgardism. A Phenomen of the 20th CenturyAt the beginning of the century a group of avantgardistic
artists destroyed the normativity of aesthetic rules and generated many new aesthetic
activities and developments. |
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Specific Conceptions | ||
Gerd Kähler(Hamburg) |
Housing and Modernism - Housing for Masses in the 1920sHistory of architecture after World War II was for a long
time fixed on modernism. Meanwhile a change of views has taken place, those which praise
the conservative architects but only partially and inappropriately. Due to the background
of these views, being built and published during the 1920s, both views cannot be
maintained. In fact, the stylistic form and political convictions cannot be clearly
determined; in fact, "the moderns" were never one specific group as generally
suggested; in fact, the discussions about particular questions concerning architecture or
urban development took place across all " fractions"; in fact, the famous modern
architects such as Mies von der Rohe and Le Corbusier hadn´t in the slightest played a
dominating role in the discussion of housing. |
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Hans
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Ecological Change in Urban Planning - Psychology´s call on Industrial Society´s Housing and Settlement DesignThinking about the persistent economic crisis with
unemployment of around 10% and more as well as the force to reduce pension and social
security for old, sick and handicapped people, plus the claim for sustainability of
consuming accomodation we come up with two demands. We think that their fulfillment would
not only help to solve the above mentioned problems but also support sustainability of
consum in general and therefore reduce the exploitation of a) the poor countries by the
wealthy countries and b) the future generations by the recent generations. |
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Criticism of the Criticism of Modernism | ||
Olaf Weber(Weimar) |
The
815th Modernism .
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Ulrich
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The Construction of an EnemyIn the current discourse on the history of architecture and planning in Germany increases the tendency to assess the programme and realisations of "Neuem Bauen" on the standard of postmodern historical revision. It is of no importance whether the authors class themselves as belonging to these argumentations or not; the border between literary journalistic casualness and scientific seriousness has also shifted. The result is that the statements have become more meaningful with reference to the intentions of the authors rather than with reference to the explanation of the modern movement. This shift from objective statements to moralistic assessments is presented by three themes: the connection of Walter Gropius to the early Werkbund, the term and meaning of "Modernism" in the time of national socialism and the urban planning of "classical"- and post-war-modernism in Berlin. |
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Criticism of Modernism | ||
Alberto
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Modern Architecture, Abstraction, and the Poetic ImaginationThe generation of architectural order cannot simply be mimesis of a cosmos. Such cosmos, the "great chain of being," is gone forever; we are condemned to live in the absence of gods. The "composition"of architectural elements or fragments with assumed absolute semantic contents is therefore a fallacious form of representation. An architecture to transcend our cultural crisis must still be primarily embodied in projects that question implicitly the very possibility of their transformation into "real buildings" by being true constructions. In order to attain the inveterate symbolic status of architecture, these projects must furthermore be revealed as a mimesis of history; a history whose function is precisely to open up possibilities for the future. Meaningful contemporary architecture must refer back not to the order of "nature" which will ultimately remain alien to man, but to the order in history, the order unquestionably evident in that which humanity has already made, that which man can truly know. |
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The essays are open to discussion for 6 months. Remarks, comments or criticism by readers can be added to each essay. The authors then may rewrite their essays during these 6 months of interaction with readers. After this period the articles will be frozen but still available in the net. The editorial staff keeps all rights, including translation and
photomechanical reproduction. Selections may be reprinted with reference: (Wolkenkuckucksheim,
Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, vozdushnyj zamok
>/theoriederarchitektur/Wolke/<) if the editorial staff are
informed to do so. |
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Issue 1/96:Architecture in the Realm between Art and Everyday life | ||