milk-substitute: April 2010

Friday, April 16, 2010

good ol' arthur erickson [on modernism]:

top: fire island, new york, 1977 // bottom: hugh eppich house, west vancouver, 1979

The house became a "machine to live in." Truth to materials, to form, to space, to technics, to purpose were the qualities that were the rallying cry of modernism. Style was eschewed as Victorian eclecticism. In the ridding of all superfluous embellishments, honesty was the goal. But, the public's objection to the meagerness of the "functional aesthetic" eventually became modernism undoing. Over time architects and builders misinterpreted simplicity as plainness, lack of detail for crudity, modesty for cheapness, structural veracity as a boring "grid". Builders eventually took advantage of the look of modernism to build cheaply and carelessly, exhibiting their cynical view of a passing fashion. ( love this guy!...keep reading) So it was no surprise that the reaction to the bareness of ill conceived modernist buildings was to revert in the 80's to a revival of historicism in the guise of "post-modernism". That sad caper influenced nearly everyone in the building trade because it appealed to the public taste for antique references. That Dark Age is thankfully over but cultural insecurity is always there, hidden in the basement of our psyches - ready to spring out whenever brave confidence falters. It lingers in the gated communities where make-believe has become an adult panacea. It lingers with the developers who promote kitsch because it sells. It lingers with the newly rich and the establishment who need to consolidate social standing with class accepted standards. It lingers in every shopping centre, multiplex, restaurant, Vegas casino where illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.