'What Then is Post-Modernism?' | Notes

Jencks, C. (2009) 'What Then is Post-Modernism?' in Jencks, C. (2010) 'The Post-Modernism Reader', Oxford: Wiley pp. 14-37

NOTES AND EXTRACTS

pg 14. 'pull out the threads that tie Modernism and Post-Modernism together'

'...if materialism was the major philosophy of Modernism'


pg 15. 'today's socialism is not quite the goal that the Modernist Karl Marx had in mind for his utopia, and its unsavory mixture needs to be consumed with a strong dose of PM sarcasm'

PM isn't idealistic or utopian. It is ironic, biting, acknowledges flaws in systems and societies - no unwavering optimism.

'straightforwardness, transparency and honest simplicity have been valued among the modern virtues, from the boy scouts to the Bauhaus; while irony and ambiguity characterise the Post-Modern architecture and literature'


pg 16. 'The Age of Lost Innocence is a pertinent classifier for our time especially because it speaks to the age of branding where politicians and media routinely spin the truth'

'Post-Modern literature and architecture confront a truth which many of the more abstract arts joyfully disregard: the way understanding and meaning must depend on a negotiation between the past,  present and future'

'post-modernism is about time-binding'

'the sarcastic even dismissive Po-Mo'

'Post-Modernism is not a total break with Modernism but rather its combination with other things'

'...a slide away from its parent rather than an act of patricide'


pg 20. 'the word modernus was apparently coined sometime in the 3rd century by the Christians, to show their superiority over the pagans'

'The modern, coming from the Latin modo signifying 'just now''


pg 22. 'Think of the Modernist injunction against ornament, and in favour of mass production'

'Modern projects that failed to perform within the various codes of the users were often blown up by dynamite, as they were in St. Louis in 1972'

Demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, St Louis, 1972

'This famous detonation led to my framing the Death of Modern Architecture'


pg 24. '...Post-Modernism is a social style of the arts and Modernism an elite style...'


pg 33. 'If the big wave is made up from the three aspects - modernity, modernisation and Modernism - and I believe it is, then the globe is still very much in a modern period...it still dominates most cultures'

...'Nevertheless, its critics and creators have moved elsewhere'


pg 34. Regarding the relationship between the Modern and Post-Modern:

'The two different orientations complement each other and are often synthesised or else hybridised together'