McLeod-Architecture and Politics in The Reagan Era-Assemblage 8-1989

Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism
Author(s): Mary McLeod

Source: Assemblage, No. 8 (Feb., 1989), pp. 22-59
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171013 .
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Mary McLeod
Architecture and Politics
in the Reagan Era:
From Postmodernism to
Deconstructivism
MaryMcLeodis AssociateProfessor of "Postmodernarchitectureis the architectureof Reagan-

at ColumbiaUniversity
Architecture ism." Among many leftist architects and critics, this kind
whereshe teachesdesignand historyand of statement has become a clich6. The pseudohistorical
theory. nostalgia, the fabricatedtraditions,the panderingto a
nouveau-riche clientele, the populist rhetoricthat often
sounds more paternalisticthan democratic, the abandon-
ment of any social vision - all seem related in some way
to the conservativeturn in American politics. On the other
hand, neoconservativecritics Daniel Bell and Hilton
Kramerhave vehemently attackedpostmodernismfrom
their perspective,claiming that it undermines social stabil-
ity and fundamental spiritualvalues.' This attackon dis-
paratefronts immediately reveals the difficulties of any
simple equation between postmodernismand a political
position. The relation between style and ideology has
always been a complex one, but in the instance of post-
modernism the problem is compounded: first, by the con-
fusion surroundingwhat postmodernismis and, second, by
the ever-quickeningcycle of consumption that seems to
cause political meanings to change with increasing rapid-
ity, raising more fundamental questions about the nature
of architecture'spolitical power.
PostmodernArchitecture:Some Definitions
Almost inevitably, any essay about postmodernismmust
confront the problems of defining this diverseand pluralis-
1. PhilipJohnson holding a
model of the AT&Tbuilding, tic movement. Attemptsat definition have variedfrom
cover, Time, 8 January 1979 broad-scalehistorical periodization(FredricJameson), to
23

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assemblage 8
philosophical equations (postmodernismas the cultural one-man movement, advancedby Peter Eisenman;but in
equivalent of poststructuralism),to specific stylistictrends recent years a number of other architects, most notably
or intentions, often at odds from one field to another severalyoung "neoconstructivists,"have been groupedwith
(autonomy and formalism, for example; are seen as mod- him in this alternativereaction to the failings of modern-
ern in one field, postmodern in another). In American ism. How "postmodern"this phenomenon actually is
architecture, where the word was firstpopularized,the remains suspect as new labels ("schismaticpostmodern-
critic has the potential advantageof its widespreadusage. ism," "decomposition,""deconstructivism") are continually
The first, and still the most common, understandingof the being introduced, juxtaposing this group the other
to
term refersto the tendency that rejectsthe formal and "postmodernists. "3
social constituents of the modern movement and embraces What is immediately apparentin either of these concep-
a broaderformal language, which is frequentlyfigurative tions of postmodernism,however, is that some of the dis-
and historically eclectic. While advocatesof postmodern tinctions that can be drawn between modernismand
architecturehave often agreed more about what they reiect
postmodernismin other fields cannot be sustainedin
than about what they endorse, certain themes have consis- architecture.Although modern architectswere frequently
tently been explored:historical styles, regionalism, decora- engaged in highly sophisticated,abstractformal explora-
tion, urban contextualism and morphologies, among tions, modernism in architecturewas never commonly
others. If there is any single objective that unites these var-
conceived, as it was in painting afterWorld War II, as
ious concerns, it is the search for architecturalcommuni-
being "artabout art"or as implying autonomy of the disci-
cation, the desire to make architecturea vehicle of cultural pline. The modern movement was seen by both its early
expression. Postmodernpractitionersand critics have practitionersand its historiansas intrinsicallyinvolving
tended to seek ideological justification, not in program, new techniques, mass culture, and a broadersocial role.4
function, or structure, but in meaning. A manifesto by the And if postmodernadvocateshave producedtheir own
editors of the HarvardArchitecturalReview declaredthat more reductive, monolithic version of modern architec-
postmodernismis "an attempt, and an importantone, to ture, it is one that asserts,even exaggerates,the modern
respond to the problem of meaning which was posed but movement's social concerns. Thus the commonly assumed
never solved by the modern movement."2
polarityof modernism/artisticautonomy and postmodern-
ism/mass culture (cultural"contamination")simply does
As architectsthemselves have been influenced by critical not hold. Indeed, postmoderncurrents,whether historicist
discourse and events in other fields, another understanding or poststructuralist,can be viewed as a returnto architec-
of postmodernismhas arisen in the past few years:one that ture as a primarilyformal and artisticpursuit, one that
attemptsto link architectureto a general epistemological rejects the social engagement of the modern movement;5
situation, frequently associatedwith poststructuralism. with few exceptions, the eclecticism and pluralismof post-
Here, the objective seems almost the inverse of that of the modern architecturehave operatedalmost entirely in the
earlier postmodernists.Whereas the firstgroup criticized formal sphere. And yet, in delineating this retreatto tradi-
modern architecturefor being abstract,arcane, and in- tional boundaries, it is also importantto acknowledge
accessible - for having forsakenarchitecture'straditional architecture'smore visible cultural role. Postmodernism
communicative role - this second group accepts, even has coincided with the public's increasedattention to
celebrates, this same disintegrationof communication and architecture.More buildings in the United States are now
consensus - the impossibility, in fact, of postulatingany designed by architects;more studentsare enrolled in archi-
meaning at all. Although these two positions are dialecti- tecture schools;6more design criticism appearsroutinely in
cally opposed, the territoryof debate remains the same: magazines and newspapers;and at least a few architects
meaning and its dissolution. At first, this later interpreta- have achieved the celebritystatusthat earns them advertis-
tion of postmodernismseemed, in architecture,to be a ing endorsementsand Time Magazine covers.
24

McLeod
Architectureand Politics to a particularsocial context and historical moment. 10

These two political dimensions of architecture,production
Linking architectureand politics presentscertain difficul- processesand formal reception, are, of course, not unre-
ties. Neither field can be reduced to the other; nor is it lated - building techniques can convey meanings - but
self-evident that architecture'srelation to politics has any their political roles can operate independently, each
major impact on power relations. It might appearthat exerting influence at different moments and on different
architectureis always political in the sense that anything is
groups.I"
political, the meaning of politics being diluted to some
generalized cultural association;or else that architectureis The modern movement in architecturewas deeply con-
rarelypolitical, in which case the definition is narrowly cerned with the first of these political dimensions. The
confined to those activities directly influencing power rela- advocacy of standardizationand serial production, the
tions.7 Notwithstandingthese qualifications, it would be emphasis on housing as a social program, the concern for
impossible to deny that some real, if ambiguous, connec- a mass clientele - all were examples of the modern archi-
tion exists between the two realms. The intersections tect's attempt to redefine architecture'seconomic and
between architectureand politics can be seen as twofold: social role. When Le Corbusier made his passionateplea
the first involves architecture'srole in the economy; the "Architectureor Revolution. Revolution can be avoided,"
second, its role as a cultural object. he was arguing not for formal isolation, but ratherfor an
What, in fact, immediately distinguishesarchitecturefrom expansion of architecture'srole to addresssocial prob-
other arts- notably painting, music, and writing- is the lems.12 If in the case of Le Corbusierthis position
enormous expense it entails.8 Although any art form can remained an issue of polemics more than practice, in the
be seen as reflecting marketpressures,architecture'sdepen- instance of many German practitionersthe production of
dence on the sources of finance and power extends to architecture radicallychanged. Ernst May's programfor
nearly every facet of the design process:choice of site, pro- mass-producedhousing in Frankfurtand Walter Gropius's
gram, budget, materials, and production schedules. These experimentswith standardizationin Dessau are two
economic and utilitarianparametersordinarilylimit archi- obvious examples.
tecture'stransgressiveand transformativepower, but they In retrospect,the forms of the modern movement can also
also inscribe areas for potential social action. In other
be seen as embodying ideological positions. The rejection
words, architecture'sproduction processesimply possibil- of monumental imagery in public buildings, the radical
ities of institutional change itself. Here, architecture'scon-
nection to politics appearsmore direct than that of other reorganizationof the home, the elimination of explicit
arts. gender referencesin interiordesign, all challenged existing
social patterns. Occasionally, such ideological intentions
But just as architectureis intrinsicallyjoined to political were specifically stated (for example, Hannes Meyer's
and economic structuresby virtue of its production, so, claim that the open glazed rooms of his League of Nations
too, its form - its meaning as a cultural object - carries project would eliminate "backstairsdiplomacy,"or the fre-
political resonances. In this sense, owing to its utilitarian quent associationsof the free plan with democracy);'3but
value, its political impact may be more diffuse, if more for the most part, the architectsof the modern movement
sustained, than that of other arts. Buildings are rarelyper- did not conceive of form as an independentcritical or uto-
ceived at once for their aesthetic qualities and "content"; pian tool. It was seen as either the result of structuraland
rathertheir impact occurs graduallythrough use and functional concerns or an expressionof the zeitgeist of the
repeatedcontact.9 From this perspective,spatial configura- machine age. In other words, the new forms reflected
tions, tactile qualities, and functional relationsare as either materiallyor symbolically the changes in produc-
importantas figurativedimensions in architecture'sreception. Architecture'spolitical role was conceived firstas a
tion. And as with art, this reception is always closely tied question of process, and only secondarilyas a question of
25

assemblage 8
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2. Manhattan Office Comple- '45 '50 '55 '60 '65 '70 '75 '80 '85 '89
'45 '50 '55 '60 '65 '70 '75 '80 '85 '89
tions, "CommercialProperty,"
special section, New York
Times, 11 May 1980 3. Defense Spending, New
YorkTimes,23 October 1988
form, although to separatethe two would have been vir-

100.000- -Apartments Built
tually impossible in the minds of the early pioneers.14 Both
necessitatedradical change, if architectureand society 75000 .. UnderSection8
were to be transformed. 5'00 .' Program
50.000-
Postmodernism(in its first sense) emerged in partfrom a
disillusionment with this social vision. The unprecedented
brutalityof Nazi Germany, the purgesof Stalinist Russia, 25.000
the advent of the atom bomb, and the increasingdomi- .
- '82 '83 '84 '85 '86 '87
nance of multinational capitalismall underminedhopes of
Source:Journalof Housing
architecture'sredemptivepower. But just as significantto
this loss of faith were the manifestationsof modernism
itself. By the 1960s architectsand social critics no longer 4. Apartments Built Under
Section 8 Program,New York
saw the revolutionaryzeal of the modern movement as
Times, 1 February1988
productive, but as destructive;they cited the desolate mass-
housing projects, the wastelandof urban renewal, the
alienation resultingfrom an architecturallanguage that
now seemed arcane, mute, and of little appeal outside a
narrowcultural elite. Advocacy planning and the self-help
projectsof the 1960s were one responseto modernism's
apparentfailure, but the collapse of those effortsonly con-
tributedfurtherto the architect'ssense of political impo-
26

