Mediated Messages: Periodicals, Exhibitions and the Shaping of Postmodern Architecture

The Journal of Architecture

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2018

Few historical investigations have accomplished the dual task of writing the history of a significant postmodern architectural moment while simultaneously unpacking its defining theoretical concepts. Maybe that historical period is still too close to our own. Or perhaps documenting an ouroboric movement such as postmodernism, one that centered on history and the revial of architectural styles, is itself the problem.

2014

In recent years, ever greater numbers of researchers have been turning their attention to the subject of postmodernism in architecture, with most starting by stating when it expired. Indeed, it is when a cultural movement is definitively part of the past that people most commonly undertake to study it. Whereas the date of its emergence is regularly put back to ear- lier and earlier moments in the history of architecture, postmodernism in architecture is commonly considered to have ended – or died – in the mid-1990s, a period that corresponds to the most recent past into which historians have commenced their investigations. From that time onwards, the field of contemporary architecture has been declared open to theory and criticism. This paper will carefully examine the conditions under which postmodernism’s death notice was given in architecture, noting further- more how this notice differed between the architectural cultures of Europe and the United States. Which historians, critics and architects conducted its autopsy? What arguments were developed, for example, in the columns of the American journal Architecture in 2011 to say that post-postmodern- ism’s time was up? Clearly distinguishing stylistic questions and anthropo- logical issues, the paper will go on to consider the possibility that the end of postmodernism was announced prematurely, outlining a number of hypotheses with a view to historicising contemporary architectural production.

The article examines a group of exhibitions that took place in the late seventies and early eighties and are useful for grasping what was at stake regarding the debates on the tensions between modernist and post-modernist architecture. Among the exhibitions that are examined are Europa-America: Architettura urbana, alternative suburbane, curated by Vittorio Gregotti for the Biennale di Venezia in 1976; La Presenza del passato, curated by Paolo Portoghesi for the Biennale di Venezia in 1980; the French version of La presenza del passato-Présence de l'histoire, l'après modernisme-held in the framework of the Festival d'Automne de Paris in 1981; Architectures en France: Modernité /post-modernité , curated by Chantal Béret and held at the Institut Français d'Architecture (18 November 1981-6 February 1982); La modernité , un projet inachevé : 40 architectures, curated by Paul Chemetov and Jean-Claude Garcias for the Festival d'Automne de Paris in 1982; La modernité ou l'esprit du temps, curated by Jean Nouvel, Patrice Goulet, and Francois Barré and held at the Centre Pompidou in 1982; and Nouveaux plaisirs d'architecture, curated by Jean Dethier for the Centre Pompidou in 1985, among other exhibitions. Analysing certain important texts published in the catalogues of the afore-mentioned exhibitions, the debates that accompanied the exhibitions and an ensemble of articles in French architectural magazines such as L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui and the Techniques & Architecture , the article aims to present the questions that were at the centre of the debates regarding the opposition or osmosis between the modernist and postmodernist ideals. Some figures, such as Jean Nouvel, were more in favour of the cross-fertilisation between modernity and postmodernity, while others, such as Paul Chemetov, believed that architects should rediscover modernity in order to enhance the civic dimension of architecture. Following Pierre Bourdieu's approach, the article argues that the tension between the ways in which each of these exhibitions treats the role of the image within architectural design and the role of architecture for the construction of a vision regarding progress is the expression of two divergent positions in social space.

Ephemeral Architecture in Central-Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Miklós Székely. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2015, 171–184.

South African Journal of Art History, 2008

Cahiers de la Recherche Architecturale et Urbaine, 2021

The article reflects on a pedagogical project conducted in the framework of the History and Theory course at Politecnico di Milano and questions the value of architectural journals as sources, instruments, methods, and narrative devices for the teaching of architectural history, probing their role as mediators with multifaceted networks of professional, intellectual, and institutional milieux involved in the production of architectural knowledge. The study was conducted on a corpus of around fifty periodicals addressed as a “system of knowledge”, crossing diverse genres and generations of journals, and questioning their character of “complex social objects” to be investigated in their material, economic, cultural, and visual dimensions. On the one hand, the method combining “journal biographies” with the decoding of the issues through the analysis of all their structuring parts allows questioning the changing notion of milieu that magazines contribute to creating over time, revealing the interrelations between a constellation of agents - editors, owners, institutions, and audience – with their divergent agendas, rationalities, and editorial strategies. On the other hand, the paper reflects on the significance of analyzing journals in their interconnections, as cross-cultural and comparative readings offer a more nuanced understanding of the times and forms of production of architectural culture as a transnational practice, challenging the canonical interpretations and time frames of a 20th-century architectural history still centered on the European and North American editorial scene.

2020

This monographic issue of the journal HPA attempts to map the international spread of architectural culture in the mass media after the Second World War, taking the period 1945–1960 as a time frame. [1] It focuses on how certain ideas about the city and contemporary architecture were disseminated through periodical publications, exhibitions and conferences by analyzing a series of monographic case studies in an attempt to answer some essential questions: 1. How was an architectural and/or urban design project with ties to a specific context presented in the international sphere through state, professional and educational channels—whether institutional or otherwise? 2. How did this occur during a period of radical cultural reconstruction and fundamental disciplinary redefinition? 3. And vice versa: how was the same project interpreted from the point of view of the foreign establishment? 4. How did the vision “from within” and the perspectives “from outside” interact? We believe that ...

Arts, 2021

The article examines a group of exhibitions that took place in the late seventies and early eighties and are useful for grasping what was at stake regarding the debates on the tensions between modernist and post-modernist architecture. Among the exhibitions that are examined are Europa-America: Architettura urbana, alternative suburbane, curated by Vittorio Gregotti for the Biennale di Venezia in 1976; La Presenza del passato, curated by Paolo Portoghesi for the Biennale di Venezia in 1980; the French version of La presenza del passato—Présence de l’histoire, l’après modernisme—held in the framework of the Festival d’Automne de Paris in 1981; Architectures en France: Modernité/post-modernité, curated by Chantal Béret and held at the Institut Français d’Architecture (18 November 1981–6 February 1982); La modernité, un projet inachevé: 40 architectures, curated by Paul Chemetov and Jean-Claude Garcias for the Festival d’Automne de Paris in 1982; La modernité ou l’esprit du temps, cura...