Histories of the Immediate Present

by Vidler, Anthony

• ISBN13: 9780262720519
• ISBN10: 0262720515
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-06-30
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

Architecture, at least since the beginning of the twentieth century, has suspended historical references in favor of universalized abstraction. In the decades after the Second World War, when architectural historians began to assess the legacy of the avant-gardes in order to construct a coherent narrative of modernism's development, they were inevitably influenced by contemporary concerns. In Histories of the Immediate Present, Anthony Vidler examines the work of four historians of architectural modernism and the ways in which their histories were constructed as more or less overt programs for the theory and practice of design in a contemporary context. Vidler looks at the historical approaches of Emil Kaufmann, Colin Rowe, Reyner Banham, and Manfredo Tafuri, and the specific versions of modernism advanced by their historical narratives. Vidler shows that the modernism conceived by Kaufmann was, like the late Enlightenment projects he revered, one of pure, geometrical forms and elemental composition; that of Rowe saw mannerist ambiguity and complexity in contemporary design; Banham's modernism took its cue from the aspirations of the futurists; and the "Renaissance modernism" of Tafuri found its source in the division between the technical experimentation of Brunelleschi and the cultural nostalgia of Alberti. Vidler's investigation demonstrates the inevitable collusion between history and design that pervades all modern architectural discourse--and has given rise to some of the most interesting architectural experiments of the postwar period.

Table of Contents

Foreword: [Bracket]Ing History	p. vii
Preface	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Neoclassical Modernism: Emil Kaufmann	p. 17
Autonomy	p. 17
Neoclassicism and Autonomy	p. 21
From Kant to Le Corbusier	p. 32
Structural Analysis	p. 41
From Kaufmann to Johnson and Rossi	p. 52
Autonomy Revived	p. 58
Mannerist Modernism: Colin Rowe	p. 61
An English Palladio	p. 64
Modern Palladianism	p. 68
Diagramming Palladio	p. 73
Mathematics	p. 78
Inventing Modernism	p. 82
Mannerism Modern	p. 87
The End of Modernism	p. 97
Modernist Mannerism: Stirling	p. 98
Futurist Modernism: Reyner Banham	p. 107
Modern Picturesque	p. 108
Historicism versus Functionalism	p. 114
Functionalist Modernism	p. 116
Futurism Redux	p. 120
Theories and Design	p. 122
Program, Science, and History	p. 125
"Une Architecture Autre"	p. 133
Beyond Architecture: Banham in L A	p. 140
Renaissance Modernism: Manfredo Tafuri	p. 157
Architect and Historian	p. 159
Revising History	p. 165
The Eclipse and Rise of History	p. 168
Ideology and Utopia	p. 177
Anxiety	p. 180
Disenchantments	p. 184
Postmodern or Posthistoire?	p. 191
Notes	p. 201
Index	p. 233
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