McLeod
tence. What both the activistsof the 1960s and the first back to traditionalaesthetic parameters,it also reflecteda
postmoderncritics of the early 1970s were reactingto was, new interest in cultural signs, spurredby semiology and
in fact, the evolution of modernism in the postwardecades communication theories. Meaning, not institutional
into a routinized corporatemodernism that seemed headed reform, was now the objective.
in two equally unpromising directions:the expressionistic
excesses of a Stone or a Saarinen, on the one hand, and Postmodernismand Politics
the "scientific"determinism epitomized by the researches
of ChristopherAlexander or the technological fantasiesof What is immediately apparentin any survey of architec-
Archigram, on the other."5But if this modernism already tural developments of the 1960s and 1970s is that the
strippedof most of its revolutionarycontent spawnedthe political impulses linked to this change in perspectivehad
first criticisms of modern architecture,the focus of the mixed connotations. To critics of the traditionalLeft, most
attacksoon revertedto the modern movement, which was notably TomaisMaldonado, Kenneth Frampton, and Mar-
seen as instigatingthe demise of architecturalmeaning and tin Pawley, the rejection of social engagement represented
artisticexpression.16And just as form and content were an abdication of the architect'sresponsibility.They criti-
inseparablyintertwinedin the minds of the early modern cized the split between form and social institutionsas inva-
pioneers, so too were they inextricablylinked in the post- lid and argued that a rigorousstructuralrationalismand
modern reaction. What was considered wrong with the functionalism were still essential to answeringthe mass's
modern movement was equally its forms and its political needs in an age of late capital. But to the early critics of
content. Together they had produced the failures of public modernism, not yet dubbed "postmodernists,"it was
housing complexes and the destructionof the center city. exactly this position that had led to the public's alienation
and to the disintegrationof any sense of urban community.
In the United States, this critique of modernism appearsto In the early 1970s, influenced by the social theories of
be related to the economic cycle of construction itself. Karl Popper, Colin Rowe condemned the utopianism of
Numerous InternationalStyle skyscraperswere built in the modernism as a form of totalitarianismakin to the apoca-
1950s and 1960s, when the economy was booming and, lyptic visions of Marxism. He claimed that the universal
not coincidentally, when modernism had its first real rationalismof modernism suppresseddiversityand com-
opportunityto manifest itself in the United States (the plexity;the objective instead should be a city of fragments,
Depression and World War II had severely limited private a "collage city."'17Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
construction). The theoretical reassessmentof modern also attackedthe "environmentalmegalomania"of modern
architectureonly emerged in full force during the early architects"as a curse on the city." In a responseto Pawley
1970s when young architectswere almost without work. in 1970 they stated, "We suggest that the architectwho
Designers such as Peter Eisenman and Michael Graves startswith what is . . . will be less harmful and more
were making professionalcareersof an annual house addi- effective than the petulant rhetoriciangrandlyand dryly
tion or interior renovation (leading to epithets such as "the continuing to evoke 'the impact of technology on Western
cubist kitchen king");frequently,they were busier writing civilization' and 'the relationshipof the nascent science of
than building. The dismal economy not only permitted design to human goals and aspirations.'We are in favor of
theoretical speculation, but also furtherfueled perceptions science in architecturebut not of science-voodooism,
of the architect'sdiminished social role. twenties or sixties style."'8
The result, all too familiar today, was a returnto the con- This debate echoed the running argument among leftists in
cept of architectureas art. Architecture'svalue no longer the late 1960s and early 1970s between those believing in
lay in its redemptivesocial power, its transformationof the instrumentalityof technology yet condemning com-
productiveprocesses, but ratherin its communicative modity culture and those rejectingthe determinacyof
power as a cultural object. If this new perspectiveharked technology but finding in popular culture the impulses of a
27

assemblage 8
new order. Following HerbertMarcuse, many Marxists

believed that technology was essential to alleviatingoppres-
sive work conditions and improvingsocial life, but that the
masses were so manipulatedby advertisingand the media
that it was impossibleto determine from contemporarycul-
T H1 E P 0.W E R ture any genuine needs or values. Many of the New Left,
however, found in mass culture the stirringsof a grass-roots
AND THE GLORY.
gdee *e i eg ocA
t *ewoheneow et $ tICtlh them t populism that embodied legitimate needs and aspirations,
gote*n
.. :o -
e.. fet* *e out top aetehttotesto dnettn'thl.. teronaltt nf..ppow*?.d*etanng@o
*.t-1 end the pot ..e
do". The
regardlessof the economic and political institutionsthat
.e... . ..•an"e generatedthem. At the heart of this conflict was the critics'
W VLht thebettn nnen.,
'hemontn.1hi% n
mft b tsondtho
motenm th~e
qftnnbareI? pohts e toftb
Wth *
mae
relation to mass opinion: the issue of elitism vs. populism.
Did the masses know what they wanted or were social aspi-
rationsto be determinedonly by a critical, educated elite
shrewdto the forces of capital?Or were the so-called
populistsdenying the masses' needs by restrictingtheir
vision to the image presentedby a media culture?It was
exactly over this issue that architecturaldebate took its
most acerbic form. Framptonchargedthat Venturi and
Scott Brown'sinterest in Las Vegas was "elitist"and "con-
IL
/# BBB$ servative,"a "de facto rationalizationof the polluted envi-
ronment," and Maldonado condemned their position as
"culturalnihilism."'9In the pages of Casabella, Scott
Brown causticallyreturnedthe charges, statingthat
European-based"armchair-revolutionary pot shots"
reflecteda disdain for American culture and legitimized a
"repressedupper-middle-classprejudice"againsta "hard-
hat majority."20
Even among the early critics of modernism, however,
5. "Architecture:The Power the position concerning audience was hardlycohesive.
and the Glory,"Avenue, Although Learningfrom Las Vegas (1972) embodied clear
November 1987 populist sympathies, Venturi'searlier and more influential
work Complexityand Contradictionin Architecture(1966)
vividly illustratedthe tensions between an elitist apprecia-
tion of high art and a populist embrace of Main Streetthat
would be so characteristicof the later postmodernmove-
ment. Indeed, the balance of the argumentand the num-
ber of plates (346 of 350) in the book clearly favorsthe
former.Throughout the 1970s, Charles Moore consistently
and enthusiasticallyembracedpopular culture;but Rowe
was steeped in a kind of nostalgiafor nineteenth-century
bourgeois culture, while Michael Graveslonged for a pub-
lic who could appreciatethe world of Poussin and Roman
villas. Whether elitist or populist, what these factions
28

McLeod
shared, however, was a sense that modernismwas failing to

communicate to any group besides design professionals;in
this respect, the architects'critique of the modern move-
THE
ment allied itself with earlier criticism in the social sphere,
EDIFICE
most notably Jane Jacobs'sThe Death and Life of the
COMPLEX:
Great AmericanCities of 1961 and HerbertGans's The
DOES
Levittownersof 1966.21 The populism of the 1960s led to
ATTENTION-
GETTING
advocacyefforts;conversely, in the early 1970s, these same DESIGN
impulses were channeled to the formal sphere. SELL
A passivityvis-a-vis economic and political power has con- BUILDINGS?
Look-at-me
tinued to be one of the major reasonsfor leftists'unease architecture used
with postmodernarchitecture.However critical postmodern to be ridiculed.
Nolw it'sa markcetingtool.
architectswere of corporateskyscrapersand government BY JOANNA KROTZ
housing projects, it was soon apparentthat their focus was

on form and style. With amazing rapidity,postmodernism
became the new corporatestyle, after Philip Johnson's
notoriousChippendale top for AT&T instantlyconvinced
patronsof its marketabilityand prestigevalue. The office
building boom, which followed on the heels of New York
City's financial recovery,furtherfueled the acceptance of
the new style. If the reassessmentof modernismoccurred
in a tight economy, which encouragedreflection and criti-
cism, postmodernismbegan to flourish in the boom econ-
omy of the early 1980s. Architectsseemed to stop writing
and theorizing;most reactedhungrily to the opportunities
to build.
The domination of American political life by conservative
forces since the advent of postmodernismhas only rein-
forced the Left'sassessment. In the privatesector, the pro- 6. "The EdificeComplex,"
liferationof luxury apartmenttowers, amenity-packed Avenue, November 1987
condominium developments, planned resortcommunities,
largersuburbanhomes, and ubiquitous shopping centers,22
all spurredby the emergence of the new "yuppie"class,
have given postmodernisma fertile field in which to grow.
In the public sector the Reagan administration'sninety-
percent reduction of funds for public housing and its dras-
tic curtailmentof social programshave virtuallyeliminated
commissions oriented towardthe poor and minority
groups.23 The only public commissions have been for tra-
ditional institutionssuch as museums. Although nothing
in the polemics of postmodernismhas precludedarchitects
from addressingsocial programs,neither has there been
29

assemblage 8
anything to encourage architectsto challenge their elimi- Historical Styles

nation. Collectively, postmodernarchitectshave exhibited
These ambiguitiesbecome immediatelyapparentin one of
a markedindifference to economic and social policy.
the fundamentalthemes of postmodernism:the rediscovery
Thus, if any dialectical tension with the dominant power of history. Postmodernarchitectsuniversallyrejectedthe
structuresexists in postmodernarchitecture,it residesnot modern movement's messianic faith in the new and con-
in institutions but in the content of architecturalforms. As demned the notion of a zeitgeist that obliteratedthe past
alreadynoted, most postmodernarchitectshold as a basic and wiped out differencesin traditionand experience.
assumption some concept of architecture'scommunicative Their motives for embracinghistoricalstyles, however, var-
power; and, indeed, it is here that a few critics and archi- ied considerably.Some postmodernists,notably Robert
tects have made political claims for their discipline.24 After Stern, Allen Greenberg, and Thomas Beeby, sought to
acknowledgingthe difficulties of finding "upliftingsocial establish cultural continuities and a renewed sense of com-
content" to include in contemporaryarchitecture,Charles munity. Quoting Daniel Bell, Stern statedthat the central
Jencks states that the architect can "designdissentingbuild- issue facing postmodernistswas "whetherculture can
ings that expressthe complex situation. He can communi- regain coherence, a coherence of substanceand experi-
cate the values which are missing and ironically criticize ence, not only form."28History provideda more commu-
the ones he dislikes."25And in Complexityand Contradic- nicative language;it was a means for architectureto regain
tion in Architecture,Venturi more modestly asserts,"The the public role that the hermeticism of modernistabstrac-
architect who would accept his role as combiner of signifi- tion had denied it. This historicalrevivalismemerged from
cant old cliches - valid banalities- in new contexts as the egalitarianand populist impulses of the 1960s' critique,
his condition within a society that directs its best efforts, its but its assumptionswere largelysocial integrationand
big money, and its elegant technologies elsewhere, can preservation,not social change. In contrast, other post-
ironically express in this indirect way a true concern for modernists, such as Venturi, Johnson, and Stanley Tiger-
society's inverted scale of values."26This raises immediate man, saw history as promisingfreedom and change, if only
questions, however, about the legibility of architectural on an aesthetic plane. Technological progressdid not man-
forms: Do buildings convey clear messages?Is it appropri- date one style, but made possible many styles, and the past
ate to discuss buildings as critical or constructivein politi- offered an infinite field of possibilities.This was hardlythe
cal terms at all? For our purposeshere, it is probably eclecticism of nineteenth-centuryarchitectswho sought a
sufficient to mention the difficulties of equating architec- moral fit between style and social function. Instead, for
tural forms with words, the problems of consensus con- Venturi, the model was the eighteenth-centurygarden.29
cerning architecturalmeaning, the distractedmode of Historicalstyles offered a means to representa varietyof
architecture'sreception, and the shifting nature of any experiences, moods, and allusions;in other words, history
meanings that might be conveyed.27 All of this challenges providedthe materialfor a complex and diverse vision of
Jencks'sclaims that architecturecan communicate clear the present. For Johnson, stylistic eclecticism meant sim-
political positions. But if it is difficult to graspwhat archi- ply aesthetic liberation:an invitation to a new art for art's
tectural meaning might entail, it also refuteseveryday sake. As early as 1961, he declared to JiirgenJoedicke,
experience to deny the connotative and suggestivepower of "Thereare no rules, absolutelyno given truths in any of
forms. Architecturalmeaning is shifting and ambiguous, the arts. There is only the sensation of a marvelousfree-
which inevitably results in ambiguous, and double-edged, dom, of an unlimited possibilityto explore, of an unlim-
political readings. Thus any analysis of architecturalideol- ited past of great examples of architecturefrom historyto
ogy must go beyond simplistic labels of good and bad, and enjoy. . . . Structuralhonesty for me is one of those infan-
must search to discover in this complex matrix instances of tile nightmaresfrom which we will have to free ourselves
both social entrenchment and genuine critique. as soon as possible."30
30

