Sanctioning Modernism: Architecture and the Making of Postwar Identities

Published by University of Texas Press 2014

Sanctioning Modernism

Architecture and the Making of Postwar Identities

Edited by: Vladimir Kulic , Timothy Parker and Monica Penick
With contributions by: Frederick Steiner

In the series Roger Fullington Series in Architecture

https://doi.org/10.7560/757257

Overview
Contents

About this book

With new research on building programs in political, religious, and domestic settings in the United States and Europe, this collection of essays offers a fresh look at postwar modernism and the role that architecture played in constructing modern identities.

In the decades following World War II, modern architecture spread around the globe alongside increased modernization, urbanization, and postwar reconstruction—and it eventually won widespread acceptance. But as the limitations of conventional conceptions of modernism became apparent, modern architecture has come under increasing criticism. In this collection of essays, experienced and emerging scholars take a fresh look at postwar modern architecture by asking what it meant to be “modern,” what role modern architecture played in constructing modern identities, and who sanctioned (or was sanctioned by) modernism in architecture.

This volume presents focused case studies of modern architecture in three realms—political, religious, and domestic—that address our very essence as human beings. Several essays explore developments in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia and document a modernist design culture that crossed political barriers, such as the Iron Curtain, more readily than previously imagined. Other essays investigate various efforts to reconcile the concerns of modernist architects with the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian institutions. And a final group of essays looks at postwar homebuilding in the United States and demonstrates how malleable and contested the image of the American home was in the mid-twentieth century. These inquiries show the limits of canonical views of modern architecture and reveal instead how civic institutions, ecclesiastical traditions, individual consumers, and others sought to sanction the forms and ideas of modern architecture in the service of their respective claims or desires to be modern.

Author / Editor information

Vladimir Kulic is Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at Florida Atlantic University in Fort Lauderdale. He is the coauthor of Modernism In-Between: The Mediatory Architectures of Socialist Yugoslavia and the coeditor of Unfinished Modernizations—Between Utopia and Pragmatism: Architecture and Urban Planning in the Former Yugoslavia and the Successor States.

Timothy Parker is Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture and Art at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont.

Monica Penick is Assistant Professor in Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Reviews

"An original and significant contribution to the field of architectural/design history. . . . This volume [presents] material that is new to art historical investigation: in particular, studies of eastern European traditions in relation to modernism and to architecture under communism with the Cold War as an important backdrop and context. . . . . The volume questions as well as explores and expands [the more familiar canon of postwar architecture], helps the reader by alluding or directly referencing postmodernism, and allows for an overall reconsideration of assumptions that lead to a fuller and more pluralistic understanding of modern architectural and design history."

— David Raizman, Distinguished University Professor, Westphal College of of Media Arts and Design, Drexel University, and author of History of Modern Design and coeditor of Objects, Audiences, and Literature: Alternative Narratives in the History of Design

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Foreword Frederick Steiner Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Vladimir Kulic, Timothy Parker and Monica Penick Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xii
Introduction. Writing History: Reflections on the Story of Midcentury Modern Architecture Dennis P. Doordan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. MODERNISM AND THE STATE
Introduction Vladimir Kulic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	8
1. Bucharest: Th e City Transfigured Juliana Maxim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
2. The Scope of Socialist Modernism: Architecture and State Representation in Postwar Yugoslavia Vladimir Kulic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
3. Czechoslovakia’s Model Housing Developments: Modern Architecture for the Socialist Future Kimberly Elman Zarecor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
4. Sanctioning Modernism and Tradition: Italian Architecture, the Vernacular, and the State Michelangelo Sabatino Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
PART II. MAKING RELIGION MODERN
Introduction Timothy Parker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
5. Uncertainty and the Modern Church: Two Roman Catholic Cathedrals in Britain Robert Proctor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
6. “Humanly sublime tensions”: Luigi Moretti’s Chiesa del Concilio (1965–1970) Timothy Parker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
7. Modernism and the Concept of Reform: Liturgy and Liturgical Architecture Richard Kieckhefer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
PART III: MODERNISM AND DOMESTICITY
Introduction Monica Penick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
8. “Technologically” Modern: Th e Prefabricated House and the Wartime Experience of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Hyun-Tae Jung Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
9. “Modern but not too modern”: House Beautiful and the American Style Monica Penick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
10. House and Haunted Garden Sandy Isenstadt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	244
Further Reading Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	274
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 304
Illustrations
- Other: 55 b&w photos, 35 b&w illus.

eBook

Published: June 1, 2014
ISBN: 9780292760646