Anxious Modernisms: Experimentations in Postwar Architectural Culture - Tapa dura

"The collection brings together a broad range of projects and architects, many of which have not been subject to scholarly analysis. This is a sufficient accomplishment, but the editors aim for more; they propose a broad theoretical framework for pre- and post-World War II Modernism."--Diane Ghirardo, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

The two decades after the Second World War are typically viewed as an interregnum between an expiring modernism and an incipient postmodernism. Yet this tidy narrative tells only half the story leaving out a second, concurrently developing trend in an insurgent modernism. The 12 essays in "Anxious Modernisms" reveal that a wide range of postwar architects and theorists -including Neutra, Saarinen and Rudofsky in the United States; ATBAT-Afrique; the Italian Neo-Realists; Alison and Peter Smithson in England; and the Metabolists in Japan - were united in their determination to renew rather than abandon the legacy of 20th-century modernism. Each essay, presenting new research, analyzes an individual or movement that sought to reconceptualize modernism in response to developments both within and outside the architectural profession. They reveal a nexus of preoccupations that dominated the discourse of the postwar era. These include calls for architecture to create an identifiable sense of place, to address new social phenomena such as consumerism, and to advance individual freedom in the democratic state. Together, these essays remap the emerging field of postwar architectural studies, refocusing attention on work that has had a critical, lasting impact on architectural culture in the years after 1945.