McLeod
7. RobertVenturi (Venturiand, Short),Vanna Venturi House,

Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, 1961-65
31

assemblage 8
8. Thomas H. Beeby, Harold

Washington LibraryCenter
Competition, first prize,
Chicago, 1988
9. RobertA. M. Stern, Pool

House, LlewellynPark,New
Jersey, 1979-81
32

McLeod
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10. Advertisement for luxury 11. "The New Traditionalist,"

apartments in the GrandSut- advertisement for Good House-
ton designed in 1987 by Philip keeping, New YorkTimes,9
Birnbaum(architect,Costas November 1988
Kondylis),New YorkTimes, 13
November 1988
33

assemblage 8
There was something at once exhilaratingand resignedin ket increasinglyco-opted postmodernism,the value of
this rediscoveryof history. On the one hand, it meant free- varietyitself became suspect. Many styles and many pasts
dom and a chance to recoup lost values; on the other, it began to appearas one style and one past. By the mid-
suggestedthat the present was no better than the past, that 1980s, the real-estateads had designatedpostmodernisma
aesthetic and political choices might be arbitrary.In the historicalstyle in itself.
most successful postmodernworks, such as Venturi's
Vanna Venturi house (1961) and James Stirling and
Michael Wilford's StuttgartMuseum (1977-84), historical Regionalism
referencesare used to expressjust this tension.3"Reinstat- Postmodernism'sinterest in regionalism, closely linked to
ing a dialogue with the past, the architectureinstalls and its historicistfocus, is yet another responseto the modern
then subvertsconventions in parodicways that make movement's universalizingtendencies:the latter'spostula-
explicit the inherent paradoxesand provisionalityof a his- tion of a method (mass production)and an aesthetic (the
torical moment. The dualities of traditionand innovation, InternationalStyle) that would obliteratecultural differ-
order and fragmentation,figurationand abstractionhelp ences. It is on these groundsthat such ideologically
articulatethe contradictionsof modernism and its ideologi- opposed critics as Jencksand Framptonhave placed hopes
cal context. In Venturi's work especially, the very emphasis of political dissent and resistance.Jencksclaims that in
on surface and image elucidates the discursiveand contin- order to design "dissentingbuildings,"the architect"must
gent dimensions of our present historicity.But in most make use of the language of the local culture;otherwise
postmodern architecture, such insight appearstoo painful his message falls on deaf ears, or is distortedto fit this local
to acknowledge. Historical allusion rapidlybecomes nostal- language."32 Although FramptonrejectsJencks'semphasis
gia, escape, or enjoyable simulacrum - a denial of history on sign and image, he too turns to regionalismin the early
itself. In the case of i'Leralrevivalists,such as Greenberg 1980s as a locus for creatingan "architectureof resis-
and John Blatteau, tension and parodyare eliminated in tance," one that will answer Paul Ricoeur'squest of "how
academic recreationsof the past. And all too often, the to become modern and to returnto the sources."33
referencesto Lutyens, colonial plantations, and imperial
monuments evoke a one-sided past, a "historyof victors." Leaving aside difficultiesof what might constitute a "dis-
For other practitioners,such as Stern and Johnson, irony senting"architecturalmessage, two problems immediately
looses its critical edge, as historical caricaturesare openly present themselves:first, the paucity in the United States
of vital "local"languages- especially in the major areas
acknowledgedas diversionsfrom the routine of daily exis- of new construction- and second, the difficultiesof con-
tence. Cartooned exaggerationalternateswith esoteric,
mannered quotation; history is randomly scavengedto vincingly recreatingor transformingthese languages, given
financial constraints,changes in constructionprocesses,
create an aura of historical depth.
and new building types - often of a radicallydifferent
But whether in literal copybook recreationsor in exuberant scale. Although buildings such as Venturi'sNantucket
displays of random quotation, the rediscoveryof historyhas houses or Graves'slibraryat San Juan Capistranoare less
reflected with uncanny ease the interestsof the market- obtrusivein traditionalsurroundingsthan the brutalstruc-
place. More than the stripped-downforms of modernism, tures of the two preceedingdecades, the postmodernuse of
revived historical styles signaled the desire for the instant regionalismrarelyextends beyond surface image; such
acquisition of the values of family, tradition, and social designs are mere fabrications,without any real cultural
status that surfacedwith a vengeance in the 1980s. The roots.34And given the conciliatoryaspirationsof most
marketingtactics of Ralph Lauren, the period revivalsin designers, only occasionally do these designs gain a self-
furnishingsand fashion, the long-standingeclecticism of consciously critical dimension; more often they seem to be
suburbandevelopment - all found aesthetic allies within the architecturalequivalentsto conservativeyearningsfor a
the architecturalestablishment. Paradoxically,as the mar- simpler American past.
34

McLeod
12. RobertVenturi and John

Rauch(Venturi,Rauchand
Scott Brown),Trubekand Wis-
locki Houses, Nantucket Island,
Massachusetts,1970-71
13. Michael Graves,San Juan

CapistranoLibrary,San Juan
Capistrano,California,1980
35

assemblage 8
Decoration
The emphasis on ornament, color, texture, and patternin
postmodernarchitectureis still another responseto what
many architectshave consideredthe excessive limitations
of modernism:its formal monotony, repetitiveness,and
narrowexpressiverange. By the 1960s the austerityof
modern architectureno longer representeda critique of
bourgeoisvalues and oppressivestereotypes;it reflected
instead the relentlessrationalizationand routinizationof
the business world. Again advocatesof postmodernism
claimed that advancedtechnology need not be so restric-
tive or determinate. Ratherthan preclude ornament or
traditionalstyles, it made them potentiallyavailableto a
broad range of people. And where costs remainedprohibi-
tive, signage and simulacra might successfullysubstitutefor
traditionalforms. The initial embrace of decoration, like
14. Carpetland,Wheaton, Maryland the rediscoveryof history, thus appearedas a liberatingges-
ture; it opened up new possibilitiesand brokedown tradi-
tional hierarchies, whether between architectureand
Nor have Frampton'smore abstractcriteriaof light, topog- interiordesign, structureand ornament, abstractionand
raphy, and technique been widely adopted;his essay figuration, or "educated"taste and populartaste (as well as
"Towardsa Critical Regionalism"omits American ex- the "purported"modernistbias towardthe former in each
amples. And those buildings that he does cite as models - of these pairings).Postmodernismsanctioned a new appre-
worksby Mario Botta, Tadao Ando, Jorn Utzon - often ciation of sensuality, comfort, and the body - almost a
share more with each other than with their respective hedonism, which challenged the mundane, the prosaic,
locales.35This raisesthe question of whether "region"or the matter-of-factrationalityof modernism. Even dimen-
some more universalcriteriaof artisticquality- crafts- sions stereotypicallycondemned as feminine, weak, or
manship, detail, quality of materials- are the source of frivolous- pink, chintz, boudoir chairs- receivedvali-
their "resistant"qualities.36The homogenizing forces of dation. Just as the abstractforms of the modern movement
mass media and the increasinglymultinationalscale of could be seen in the 1920s as dissolvingtraditionalimages
finance and the construction industrycertainlyleave little of gender identity, the more sensuous, decorativeforms of
regional heritageto recover. In the United States, the large postmodernismcould be seen in the 1970s as challenging
size, low budget, and rapid timetable of most (nonluxury) this same abstractlanguage, which was now associated
contemporarydevelopmentsfurthermitigate againstthe with a masculine, corporateworld - severe, removed, and
kind of attentive design that Framptonprescribes. mechanistic. In a tone foreign to a previousgeneration,
Charles Moore notes, "If our century'spredominanturge
The one regional attributeof pressingpolitical concern in
to erect high-rise macho objects was nearly spent, I
this energy-consumingsociety is climate. But postmodern-
ism's rejection of "biological"determinismand its empha- thought we might now be eligible for a fifty-year-longres-
sis on style have generally precludedthe investigationsof pite of yin, of absorbingand healing and tryingto bring
sun orientationand ventilation that were of such concern our freestandingerections into an inhabitable
to modern architects. (As one critic at a conference on community. 38
regionalismcaustically noted, "The air conditioner is Thus the first phase of postmodernismplayed a role some-
Florida'sregional identity.")37 what akin to modernism itself after World War I: it re-
36

McLeod
invigoratedarchitecture'svocabularyby discoveringnew
"pasts,"new vernaculars,and new aspectsof mass culture.
If in the 1920s the sources were the Acropolis, the auto-
mobile, and Mediterraneanvillages, in the 1970s they
were Ledoux, Levittown, and Las Vegas. Some architects,
such as Graves, Greenberg, and Blatteau, drew on classi- II
cism and a high-artheritage;but others, such as Venturi tftVio~~
and Moore, mined suburbiaand the "strip"for new aes- It
tit
A~z~
thetic images. And probably,it is in the realm of ornament
that postmodernarchitecturehas come the closest to the .---------
spiritof pop culture and contaminationthat one equates tv
T- ur
with the postmodernismof other fields.39But if all of this t
'Otfil Ir zin
--;;- i?tN
raisedcertain hopes, the flip side revealedanother picture: fj
0?
l t f? tz 0 10H14 41
pretensions,blatant materialism,pseudoculture,a level of

ostentatiousdisplay that would make Veblen shiver. And
what firstemerged as endless freedom, by the mid-1980s
seemed rigidifiedand codified. Mauve and gray, falling
keystones,giant pilasters,and temple frontshad all become .
ubiquitousclich6s, now mass-producedby the culture
industry.
Urban Contextualismand Typology

