“At one point during the second MOMA symposium [in 1975, about MOMA’s exhibition, The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts], [Arthur] Drexler interrupted a discussion about moral convictions to make a parenthetical remark about modernism’s temporality. Modern architecture, he explained with reference to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, entailed a desire to ‘escape time...to make something that simply eluded further development, further evolution.’ Noting that one could not ‘write a history of modern architecture without really having a considerable background in theology,’ he explained that modernism’s ‘messianic fervor’ was bent on ‘bring[ing] history to an end’ or to ‘bring[ing] paradise to earth.’ When [Anthony] Vidler retorted, ‘I think Colin’s [Rowe] right in saying that the anti-urban ethic within the Modern Movement is fundamentally Marxist, and that the city of capital was to be destroyed,’ Drexler responded by insisting that the modernist ethic was, rather, a drive to produce ‘a prototype made ready for infinite replication around the world.’” - Felicity D. Scott, Yale Architectural Journal (No.35), 2005.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 20:38:49 +0000
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