2.6 POST-MODERNISM (1979-1992)

Less Is A Bore

The economic crises of the 1970s signalled the end of the post-war consensus which viewed state intervention in economic and social aspects of people’s lives as not only entirely acceptable, but entirely necessary. Since 1945, Modernist architects had benefited from this political outlook. The need to physically rebuild the country, and the desire to avoid the mistakes of the past, coincided neatly with Modernist theories on planning and the Modernists’ conviction that their architecture could engineer a better life for the country’s citizens. By the end of the 1970s, high-rise tower blocks, planned housing schemes, New Towns, steel and glass office blocks and schools, were common elements in the British urban landscape.

But Modernism’s ubiquity had led to its fall from favour. Economic crises were accompanied by social crises: unemployment, poverty, drug abuse, alienation and family breakdown soon became synonymous in the public mind with the Modernist housing estates which were supposed to banish such problems forever.

Architects on both sides of the Atlantic began to look beyond the Modernist orthodoxy. One of the earliest pioneers of the new ‘Post-Modern’ Movement was American theorist and architect Robert Venturi. His take on Mies Van Der Rohe signalled his rejection of Modernist theory; “Less is not more”, he wrote, “Less is a bore.”

A Monstrous Carbuncle

Venturi believed that buildings which attempted to be ahistorical were somehow not as rich or as interesting as those which gave a conscious nod to, or borrowed from, the past. The forests of standard apartment blocks and glass towers which were the most obvious examples of the Modern canon seemed to him humourless and soulless, lacking the vitality which diversity brings to the urban landscape. Venturi even talked up the architectural virtues of Art Deco and admired the gaudiness of Las Vegas, Nevada. A more striking contrast to the pure, clinical work of Mies Van Der Rohe is hard to imagine.

Robert Venturi also found himself a bit-part player in one of the most famous architectural arguments of recent years, when his firm was eventually given the chance to design the Sainsbury Wing of London’s National Gallery. In 1984 Prince Charles gave an address to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in which he described the proposed extension to the building as “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.” The Prince went on; “Why can’t we have those curves and arches that express feeling in design? What is wrong with them? Why has everything got to be vertical, straight, unbending, only at right angles- and functional?”

Forks in the Road

The Prince’s intervention shocked the architectural establishment, and was cheered by the public. The speech also proved to be something of a launch-pad for a royal crusade against Modernist Architecture, the concrete result of which was Poundbury, a village development in Dorchester which rejected every precept of the Modern Movement and instead attempted to recreate an archetypal English country village, complete with narrow, winding streets and traditional stone cottages.

By now, many architects had long since abandoned Modernism. Canary Wharf Tower, a monument to 1980s corporatism, echoed an earlier classicism; Terry Farrell’s MI6 Building and his TV-AM Studios in London threw the Modernist rulebook out of the window. And the two most prominent British architects of the era, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, whilst considering themselves to be committed Modernists, were virtually alone in being able to attract private clients to continue building in the Modernist tradition. These differing paths meant that by the start of the 1990s, the once ubiquitous Modern Movement, which had promised an international architecture, was crowded out by the resurgent heritage movement, by post-modern humour, and by the triumph of private capital over the public purse.

2.7 REVIVAL (1993- )

Rethink

The legacy of the Modern Movement is obvious in every British town or city today. The thoughts of Le Corbusier and the influence of Mies Van Der Rohe can be seen in High Streets and suburbs the length and breadth of the country. Yet public reaction to the great Modernist experiment remains ambivalent at best, and hostile at worst. Prince Charles’ complaint that Modern Buildings don’t have enough curves, Robert Venturi’s gripes that Modernism’s legacy is soulless and predictable, and Jane Jacob’s warnings of isolation and social breakdown, are now all commonly accepted criticisms of the Modern Movement by the public at large.

And yet the last decade of the twentieth century saw the beginnings of a revival in the standing of Modernist Architecture. Buildings which were once almost universally scorned have become popular, and architects once lambasted as agents of social collapse have seen their reputations restored.

Gentrification

One of the first to benefit from this reappraisal was Trellick Tower, Erno Goldfinger’s 31 storey tall Brutalist slab in west London. Once dubbed the “Tower of Terror” by the tabloids, Trellick had become a byword for urban squalor and was widely viewed as a spectacular example of architectural megalomania. Now, thanks largely to a well-organised residents’ association, and the installation of basic security measures, including a concierge, apartments in the building are selling for several hundred thousand pounds each. Although most of the block’s flats are still publicly owned, Trellick has become a pop culture icon, printed on t-shirts and featured in pop songs, as well as one of the trendiest addresses in London.

Also newly respectable is Keeling House, Denys Lasdun’s cluster block in east London. Now a wholly private development, Keeling House’s council tenants have been replaced by young professionals keen to find a base near to the City of London, and able to pay in excess of Ј200,000 for the privilege. Penthouse apartments have been installed on the roof. Initially conceived as an attempt to mitigate the potentially alienating effects of Modernist design, Keeling House tells us more about the booming economy of the 1990s than the social idealism of the 1950s.

What’s Left?

But as well as the gradual gentrification of Modernist icons, there has also been a rediscovery of the social purpose of Modernism, after a decade or more in which the public sector was eclipsed by the private sector as the sponsor of innovative architecture. The award-winning Will Alsop considers himself a Modernist even though his most famous buildings, such as the Peckham Library and Media Centre, appear to be the antithesis of the sober Modernist style. Alsop’s work with public sector clients, often in run down urban locations, suggests that the most talented British architects, after a decade of working largely on prestigious corporate projects, have rediscovered the value of public architecture. The Lawn Road Flats will be renovated in 2001, with twenty-five of the thirty-six apartments intended to form part of the ‘Key Workers’ housing policy: i.e. they will be reserved for teachers, nurses, policemen and other public sector workers who might otherwise struggle in the inflated London property market.