The postmodernurban critique recapitulatesthe themes
15. "Thesecluded oasis for the
expressedearlier- the universalizing,homogenizing,
affluent professionals,"Battery
dehumanizing qualities of modern architectureonly Park,West Side Spirit, 1 June
now on a much largerscale. Although the American post- 1987
modern movement was initially more concerned with
image than with urban form, by the mid-1970s both
Rowe'stheories of contextualismand the Italian investiga-
tions of type had had a major impact. And if Rowe's poli-
tics conjure up images of Disraeli and Queen Victoria, the pedestrianbridge as urban solutions;and it has contributed
to the meteoric rise in preservation.Although contextual-
Italian Rationalistmovement identified itself firmly with
ism has producedboring buildings- notably, the numer-
the Left; in fact, Paolo Portoghesicites Solidarity'sdocu-
ous brick boxes of Boston and the Upper West Side - it
ment on architectureas a defense of postmodernurban
has frequentlyproducedbetter urbanism, reversingthe ear-
aspirations.40In the United States the postmoderncritique lier prioritiesof building over city, privateover public.
joined widespreadpublic disenchantmentwith urban This is not to deny that it may have also inhibited more
renewal, itself partiallya product of leftist protestsand
exciting and challenging urban solutions:how often has
grass-rootsaction in the 1960s. BatteryParkCity generatedthe remarks"It could have
It is in its rejection of the modern movement's urban been better"or "It could have been worse"?Postmodern-
vision that postmodernismhas probablyhad its most posi- ism's urban interventionare not so much regenerativeas
tive social impact. It has all but eliminated the isolated simply resistant,an attemptto preserve,not transform,
block, the vast terrainsof concrete, the ne'er-traveled areasof community life.
37

assemblage 8
But even this claim to resistancecan be challenged if one exhausted. By the time the AT&T building was completed
looks furtherat that area excluded from postmoderntheo- - the initial shock of its historicistforms dissipated- the
ries: architecture'srelation to the powers at large. The re- battle with modernismwas largelywon; but by that time,
vitalization of the urban metropolis has coincided with the too, postmodernismitself became subject to the forces of
return to the city of a young professionalclass. This so- consumption and commodification.
called good contextualism is almost exclusively the prov-
ince of the prosperousand upwardlymobile. Whatever its This is probablynowhere clearerthan in the architecture
merits, it has contributedto the gloss of gentrification, culture itself. It is almost as if the populist bias of the
itself slowly eroding neighborhoodsand producinganother movement invited new levels of publicity and promotion.
more insidious kind of uniformity. In the past decade, few The proliferationof books and labels - five differentedi-
opportunitieshave been taken to explore what contextual- tions of Jencks'sThe Language of Post-ModernArchitec-
ism might mean in poorer neighborhoodsor in the endless ture, architecturedrawingsin the art market, editions of
sprawlof suburbia. Certainly here, change, not continuity, the complete worksof architectsunder fifty, architect-
of context is sometimes in order. designed teapots and doghouses, glossy magazine articles,
advertisingendorsementsfor Dexter shoes - signaled
Affirmationand Commodification architecture'snew popularityand marketability.The image
From the 1960s to the present, postmodernismseems to of the architectshifted from social crusaderand aesthetic
have changed from being essentially a movement that criti- puritan to trendsetterand media star. This change in
cized aesthetic and social parametersto one that affirms professionaldefinition had ramificationsthroughoutarchi-
the status quo. However contradictoryits generatingim- tectural institutions. In the 1980s most schools stopped
pulses, postmodernism'sinterestsin traditionand regional offering regularhousing studios;gentlemen's clubs, resort
cultures emerged from more than a desire for novelty and hotels, art museums, and vacation homes became the stan-
dard programs.Design awardsand professionalmagazine
spectacle;they embodied a genuine dissatisfactionwith the
course of modernization, one that pointed to the failuresof coverage have embodied similar priorities.Advocacyarchi-
tecture and pro bono work are almost dead.
technology and artisticnovelty as social panaceas.41By the
early 1980s, however, postmodernarchitecturelargely
abandoned its critical and transgressivedimensions to cre- If this bleak picture of commodificationthreatensto over-
ate an eclectic and largely affirmativeculture, one strik- shadow postmodernism'scontributions- its critique of
ingly in accord with the tone of contemporarypolitical modernizationand its renewed sense of the city and public
life. It was a trajectorytraced by the careersof many archi- space - it poses much broaderproblemsabout the power
tects: for Robert Stern, from a critique of public housing in of architectureto counter the forces of capital, indeed, its
the Roosevelt Island Competition to luxury suburban capacityto sustain any critical role at all. Certainly, as the
developments;for Charles Moore, from a sensitive search first critics of the modern movement revealed, architec-
for place and a regionally responsivevocabularyat Sea ture's role has been increasinglydiminished by largereco-
Ranch to outlandish walls and amusement parksat the nomic and social processes.42 But it is also importantto
New Orleans World's Fair;for Michael Graves, from the consider what role the theoreticaland formal assumptions
startlingforms of Fargo-Moorheadto the cartoonedimag- of postmodernismmay have played in these processes.
ery of Disney Dolphin hotels; and for Andres Duany, Eliz- Commodification suggeststhe importanceof cultural signs:
abeth Plater-Zyberk,and developer RobertDavis, from the that the consumption of objects is as integralto questions
1960s idealism that inspired Seaside to its presentVictorian of power as their production. But it also suggestsa process
condominiums for Atlanta lawyers. If there were bumps that automaticallyvitiatesany sustainedcritique, a recy-
and jags in this course, and moments of genuine quality cling of images that leaves materialforces untouched.
and insight, the potential for opposition was soon Could it be that postmodernism,by focusing exclusively
38

McLeod
16. RobertA. M. Stern, Roose-

velt IslandCompetition, first
prize, New York,New York,
1975
17. Stern, The Hamptons, Lexington, Massachusetts,1985
39

assemblage 8
18. CharlesMoore (Moore,

Lyndon,Turnbull,Whitaker),
Sea RanchCondominium,Sea
Ranch,California,1963-65
19. CharlesMoore and William

Turnbull,Wonderwall,
dismantled, New Orleans,
Louisiana,1982-84
40

McLeod
20. Michael Graves,Walt Dis-

ney World Dolphin and Swan
Hotel/ConventionComplex,
Walt DisneyWorld, Florida,
1988
41

assemblage 8
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House and Garden,July 1988
21. RobertA. M. Stern starring

in Suzanne Stephens' article
"The Fountainhead Syndrome,"
VanityFair,April 1984
42

McLeod
on image,by detachingmeaningfromotherinstitutional
issues,mighthavelent itselfreadilyto commodification,
Th fie Signifilcance even potentiallyspurringits developmentin architecture?
(ClassicStrudes Deconstructivism
Poststructuralism,
A new architectural tendency,associatedbothwithpost-
structuralisttheory constructivist
and forms(in schooljar-
? •:•: sii"j, & gon, the slash-crash projectsandthe Russiantrainwrecks),
ii,•, is in parta vehementreactionagainstpostmodernism and
Vv Alichad4ravc whatareperceivedas its conservative dimensions:its histo-
ricistimagery,its complacentcontextualism,its concilia-
:::4 :4: :,
toryandaffirmative properties,its humanism,its rejection
of technologicalimagery,and its repression of the new.43
This recentwaveof criticsand designersclaimsthatpost-
modernarchitecture does not confrontthe presentand the
..,.l.:
a:.
/
. currentimpossibility of culturalconsensus(here,despite
t:p.r..3. . theirrejectionof any conceptof history,manypost-
structuralistadvocatesfall into zeitgeistandperiodizing
? :::.:::i
!0 • :A
rhetoric).Instead of seekingculturalcommunication,
:i
?:.i:.[ architecture, in theirview,shouldmakeexplicitits pur-
ported obliteration. Fragmentation, dispersion,decenter-
ing, schizophrenia, disturbance are the new objectives; it is
fromthesequalitiesthatarchitecture is to gain its "critical"
C'I S
edge.
But the questionarisesof whetherthe politicalroleof this
new architectural avant-garde - this secondstrainof
"postmodernism" - differssignificantly fromthatof the
firstmovement.Is deconstructivism, withits iconoclastic
rhetoric,its blatantdefianceof structural and materialcon-
23. Michael Gravesin adver- ventions,any morepotentthanpostmodernism in counter-
tisement for Dexter Shoes, ing the dominantconservatism of the Reaganera?Or is it
appearing in New YorkTimes, yet another,perhapseven moreextreme,manifestation of
1987
the socialretreatof recentyears?
Beforeexaminingsome of the politicalclaimsof this new
tendencyandtheirpossibleramifications, however,several
qualifications must be made. Like the earlierpostmodern
architects,thesepractitioners comprisea disparate group
withdifferentstylesand intentions;but unliketheirprede-
cessors,who shareda criticalassessmentof the modern
movementand recognizedtheirown similaritiesovera
decadeof debateand criticism,theseindividualshave
workedindependently foryears- and in some instances
43

assemblage 8
before the full emergence of historicisttendencies. They

have been connected to each other not by themselves but
by a handful of critics, and through the institutional
sanction of New York'sMuseum of Modern Art. The
categorization"deconstructivists" itself presentsnumerous
problems, not the least of which is that many of the partic-
in
ipants the recent MoMA exhibition "Deconstructivist
Architecture" themselves reject the label. Among those
included (Coop Himmelblau, Peter Eisenman, Frank
Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind,
and BernardTschumi), only Eisenman and Tschumi pub-
licly espouse an interest in the philosophy of JacquesDer-
rida;yet his theory of deconstruction- which arguesthat
meaning is infinitely deferredand that there exists no
extralinguisticbeginning or end - has been widely used
by critics to explain the philosophical underpinningsof this
new formal trend.44At the same time, the implication of a
single formal source - early Russian constructivism- is
similarly misleading:other importantformal influences on
these designersinclude Russian constructivismof the mid-
and late 1920s (Koolhaas, Tschumi), German expression-
ism (Coop Himmelblau), the architectureof the 1950s
(Hadid, Koolhaas),and contemporarysculpture(Gehry).
24. Peter Eisenman(Eisenman/ Of the MoMA participants,only Coop Himmelblau,
Robertson),Biocenter for the Hadid, and Libeskindare involved with the extreme frag-
Universityof Frankfurt,Frank- mentation of diagonal forms - the dismantlingof con-
furt am Main, 1987
structivistimagery- that curatorMarkWigley claims as a
basic attributeof deconstructivism.45Nor do these practi-
tioners share a common cultural heritageor architectural
background.In contrastto the firstpostmoderncritique,
which startedas a particularlyAmerican movement and
only later became associatedwith contemporarydevelop-
ments in Europe, this second tendency has been explicitly
internationalfrom the beginning, with the Architectural
Association in London and the formerInstitutefor Archi-
tecture and Urban Studies in New York, both international
exchange centers, being the largestcommon bonds. At this
moment, as only a few of these designs have been realized,
"deconstructivism"exists primarilyas a theoreticaldebate,
and it remains questionablewhether it will gain the wide-
spreadcurrency of the earlierpostmodernmovement -
whether, in fact, it warrantsthe designation"movement"at
all. The cost of constructingthese "antigravity" fantasies
44

McLeod
o-.
,
----- o = i~ , •-• -,
,L_•
i "I
P===L
,•-' -- •
25. Daniel Libeskind,Micro-
megas, 2, Time Sections, Cran-
brook, 1979
will undoubtedly either inhibit deconstructivism'sextension Formal Hermeticism

or tempet its present aesthetic.
The focus on form in deconstructivistarchitecture,as in
As a reaction to postmodernism,deconstructivismshares postmodernarchitecture, suggeststhat here, too, any polit-
certain aspects with modernism. Its preferencefor abstract ical role that would challenge existing structuresmust
forms, its rejection of continuity and tradition, its fascina- reside in architecture'snature as an object. And indeed,
tion with technological imagery, its disdain for academi- this would seem to be the thrust of explorationsby such
cism, its polemical and apocalypticalrhetoric- are all diverse practitionersas Coop Himmelblau, Hadid, and
reminiscent of an earlier modern epoch. But deconstructiv- Libeskindas well as by poststructuralistapologistssuch as
ism, as alreadysuggested, also emerged from many of the Wigley and Jeff Kipnis. Site, client, production process,
same impetuses as postmodernism.46Like postmodernism, and programare rarelythe subject of investigationor radi-
this new tendency rejects the fundamental ideological cal transformation.47In built work, existing institutional
premises of the modern movement: functionalism, struc- boundariesare generally accepted;in theoretical projects,
tural rationalism, and a faith in social regeneration.For all they are simply ignored.
its rhetoricagainst historical quotation, deconstructivism
also looks to the past for formal sources, only now the It should also be noted, however, that two of the architects
search centers on modernism and machine-age forms. in the MoMA show, Eisenman and Tschumi, have
Finally, deconstructivism,too, emphasizes the formal claimed to stressprocess over form and have used the
propertiesof architecture. (In this regard, it is ironic that poststructuralistnotion of intertextualityto asserta new
Russian constructivism,with its political and social pro- contamination that challenges the autonomy of the
grams, is considered the primarysource.) designed object. Initially a reaction in literarycircles to the
45

assemblage 8
.
.........
.......
--- .......
.. ......
26. Zaha M. Hadid,The Peak (a

gentlemen's club), Hong Kong
Peak International Competi- ca
tion, first prize, 1982
46

