Making it modern : the history of Modernism in architecture and design / Aaron Betsky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Betsky, Aaron, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Modern movement (Architecture).

Modern movement (Architecture)--History.

Design--History.

Design.

Modernism (Art)--History.

Modernism (Art).

History.

Local Subjects:

Modern movement (Architecture).

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

351 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Actar Publishers, [2016]

Summary:

At its root, modernism is that fundamental. It is a question of having something to represent that is of the moment. In the most radical interpretation, modernism always comes too late. The modern is that which is always new, which is to say, always changing and already old by the time it has appeared. Modernism is always a retrospective act, one of documenting or trying to catch what has already appeared - an attempt to fix life as it is being lived. Modernity is just the very fact that we as human beings are continually remaking the world around us through our actions, and are doing so consciously. Modernism is a monument to or memory of that act, which in its own making tries to remake the world it is pretending to represent.

Contents:

What modern is: introduction

Space opens up

Staging modernity: the aesthetics of the future

A new style of life: artifacts of modernity

At home in the brave new world

Buildings like crystals, forms as cold ice: the styling of modernity

Toward totality: planning for perfection

The human form endures: contingent modernism

Wooden ships: the modernism of complexity and contradiction

After modernism: experimental design

Re-modernism: design for sprawl.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-344) and index.

ISBN:

9781940291154

1940291151

OCLC:

911019818