McLeod
27. BernardTschumi,aerial
view, Parcde la Villette, Paris,
1982-85
formalismof the New Critics, this idea holds that meaning ture. In contrast, architectsinfluenced by poststructuralist
begins before and extends beyond the text; in other words, theory have intentionally stressedabstractcompositional
not only is literatureindebted to previoustexts, but a text's proceduresthat tend to preclude referencesbeyond form.
very existence depends on all texts. Eisenman translates In the essay "The End of the Classical:The End of the
this concept in architecturethrough a metaphorof the pal- Beginning, the End of the End," Eisenman describeshis
impsest;Tschumi worksliterallywith superimpositionsof objective as "architectureas independentdiscourse,free of
systems. These excavationsand layerings,however, almost externalvalues - classical or any other;that is, the inter-
alwaysoperate on a compositional ratherthan on an insti- section of the meaning-free,the arbitrary,and the timeless
tutional plane, and all involve the architect's(as opposed in the artificial."48Similarly, Tschumi statesthat "LaVil-
to the client's or user's)role in the design process. The lette . . . aims at an architecturethat means nothing, an
combining of conventional functional programsin the Fol- architectureof the signifier ratherthan the signified, one
lies at Tschumi's La Villette perhapscomes closest to chal- that is pure trace or play of language.'49In its continual
lenging institutionalboundaries;but even here it must be deferralof meaning, in its celebrationof the endless signi-
acknowledgedthat in the initial competition brief the gov- fier, poststructuralisttheory appearsto have produced
ernment had largely conceded the definition of programto another kind of aestheticization,which privilegesform
the architectand, further,that parksthemselves lie outside (language)and "textuality"and which refuses any reality
of traditionalstricturesof utility (hence follies - and their outside the object (text). AndreasHuyssen has writtenthat
long history in landscapedesign). "Americanpoststructuralistwritersand critics . . . call for
self-reflexiveness,not, to be sure, of the author-subject,
One could, in fact, readilyargue that the poststructuralist but of the text; . . . they purge life, reality,history, society
influence has led to an even greaterfocus on form as an from the work of art and its reception, and constructa new
end in itself than was the case in the earlierpostmodern autonomy, based on a pristine notion of textuality,a new
experiments.The notion of communication embracedby art for art'ssake which is presumablythe only kind possible
many of the historicistpostmodernists,however na'ive, after the failure of all and any commitment.""5 This formal
countered a completely hermetic conception of architec- hermeticism seems to be doubly problematicin architec-
47

assemblage 8
ture, which, as alreadysuggested, does not lend itself read-

ily to the linguistic analogy. The poststructuralistliterary
critic can assertthat the very processof meaning'sdisplace-
ment involves content, even if its presence is ultimately-
and solipsistically- denied; but for the architecturecritic
involved with the abstractformal explorationsof decon-
structivistdesign, even this modest claim is difficult.
Although architecturenever completely escapes referential-
ity, highly abstractarchitecture,like instrumentalmusic,
refersessentiallyto itself. In other words, significationmay
not be so much displaced as nonexistent from a conven-
tional linguistic perspective;instead of an endless signifier,
the result may be a self-reflexiveor static signifier. Inter-
textuality,then, is constrictedto the realm of architectural
form.
The aestheticizationof deconstructivistarchitectureis cer-

tainly a furtherretreatfrom social processes,but it would
be a mistaketo dismiss its formal explorationsas politically
neutral or irrelevant.Even artisticabstractionhas social
implications, and, given the increasinglyconservativecon-
notations of postmodernfiguration,deconstructivismmay
well be an instance where abstractiontakes on progressive
resonances, as modernism did initially. Nor are the forms
alwaysas mute as their practitionerssometimes claim them
to be. 51 Comparedto the tired classical images of post-
modernism, these neoconstructivistforms possessfor the
28. Tschumi,diagram of super- moment a freshnessand energy that embrace the present
imposition points/lines/surfaces, and the future. Even when the imageryharksback to Rus-
Parcde la Villette, 1982 sian constructivism,it invokes (howeverself-consciously)
the Revolution'sdream of a heroic future. Technology is
here a source of pleasure and play - something to be
exploited and stretchedin orderto realize new spatialpos-
sibilities. Similarly, steel, glass, corrugatedsheet metal,
chain link - the signs of industrialeconomy - offer new
options and imagery. Some of the designs in the MoMA
exhibition, such as Hadid'sand Libeskind's,are arcane,
almost precious, space-agedisplaysof refinement;others,
particularlythose of FrankGehry, gain power from their
matter-of-factness- their rough joints and inexpensive
materials.Whateverdespairthese projectsmay ultimately
convey on the social front, they project a vigorousopti-
mism on the artisticfront.
48

McLeod
29. FrankO. Gehry,model,

FamilianHouse, Santa Monica,
California,1978
30. Gehry,Loyola Law School,

LosAngeles, California,
1981-84
49

assemblage 8
But the implicationsof otheraspectsof deconstructivism's

formalhermeticismaremoreproblematic.One conse-
quenceis a potentialnarrowingof audience.Althoughthe
generalpublicmightrespondto the images'aestheticexu-
beranceand technologicalbravura,mostlikelyonly a
smallculturalelite will appreciate the iconoclasmof
forms, the inversionsof common sense and everyday
expectations. This is not to suggestthatthis hermeticism
will allowdeconstructivism to escapecommodification, but
ratherthatits marketingappealmaywell be to a narrower
groupthanthatof postmodern designs.Indeed,decon-
structivistarchitecturerisksthe elitistchargesthatmodern
architecture facedwiththe postmodern critique.
Anotherconsequenceof deconstructivism's formalhermeti-
cism has been a denialof urbancontextanda renewed
focuson the buildingas object.The fragmentation and
formalexplosionof theseworksmeansthatnot only do
theycontrastradicallywitha traditional urbanfabric,but
theycannotjoin readilywith otherbuildingsto form
definedpublicspace.52The singlebuildingonce again
becomesmoreimportantthanthe city, individualcreation
moreimportantthancollectiveaccretion.In citiessuch as
LosAngelesthis maybe a realisticposition,perhapsjusta
conformistone; in olderurbanfabricsit becomesan act of
rebellionand opposition.And herethe powerof the vision
is paramount.Justas in a few of the earlierpostmodern
workshistoricalreferencescould illuminatethe tensions
betweencontinuityand fissure,pastand present,in certain
deconstructivistprojectsthe fragmentation standsas a tell-
31. Daniel Libeskind,offices ing commenton banality,loss, andpovertyof context.It is
and housing, IBACity Edge an urbanvisionof negation,rejectingpastsolutionsand
Competition, first prize, Berlin, community.As mar-
1987 denyingpossibilitiesof reconstituted
ginalavant-garde gestures,theseprojectspromisea certain
criticalpower,but as largerendeavors - as a generalstrat-
egy forthe numerousand repetitiveproblemsconfronting
urbanspace- theyrepresenta closure,one at oddswith
the exuberanceof manyof the formsthemselves.
Politicsand FormalSubversion
It is in this momentof negation,the disruptionof boththe
traditionalcity and the conventionsof architecture,
that
severalpoststructuralistadvocateshave made their political
50

McLeod
claims. Using such words as "unease,""disintegration," course and have thus brought to light strategiesof racism,
"decentering,""dislocation,"Eisenman, Tschumi, and sexism, colonialism, and the like, in architecturethese
Wigley have stated that this work challenges the status critical possibilitiesare largely precluded once again by the
quo, not from the outside, but through formal disruptions difficulties of the linguistic analogy. To the extent that
and inversions within the object. In other words, formal architecturalmeaning is ambiguous, the connections
strategiesthemselves have the power, in their view, to between architecturalform and political oppressionare
undermine codes and preconceptions- in fact, the entire rarelyas self-evident as those between language and politi-
apparatusof Western humanism itself. If architecturefor- cal oppression. And in those situationswhere the connec-
sakes a political role in the sense espoused by the modern tions are more obvious (for instance, in the monumental
movement - one seeking the transformationof production architectureof Nazi Germany), the political and economic
processes and institutional boundaries- it now gains circumstancesoften mitigate againstchange in a purely
political power simply through the cultural sign, or more representationalsphere. Certainly in the present American
precisely, through revealing the disintegrationof that sign. context, any claims linking the formal fragmentationof
This objective is indeed an inversion of the optimistic deconstructivistarchitectureto political subversionremain
claims of the earlier postmodernmovement. Practitioners suspect;any critical propertiescenter on architecture
such as Moore, Graves, and Stern thought that they could itself.54
reconstitutecommunity and regional identity through the
formal propertiesof architecture;some deconstructivist Beyond these particularproblems of translationfrom liter-
practitionersbelieve that they can reveal the impossibility ary theory to architecture,deconstructionraises deeper
of such reconstitutionsthrough the cultural object. Like political and ethical questions that are at the heart of some
of the difficulties of allying this philosophical position with
Jean-FrangoisLyotard,they proclaim the death of master
narratives:equality, reason, truth, notions of collective political praxis. In a world of endless textuality,how can
the institutional and material causes of representation-
consensus, and so forth.53With this collapse of values, art
and oppression- ever be determined or examined suffi-
gains a new redemptiverole, one that negates utopian aspi-
rations but finds hope within contemporarydisintegration. ciently to be countered?In a world without truth, history,
or consensus, what is the basis or criterionfor action? In
Quite clearly this is no longer the negation of Theodor
Adorno and certain members of the FrankfurtSchool, who other words, how does one choose the objects, strategies,
called for artisticretreatin order to preservea utopian and goals of subversions?Is there any way to avoid total
vision of the social and political sphere. relativism- a sense that anything goes?
The introduction of deconstructionto architecturehas It does not, of course, take much imagination to envision
contributedto an atittude of critical skepticismand scru- subversionsof the status quo resulting in greaterinequities
tiny, a questioning of existing conventions of composition and injustices. Regardlessof epistemological questions,
and form. Already, deconstructivismhas played a major some values, however provisional, and some notion of col-
role in undermining the pseudohistoricism,mindless con- lective identity are probablyessential to political action and
textualism, and conciliatory values of postmodernism. social betterment." But if these issues seem to place an
Here its impact can be compared to that of traditional unjust burden on form, it may be because poststructuralist
avant-gardepracticesof negation and subversion. But out- advocatesare caught in delusions of architecture'stransfor-
side of the formal sphere, the critical role of deconstructiv- mative power, a situation strangelyreminiscent of an ear-
ism remains elusive; indeed, many of the more progressive lier modern period. Even more than the problem of total
political contributionsof poststructuralisttheory have dis- relativism, the political problemsposed by a poststructural-
appearedin its application to architecture.While in liter- ist architecturereside in the paradoxwhereby the architect
ary criticism poststructuralistanalyses have pointed out is absolved of obligations of authorshipbut the object is
internal inconsistencies and irrationalitiesin oppressivedis- grantedconsiderablesubversivepower.
51

assemblage 8
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PETEREISENMAN
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em
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32. "JohnTaylorDeconstructs
the Architect of the Hour,"
New YorkMagazine, 17
October 1988
52

McLeod
Such absolution underestimatesthe architect'spower and

precludesa political actor. Following Michel Foucault's
and Roland Barthes'sfamous declarationsof the death of
the author, poststructuralistshave denounced authorial
subjectivityand its concomitant claims of intentionality,
originality,truth, and transparentcommunication.56 In
part this position is an elaborationof modernism'sown
denunciation of idealist and romantic notions of creation.
But as the critic Huyssen has asked, how radicalor even
useful is such a stand when few today would deny the role
of externalforces in creation and reception?Is it a refusal
of responsibility?An inadvertentacceptance of the status
quo - allied with, ratherthan opposed to, the processesof
modernization?57 And, finally, does the denial of author-
ship prohibit the emergence of alternativevoices that
would challenge the ideology of the architect(almost
alwaysmale, white, and middle class)?58
At the same time, the overestimationof form'srole does
not take into account the power of capital to numb acts of
subversion. Uneasiness, fright, a sense of disruptionare
hardlyalien to contemporarysociety;they are in fact so
much a part of our everydaylife that they can be easily
ignored or consumed - common fates of avant-gardecul-
ture. Any sensations, pleasurableor painful, instantly
become fodder for both high culture and mass consump- 33. "Out," W, 13-20 January 1984
tion. The brief historyof deconstructivismleaves little
groundsfor political optimism. Just as the progressive
impulses of the postmoderncritique became largelyswal-
lowed by the movement's own success, so too the critique
posed by these frenzied forms threatensto be undermined
by its sudden fashionability.If anything, the cycle seems
ever more rapid;proclamationand consumption are almost
simultaneous. How subversivecan a movement be when it
gains simultaneous sanction from two major museums in
New YorkCity? How sustainedcan any challenge be when
the forces that have promoted it (Philip Johnson, Century
Club lunches, Princeton University,Max Protetch, and
MoMA) have uncanny similaritiesto those that helped
institutionalizewhat it purportsto criticize - postmodern
architecture?Ironically,the rhetoricof the death of the
author seems not to dampen the spirit of self-promotion,
hype, and commodification that became so integralto the
disseminationof postmodernism.
53

assemblage 8
Should deconstructivism, however, manage to sustain any overlookedis that the initial critique of modern architec-
subversivequalities in the face of these forces, other ques- ture stemmed from a dissatisfactionwith the forces that in
tions arise:Are radical formal statementsnecessarilythe fact constitute "technocraticand bureaucraticsociety."In
most appropriatemeans to shelter people whose lives are other words, the reificationand reductivismof modernism
alreadyfilled with the disruptionand frustrationthat were partlya product of those forces that both strainsof
deconstructivistarchitecturecelebrates?Would scarce postmodernismhave "reinforced."From the same perspec-
resourcesfor public housing be more appropriatelyspent tive, historicistand poststructuralistadvocatescould not
on day-care centers, sportsfacilities, and largerhousing have anticipatedthe power of an increasinglycommercial-
units than on structuralacrobatics?The avant-gardedesire ized society to control the evolution of an artisticmove-
"epaterla bourgeoisie"may fulfill the architect'sneed for a ment, how rapidlyeffortsto preserveand modify a cultural
radical self-image, but it does little in this era of social situation would themselves become sterile and
retrenchmentto improve the everydaylife of the poor and commodified.
dispossessed. What seems to be operatingin recent architecturaldevel-
Perhapsnot surprising,women, blacks, and other minori- opments is a process by which a movement, whose initial
ties have been notably silent voices in these recent theoret- critique and experimentationis vigorousand challenging,
ical debates. While the reasons are complex and diverse, a becomes increasinglylifeless and routinizedas it becomes
few immediately come to the fore: the elitist atmosphere part of the dominant culture. Thomas Crow has described
induced by both the hermetic forms and an obscure dis- the avant-gardeas "a kind of researchand development
course, the aggressiverhetoric of subversionthat rings of a arm of the culture industry.'"61Both postmodernismand
new machismo, the exclusionaryforums of promotion, deconstructivismcan be seen as having stakedout areasof
and probablymost fundamental, the denial of real institu- cultural practicethat retain some vitalityin an increasingly
tional transformation.59 Deconstructivistforms reject nos- administeredand rationalizedsociety:the postmodernists
talgia, historicistfabrication, and the postmoderndenial of by looking to forms that predatethe hegemony of bureau-
the present, but they embody another kind of forgetting- cratic modernization;the poststructuralists by challenging
a forgettingof the social itself. A tendency that began as a the preceptsof rationalityand of order itself. But just as
reaction against the conservativeethos of postmodernism both these tendencies discoverareas not yet part of com-
and contemporarypolitical life threatensto become an modity culture, they make their existence discreteand
even more extreme embodiment of that same ethos. visible, and thus subject to the market'smanipulation.62
This cycle of appropriationcan easily be used to justifythe
A Fin de Siicle? cynicism and social passivitythat are such strongcompo-
In 1980, summarizing architecture'snew political cast, nents of postmodernismin all of its colors. Indeed, it is
Robert Stern wrote, "Post-modernismis not revolutionary precisely this cycle that has bred the split between politics
in either the political or artisticsense; in fact, it reinforces and aesthetics:"There'snothing to be done";hence "Any-
the effect of the technocratic and bureaucraticsociety in thing goes." But these conclusions assume the total impo-
which we live - traditionalpost-modernismby accepting tence of the cultural sphere, an impotence that is belied by
conditions and trying to modify them, schismatic post- the fears of both Right and Left and by the initial vitality
modernism [i.e., Eisenman] by proposinga condition out- of postmodernismitself. In some ways, the political resig-
side Western Humanism, thereby permittingWestern nation of contemporaryarchitectureis simply a reversalof
Humanist culture to proceed uninterruptedthough not the utopian aspirationsof the modern movement. Both fall
necessarilyunaffected.'"60 However disturbing,Stern's into an either/or mentality that obscuresthe complexity of
assessment, made on the eve of the Reagan era, seems on relationsbetween form and politics. It would appearthat
the mark. But what Stern and most of his contemporaries part of the problem lies in postmodernism'scriticism of
54

McLeod
modernism itself. Both the historicistand poststructuralist the Arts (Westport,Conn.: Green- ment are fully acknowledgedin
tendencies correctlypointed to the failuresof the modern wood Press, 1985), 19-46. many of his essays (see especially
his introduction to Five Architects
movement's instrumentalrationality,its narrowteleology, 3. Stern uses the term "schismatic
[New York:Wittenborn, 1972] and
and its overblown faith in technology, but these two posi- postmodernism"in his essay "The his essay "The Architectureof Uto-
Doubles of Post-Modern,"75-87,
tions have erred in another direction:in their abjurationof pia," in Mathematics of the Ideal
citing as examples the work of John Villa [Cambridge,Mass.: MIT
all realms of the social and in their assumptionthat form
Cage, William Gass, and Peter
remains either a critical or affirmativetool independent of Eisenman. Eisenman himself Press, 1976]) and in fact become a
social and economic processes. That contemporaryarchi- subject of criticism in the setting
employs the term "decomposition" forth of his own polemicalagenda.
tecture has become so much about surface, image, and to describe his own work, beginning
The involvement of the modern
with his book House X. The term
play, and that its content has become so ephemeral, so "deconstructivism"recently received
movement with technology and
readily transformableand consumable, is partiallya prod- mass culture has been a topic of
official sanction with the Museum
uct of the neglect of the materialdimensions of architec- considerableinterest among con-
of Modern Art'sexhibition Decon-
ture - program, production, financing, and so forth - structivistArchitecture.Joseph temporaryscholars, including Man-
fredo Tafuri, Stanislausvon Moos,
that more directly involve questions of power. And by pre- Giovannini claims to have first
Nikolaus Bullock, and Jean-Louis
coined the term. See Joseph Gio-
cluding issues of gender, race, ecology, and poverty,post- vannini, "BreakingAll the Rules,"
Cohen.
modernism and deconstructivismhave also forsakenthe New YorkTimes Magazine, 12 June 5. The word "historicist"refers in
development of a more vital and sustained heterogeneity. 1988. this instance, as it commonly does
The formal and the social costs are too high when the in discussions of postmodern archi-
4. In many instances, of course, tecture, to the use of historical
focus is so exclusively on form. these themes were more visible on a forms and styles in designs. Until
formal than a material plane. There the emergence of postmodernism,
is no equivalent in architecturecrit- the term was most frequentlyasso-
icism to Clement Greenberg'sor ciated with revivalistand eclectic
Notes and experimentationsuggest that he
Theodor Adorno'stheories of mod-
would not be in sympathywith the tendencies in nineteenth-century
I would like to thank Alan ernism as artisticautonomy. In the architecture, which rejected the
Colquhoun, Stephen Frankel, Rob- subsequent development of post- firstgeneration of historiansof
modern architecture. See Daniel static ideal embraced by the previ-
ert Heintges, MarkTreib, Bernard modernism, Nikolaus Pevsnerand
Bell, The Cultural Contradictions ous classical concept. Nineteenth-
Tschumi, and, especially, Joan SiegfriedGiedion created genealo-
of Capitalism (New York:Basic century stylistic eclecticism was
Ockman, who all generously gies that incorporatedthe social linked to the emergence of the
reviewedand commented on an Books, 1976), 51-55, 264; idem, vision of the Arts and Crafts move-
"Beyond Modernism, Beyond Self" philosophical concept of historicism
earlier draftof this article. I am also ment, the structuralrationalismof
in The Winding Passage:Essays in late-eighteenth-centuryand
extremely gratefulfor the insightful engineering, and the aesthetic inno- early-nineteenth-centuryGermany,
criticism and encouragement of and SociologicalJourneys1960- vations of cubism (the first two for
1980 (Cambridge, Mass.: ABT but it did not result necessarily in
Richard Pommer, Michael Hays, Pevsner, the latter two for Giedion). an acceptance of relativism. For a
and Alicia Kennedy. Books, 1980), 288-89; and Robert In the second generation, historians discussion of historicism in archi-
Stern, "The Doubles of Post- such as Reyner Banham and Wil-
1. Daniel Bell's criticisms of post- tecture, see Alan Colquhoun,
Modern," HarvardArchitecture liam Jordyplace greaterstresson
modernism predate most archi- Review 1 (1980): 87. Hilton Kra- "Three Kinds of Historicism,"
tecturaldevelopments and the symbolic dimensions and aca- Oppositions 26 (Spring 1984):
mer's attackson postmodern archi- demic heritage of the modern
consequently focus on literaryand 29-39.
tecture can be found throughout
philosophical trends, which are movement, which undoubtedly
the pages of the New Criterion. 6. See Robert Gutman, Architec-
often at odds in their rejection of more stronglyemphasizes its artistic
tural Practice:A Critical View
representation,history, and human- 2. "Beyondthe Modern Move- interpretation.Neither group, how-
ever, presentsa teleology of form (Princeton:Princeton Architectural
ism with those in architecture. ment," HarvardArchitectureReview
that stressesarchitecture'sisolation Press, 1988), esp. 3-12, 21-22.
Robert Stern has, in fact, cited 1 (1980): 4. For a more extended
Bell's cultural criticism as justifica- discussion of the role of "meaning" as a discipline. Colin Rowe perhaps 7. The growing public presence of
tion for his own postmodernposi- in postmodernarchitecture, see comes closest to the formalism of architectureis itself an indication of
tion. But Bell's attackon the Mary McLeod, "Architecture,"in some art critics of the postwar a broaderdissolution of the bound-
The PostmodernMoment: A Hand- period, but the social and symbolic aries between culture, economics,
populism of HerbertCans and his
general disapprovalof hedonism book of ContemporaryInnovation in aspirationsof the modern move- and politics brought on by com-
55

assemblage 8
modity capitalism. This dissolution ever, raises other political issues, to were radicallydifferent. Third, ies, which are among the most bru-
(underscoredin very concrete terms be discussed later in the essay. there was little modern architecture tal, degrading,and corruptthat
by the transformationof a movie 12. Le Corbusier, Vers une archi- in the United States of the 1920s consumer society has ever cre-
star into a president)can be seen as and 1930s against which to com- ated. . . . Las Vegas is not a crea-
tecture(Paris:Editions Cres, 1923);
having made power more diffuse, Towardsa New Architecture,trans. pare the later works. tion by the people, but for the
but also as having made issues of people. It is the final product ...
FrederickEtchells (New York:Prae- 17. See Rowe, Addendum, 1973,
control in everydaylife more criti- of more than half a century of
ger, 1960), 211. to "The Architectureof Utopia,"
cal from a political perspective. masked manipulatoryviolence .
13. Claude Schnaidt, Hannes 213-17, and Colin Rowe and Fred
8. See Alan Colquhoun, "Post- Koetter,Collage City (Cambridge, (TomaisMaldonado, Design,
Meyer:Bauten, Projekteund Schrif- Nature and Revolution:Towarda
modernism and Structuralism:A Mass.: MIT Press, 1978). Rowe's
ten: Buildings, Projectsand Writ- Critical Ecology, trans. Mario
RetrospectiveGlance," Assemblage language of "fragment"and "col-
5 (1988): 7. ings (Teufen: Verlag ArthurNiggli, Domandi [New York:Harperand
1965), 25. lage" in many respectspresages
Row, 1972], 60, 65).
9. See Walter Benjamin, "The contemporarypoststructuralist
14. There are, of course, excep- discourse.
Work of Art in the Age of Mechan- 20. Denise Scott Brown, "Pop Off:
tions to this, notably the De Stijl
ical Reproduction,"Illuminations, 18. RobertVenturi and Denise Reply to Kenneth Frampton,"in A
ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry group and some of the Russian
constructivistsof the early 1920s. Scott Brown, "'Leadingfrom the View from the Campidoglio, 34-37.
Zohn (New York:Schocken Books, Rear':Reply to Martin Pawley," Scott Brown argues that Frampton
Paradoxically,we might see modern
1969), 239-40. architecture'schallenge to existing ArchitecturalDesign 40 (July 1970): is caught between two contradictory
social patterns(particularlyoutside 320, 370; reprintedin A View from positions, an endorsement of Mar-
10. What may appearoppressive
the Campidoglio:SelectedEssays cuse's social critique and a rejection
and totalitarianin one situation Germany) as more successful on a
formal ratherthan an economic 1953-84, ed. Peter Arnell, Ted of Gropius'ssocial architecture,and
for instance, the strippedclassicism
Bickford,and Catherine Bergart that he does not acknowledgetheir
of Nazi Germany - may appear level. The new forms and composi-
(New York:Harperand Row, shared rejection of populist culture.
progressiveand democratic in tional strategiesraisedquestions
another - for instance, the similar about traditionalhierarchiesthat 1984), 24.
21. Also of importancewere Her-
forms of Roosevelt'sNew Deal elevated the monumental over the bert Gans's two other books The
19. Kenneth Frampton, "America
America. Within differentcontexts, everyday,the public over the pri- 1960-1970: Notes on Urban Images Urban Villagers:Group and Class
the same forms might serve as pro- vate, the formal over the informal, and Theory," Casabella 35, nos. in the Life of Italo-Americans(New
paganda, criticism, or tacit affirma- the male over the female. 359-360 (December 1971): 25-37. York:The Free Press, 1962) and
tion of values. 15. For a discussion of this divi- In this essay Frampton'ssolution is Popular Culture and High Culture:
11. Here I intentionally do not sion, see George Baird, "La Dimen- a far cry from the "criticalregional- An Analysis and Evaluation of
sion Amoureusein Architecture,"in ism" that he professesa decade Taste (New York:Basic Books,
invoke Walter Benjamin's aspiration
Meaning in Architecture,ed. later. Here he questions how much 1974). Another sociologist fre-
to a complete integrationof tech-
Charles Jencksand George Baird legitimate populism remains in quently mentioned during this
nique and content, expressedin his
Author as (New York:Braziller, 1969), 79-99; American culture and proposesthe period was Melvin Webber. See,
essay "The Producer," in
and McLeod, "Architecture,"27- "semi-indeterminate"infrastructures especially, Melvin M. Webber,
Reflections, ed. Peter Demetz (New 28. of ShadrachWoods as urban design "The Urban Place and the Non-
York:HarcourtBrace Jovanovich,
models that simultaneouslyaccom- place Urban Realm," in Explora-
1979), 220-38. Benjamin's objec- 16. Several historical reasons exist
modate technology and the specific- tions into Urban Structure
tive is not unrelated to that of some for the failure of the first post-
modern critics to distinguish ities of place. (Philadelphia:Universityof Penn-
modern architects, especially
Hannes Meyer, Ernst May, and between the modernism of the sylvania Press, 1964). Scott Brown
Tom~isMaldonado'scritique of
and Venturi often cited Gans and
Mart Stam, but the interface 1950s and that of the 1920s and Scott Brown and Venturi'sposition
between art and politics has rarely 1930s. First, the continuing pres- Webber in their early writings.
is similar to Frampton's.In a chap-
been so clean. Often what is a pro- ence of Gropius and Mies gave to ter entitled "LasVegas and the 22. Shopping centers have provided
gressivetendency in terms of tech- most Americans an impressionof Semiological Abuse," he writes: one of the most importantsites for
nique may not be such in terms of modernism'scontinuity. Second, "There is also a kind of cultural
the disseminationof postmodern
content, and vice versa;and many American practitionersof the nihilism which, consciously or
architectureoutside of major metro-
depending on the context, one 1950s (in contrastto those in Italy, unconsciously, exalts the statusquo. politan areas.
dimension may take on more politi- for instance) did not themselves dis- We find an example of it among
cal importance than another. The tinguish their work from that of the those who are singing paeans to the 23. See Richard L. Berke,
total separationof the two, how- prewarperiod, even if the forms 'landscape'of certain American cit- "DukakisSays He Would Commit
56

McLeod
$3 Billion to Build New Housing," 29. Robert Venturi, "The RIBA has brought a proliferationof to architects of Learning from Las
New YorkTimes, 29 June 1988. Annual Discourse," Transactions 1 "CharlestonPlace," whether the Vegas, perhaps in a desire to make
(1981-82); reprintedin A View context is a Westchestersuburb or a connections to their own disci-
24. Many (including Michael
from the Campidoglio, 109. Florida resortcommunity. plines. Complexityand Contradic-
Graves, Thomas Gordon Smith, tion in Architecturehad a much
and Steven Peterson), of course, 30. Quoted in Paolo Portoghesi, 35. Ando does not appear in the
greaterimpact on architects, and
have not. One of the strongest Postmodem:The Architectureof the original essay, but is often cited in the vast majorityof its examples are
defenses of postmodernarchitecture PostindustrialSociety (New York: Frampton'slectures. from high culture. It was really
coming from the Left is Linda Rizzoli, 1983), 33. Johnson wrote 36. These qualities could, of only at the Yale University School
Hutcheon's article, "The Politics of this letter after having read Jiirgen
course, be regional, if techniques of Architecturethat Scott Brown
Postmodernism:Parodyand His- Joedicke'sHistory of Modem and materialswere particularto a and Venturi's interest in pop cul-
tory,"Cultural Critique 5 (Winter Architecture.
region. But that hardly seems to be ture stimulated a major response. It
1986-87): 179-207. Hutcheon 31. The word "postmodern"should the case with the materials, such as is probablyfair to say that most fig-
claims here that postmodernworks be qualified in reference to Ven- concrete block and metal paneling, urative imagery in postmodernism
are "resolutelyhistorical and in- turi's work. Certainly, his mother's used by Ando and Botta. derives from historical architectural
escapablypolitical precisely because house predatesany public acknowl- styles ratherthan popular culture.
37. Marc Treib, "Regionalismand
they are parodistic"and that they
edgment of the movement, South Florida Architecture,"con- 40. The document states:"The
expose "the contradictionsof although it probablyinfluenced the
modernism in an explicitly political ference paper, The Architectural architect is neither the omnipotent
subsequent development of post- Club of Miami, 1986. In Florida, master nor the slave of spacio-
light." The ease with which parody modernism in the United States
loses its critical edge will be for example, compare the regionally cultural models, universalor local.
more than any other design. Ven-
addressedlater. responsivedesigns of Paul Rudolph, His proposed role is to interpret
turi himself has been extremely Rufus Nim, and Robert Brown of them within the frameworkof the
25. Charles Jencks, The Language critical of most postmodernarchi- the 1950s and the early 1960s to continuity of civilization. Reducing
of Post-Modem Architecture,3d ed. tecture for its "simplistic, esoteric" the conventional wall surfacesand architectureto its utilitarianfunc-
(New York:Rizzoli, 1981), 37. use of historicistforms and for its roof details of most contemporary tion is to remove its role as a means
dependence on a high-art heritage.
26. Robert Venturi, Complexity postmodernarchitecture. Of course, of social communication. From the
and Contradiction in Architecture See, especially, Venturi, "The some modern architectsdid experi- moment the language of models
RIBA Annual Discourse," and, ment with air conditioning as one
(New York:Museum of Modern was replaced with the newspeakof
idem, "Diversity,Relevance and responseto climatic conditions, and
Art, 1966), 44. towers, bars and grands ensembles,
Representationin Historicism, or in the case of Le Corbusier'sSalva- the town has become monotonous,
27. For a more extended discussion Plus CaChange ... plus a Plea for tion Army Pavilion the results were
of some of these issues, see illegible and dead for its inhabit-
Patternall over Architecturewith a disastrous. ants. A town must be built on the
McLeod, "Architecture,"31-42. Postscripton my Mother's House," basis of elemental housing models,
Paradoxically,for Walter Benjamin ArchitecturalRecord(June 1982): 38. The quote continues: "I like
roads and squares."Quoted in Por-
the distractedmode of architecture's 114-19; reprintedin A View from that, but am growing impatient
with fifty-yearswings, and wonder toghesi, Postmodern,46.
reception is paradigmaticof the new the Campidoglio, 104-18.
media - film, photography, whether a more suitable model for 41. See Andreas Huyssen's more
32. Jencks, The Language of Post- us might be Goldilocks, of Three
journalism- on which he places general, and extremely insightful,
Modem Architecture,37. Bears fame, who found some things comments about the trajectoryof
so much political hope. But in con-
trastto the postmodernistswho 33. Paul Ricoeur, "UniversalCivi- (Papa Bear's)too hot or too hard or postmodernism, "Mappingthe Post-
stressarchitecture'sreception as art, lization and National Cultures" too big, and other things (Mama modern," in After the Great Divide:
Benjamin seeks transformation (1961), in History and Truth, trans. Bear's)too cold, too soft, or too Modernism, Mass Culture, Post-
through a gradual, almost uncon- C. A. Kelbey (Evanston:North- small, but still other things (Baby modernism(Bloomington and Indi-
scious, change of habit and expec- western University Press, 1965), Bear's)just right, inhabitable, as we anapolis:Indiana University Press,
tation; in other words, a reception 277; quoted in Kenneth Frampton, architectswould say"(Charles 1986), esp. 188.
of distractionratherthan of atten- "Towardsa Critical Regionalism: Moore:Buildings and Projects
42. Venturi, for instance, writes:
tion is now to architecture'spoliti- Six Points for an Architectureof 1949-1986, ed. Eugene J. Johnson
"Industrypromotes expensive indus-
cal advantage. See Benjamin, "The Resistance,"in The Anti-Aesthetic: [New York:Rizzoli, 1986]). trial and electronic researchbut not
Work of Art in the Age of Mechan- Essays on PostmodernCulture, ed. 39. Critics coming from other dis- architecturalexperiments, and the
ical Reproduction,"239-40. Hal Foster (Port Townsend, Wash.: Federal government divertssubsi-
ciplines, such as FredricJameson
Bay Press, 1983), 16-17. and AndreasHuyssen, seem, how- dies towardair transportation,com-
28. Stern, "The Doubles of Post-
Modern," 87. 34. For instance, the last decade ever, to exaggeratethe importance munication, and the vast enterprises
57

assemblage 8
of war or, as they call it, national lematic is the inclusion of Gehry in workdiffersfrom that of the other 54. That effortsto construct an
security, ratherthan towardthe this group, as his use of the diago- designersin the MoMA exhibition architecturalmodel of "logo-
forces for the direct enhancement of nal stems more from perceptual and from most student work that centrism"exclude more of architec-
life. The practicing architect must concerns in contemporarysculpture embracesa neoconstructivist tural historythan they include
admit this" (Complexityand Con- than from a revivalismof construc- aesthetic. raises doubts about whether any-
tradiction, 44). tivist imagery. Influenced by the 48. Peter Eisenman, "The End of thing other than the latest architec-
work of this group, however, a the Classical:The End of the tural style is being "deconstructed"
43. In choosing to discuss post-
trend towardformal fragmentation or disturbedat all. For instance, in
modernism and deconstructivism, Beginning, the End of the End,"
can be observedamong younger the exhibition catalogue for the
which have both been placed by Perspecta21 (1984): 166.
architectsand students:the post- MoMA show MarkWigley writes,
critics under a broaderrubric of 49. Tschumi, CinegrammeFolie,
modern historicistforms of the late "Buildingsare constructedby taking
postmodernism, I do not mean to 8.
1970s and early 1980s have virtually simple geometric forms - cubes,
suggest that I am addressingthe
entire contemporaryfield. In the disappearedfrom student drafting 50. See especially the critiques of cylinders, spheres, cones, pyramids,
boards. Huyssen, "Mappingthe Post- and so on - and combining them
United States numerous architec-
modern," 206-11, and EdwardW. into stable ensembles, following
tural firms, in fact, still practice a 46. In fact, at various moments
form of "late modernism," whose Said, "The Problem of Textuality: compositional rules which prevent
both Tschumi and Eisenman have
Two ExemplaryPositions,"in Aes- any one form from conflicting with
vocabularyof stripped-downforms called for a broaderconception of another. No form is permittedto
is highly indebted to the Inter- thetics Today, ed. Morris Philipson
the term "postmodernism,"one that distortanother;all potential conflict
national Style. As well, among and Paul J. Gudel, rev. ed. (New
would embrace all contemporary is resolved."Mannerist, baroque,
other currents, numerous practi- York:New American Library,
movements that reject the rational
tioners are exploring an abstract 1980), 113-29. One of the most picturesque,and German expres-
instrumentalityof modernism and sionist architecture- not to men-
architecturalvocabulary,which its concomitant claims of universal- cogent political critiquesof decon-
struction is BarbaraFoley, "The tion many areas of non-Western
cannot readilybe classified as either ity. See especially Peter Eisenman, Politics of Deconstruction,"in architecture- are ignored in this
deconstructivistor modernist. "The Futility of Objects:Decompo-
Rhetoricand Form: Deconstruction reductiveand ahistoricalaccount.
44. Libeskind'sphilosophical stance sition and the Processesof Differ- See MarkWigley, "Deconstructivist
at Yale, ed. RobertCon Davis and
derives from phenomenology, and ence," HarvardArchitectureReview Ronald Schleifer (Norman, Okla: Architecture,"in Deconstructivist
Koolhaas'seclectic position seems 3 (1984): 66, 81; and Bernard
Universityof Oklahoma Press, Architecture,ed. Philip Johnson
more indebted to surrealismand the Tschumi, CinegrammeFolie: Le and MarkWigley (New York:
Parc de la Villette (Princeton: 1985), 113-34.
hedonism of the 1960s than to Museum of Modern Art, 1988).
Princeton ArchitecturalPress, 51. Here, the deconstructivist
poststructuralisttheories. Both 55. GayatriChakravortySpivak's
Hadid and Gehry are loath to give 1987), 7. Among the critics who model of "no meaning/endless
have attemptedto link these two meaning"risksbeing as deceptive as term "strategicessentialism"seems
philosophical labels to their work.
The differencesbetween Eisenman tendencies is Hal Foster. See espe- the postmodernassumptionof especially appropriatein this con-
cially his essay "(Post)Modern "transparentcommunication." text. See In Other Worlds:Essays
and Libeskind'sposition are articu-
Polemics," Perspecta21 (1984); in Cultural Politics (New York:
lated clearly in Libeskind'sessay 52. Eisenman specificallyprecludes
"Peter Eisenman and the Myth of reprintedin Recodings:Art, Spec- Methuen, 1987).
the creation of place as an objec-
Futility," HarvardArchitecture tacle, Cultural Politics (PortTown- tive. In an unpublished manuscript 56. See Michel Foucault, "What Is
Review 3 (1984): 61-63. send, Wash.: Bay Press, 1987), of 1987, he statesthat "if architec- an Author?"in Language, Counter-
121-36. Like Stern'sessay "The ture traditionallyhas been about Memory,Practice:Selected Essays
45. Certainly, Koolhaas'sand Doubles of Post-Modern,"Foster's
'topos,' that is, an idea of place, and Interviews,ed. Donald F. Bou-
Eisenman's architecturehas been
"(Post)ModernPolemics" outlines then to be 'between,' is to search chard, trans. Donald F. Bouchard
largely orthogonal, and any diago- two kinds of postmodernism:neo- and Sherry Simon (Ithaca:Cornell
nals that appear(one suspects for 'atopos,'the atopia within topos"
conservative(eclectic historicism) UniversityPress, 1977), 113-38;
MoMA must have been hard (Eisenman, "The Blueline Text,"
and poststructuralist(decenteringof and Roland Barthes, "The Death of
pressedto find the "right"Koolhaas 5). I am gratefulto Sharon Haar for
the object), with Eisenman's work, the Author,"in Image, Music,
project)are within standardmodern alerting me to this text.
again, serving as the only example Text, ed. and trans. Stephen Heath
formal practice. But Eisenman's of architecturein the latter 53. Jean-FranCoisLyotard,The
combination of orthogonal forms PostmodernCondition: A Reporton (New York:Hill and Wang, 1977),
category. 142-48.
and diagonal "events"is more remi- Knowledge,trans. Geoff Bennington
niscent of Le Corbusier and early 47. Both Tschumi and Koolhaas and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: 57. Huyssen argues that the rejec-
Stirling than of some of his decon- have focused on programin their University of Minnesota Press, tion of authorshipin poststructural-
structivistpeers. Perhaps most prob- urban projects;in this respecttheir 1984). ist theory "merelyduplicates on the
58

McLeod
level of aesthetics and theory what and Mass Culture," in Modernism Figure Credits
capitalism as a system of exchange and Modernity, The Vancouver 7, 13, 18, 19, 24, 27, 28, 30.
relationsproduces tendentially in Conference Papers, ed. Benjamin Courtesy of the architects.
everydaylife: the denial of subjec- H. D. Buchloh, Serge Guilbaut,
8. Photographby Rollin R.
tivity in the very process of its con- and David Solkin (Halifax, Nova
Lafrance.
struction. Poststructuralismthus Scotia: Press of the Nova Scotia
attacksthe appearanceof capitalist College of Art and Design, 1983), 9. Photographby Peter Aaron,
culture - individualism writ large 253. The following argument draws ESTO.
- but misses its essence." (Huys- on Crow's analysis. 12. Photographby the author.
sen, "Mappingthe Postmodern," 62. The same, of course, can be 14. Photographby Paschall/Taylor.
213). said of the critic, and in writing this
58. Ibid. The feminist SandraGil- 16. Photographby Ed Stocklein.
article, I have often wondered
bert has labeled such "subjectless" whether I am only fueling the 17. Photographby Cymie Payne.
theory "fatherspeech," because it fashionabilityof deconstructivismby 20. Photographby Wiliam Taylor.
once more refuseswomen a public giving it so much attention. But for
basis for speech and solidarity.See the critic, as for the architect, the 25. Forum 30, no. 2 (1985-86):
Gerald Graff, "Feminist Criticism only means to counter this cycle is 82.
in the University:An Interviewwith continual scrutiny and questioning. 26, 29, 31. DeconstructivistArchi-
Sandra M. Gilbert," in Criticism in This may not prevent cooptation, tecture (New York:Museum of
the University, ed. Gerald Graff but it may slow its processesand Modern Art, 1988).
and Reginald Gibbons (Evanston: raise new possibilitiesfor cultural
NorthwesternUniversityPress, and political exploration. All other illustrationsfrom publica-
tions as noted in captions.
1985), 119; see also Bruce Robbins,
"The Politics of Theory," Social
Text 18 (Winter 1987-88), 11.
Although many feminist and
minority critics have found aspects
of poststructuralisttheory liberating
as far as it dismantles unspoken
assumptionsof patriarchaldiscourse
- older, oppressivecategoriessuch
as "race,""women," "the people"
- many of these same individuals
also fear that poststructuralisttheory
subvertsthe categoriesof resistance
itself.
59. For an insightful analysis of
recent deconstructionistrhetoric in
architecturaldiscourse, see Joan
Ockman, "Some Rhetorical Ques-
tions/In Response to Mark Rakatan-
sky,"Conference on Architectural
Theory, SOM Foundation, Chi-
cago, 9-11 September 1988. (The
proceedingsof this conference are
to be published in the coming
year.)
60. Stern, "The Doubles of Post-
Modern," 82-83.
61. Thomas Crow, "Modernism
59


McLeod-Architecture and Politics in The Reagan Era-Assemblage 8-1989

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McLeod-Architecture and Politics in The Reagan Era-Assemblage 8-1989

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Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism

Author(s): Mary McLeod

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MaryMcLeodis AssociateProfessor of "Postmodernarchitectureis the architectureof Reagan-

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Architectureand Politics to a particularsocial context and historical moment. 10

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form, although to separatethe two would have been vir-

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new order. Following HerbertMarcuse, many Marxists

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shared, however, was a sense that modernismwas failing to

housing projects, it was soon apparentthat their focus was

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anything to encourage architectsto challenge their elimi- Historical Styles

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7. RobertVenturi (Venturiand, Short),Vanna Venturi House,

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8. Thomas H. Beeby, Harold

9. RobertA. M. Stern, Pool

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10. Advertisement for luxury 11. "The New Traditionalist,"

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12. RobertVenturi and John

13. Michael Graves,San Juan

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pretensions,blatant materialism,pseudoculture,a level of

Urban Contextualismand Typology

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16. RobertA. M. Stern, Roose-

17. Stern, The Hamptons, Lexington, Massachusetts,1985

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18. CharlesMoore (Moore,

19. CharlesMoore and William

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20. Michael Graves,Walt Dis-

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Charles Gande Oproo-ress 0'

21. RobertA. M. Stern starring

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before the full emergence of historicisttendencies. They

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will undoubtedly either inhibit deconstructivism'sextension Formal Hermeticism

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26. Zaha M. Hadid,The Peak (a

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ture, which, as alreadysuggested, does not lend itself read-

The aestheticizationof deconstructivistarchitectureis cer-

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29. FrankO. Gehry,model,

30. Gehry,Loyola Law School,

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But the implicationsof otheraspectsof deconstructivism's

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