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An introduction to Jamesons
postmodernism with main regards on
architecture
Jameson draws his theory of postmodernism starting with its role within the "realm of
architecture" *[Jameson, F. (July-Aug.1984) Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism. New Left Review 146; pag.2]. Again he opposes the postmodern architecture to the
architectural modernism which was initiated after the First World War and became a pervasive
manifestation after 1945. This sort of style is widely known as 'International Style' and it was
created with the intention to define an universal architectural grammar which was to be
employed in the reconstruction of Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War.
These designing rules were meant to promote and impose rational and functional organisation
of architecture bereft from unnecessary decorations, to use the latest materials (the concrete
and glass were en vougue at the time) and to account for the new economic and social realities
- industrial technology demanded new cities with new forms of organisation and accommodation
in order to ease the administration and the running of the working life.
The inhabitants/workers were obliged to adapt to these uniform architectural landscape, to its
rationality and new forms of communal living and to give up most of their traditional habits.
This change came at cost and it has been translated into higher frequencies of crime and social
isolation. It likewise marked the failure of the main principles of International Style with their
exagerated assumption on human malleability.
Conversely, postmodernist architecture is a manifest engagement with the site specific design,
it focuses on critique of already existing architecture and acknowledges local identities and
traditions.
However, this perhaps apparent complex process of ironic entanglement of both popular and
elitist tastes presented by postmodernist architectural design is somehow horizontal. Namely,
it borrows from styles of different periods through the aesthetics of 'quoting' and it does it with
a significant degree of superficiality which intentionally loses the depthness of the previous
architectural styles.
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Jameson situates himself on a position which is against the proliferation of this pastiche within
postmodernist design making an useful critique of it by introducing the idea of 'waning of affect'.
The concept is useful in understanding the postmodernism inasmuch as it successfully contours
its specificity when is compared with high modernism: the purity and neutrality of modernist
architectural lines against vernacular features of postmodernism in architecture is one of the
main themes of Jameson's analysis.
The 'waning of affect' is relevant as long as the postmodernism is judged with modernist or even
pre-modernist instruments of critique. He, nonetheless, is aware of the value of postmodernist
architecture which, of course, does not exist per se as it understands to reassert modernist
features within its playfully citational and regionally particular styles.
Another important and valuable concept which Jameson introduces is 'cognitive map'. It is true
that it applies to the category of buildings that he gives as suggestive examples - and there are
of course, any number of them in any European or North-American city.
His insight is useful when we need to understand the new ways of living in areas of these cities
where these buildings are situated, how the maze is deliberately created along the lines of the
idea of multiple narratives (natural to postmodernism) - which actually has the quality of a
fortress as it disconnects people from the outside.
Postmodernism is likewise paradoxical as it emphasises on familiarity (reference to past styles
such as Baroque) and friendliness (embraces consumer culture), yet it produces exclusions - only
savvy consumers, the possesors of Jameson's 'cognitive map', are able to distinguish between a
valuable piece of architecture and the building of a street shop.
The most often cited example here is Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles where Jameson
flags up the concept of hyperspace in which it is "quite impossible to get your bearings".
The outer walls (its "glass skin") combined with the labyrinthic interior represent a clear
materialisation of postmodernist concept of architecture as a "total space", a pastiche of villages
or cities, a mini-society ironically enclosed; a space that obsoletes the uniformity and state-
organisation of living as well as the ways modernism understood to create, map and experience
the space.
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Architectural postmodernism situates itself in an opposite position with modernism choosing
to bring familiarity and friendliness within social environments rather than enforcing a pre-
engineered dwelling scheme to the inhabitants.
Although proved useful in the above mentioned instances Jameson's concepts are not applied in
his essay to, for example, large cities from countries of different cultural and historical heritage
(such as Shanghai, Jakarta or Lagos) or even to the social spaces or dwelling enclosures created
or appropriated by immigrants in big cities of the most developed countries. We are not given
any 'cognitive map' to understand and navigate the infrastructure (as architecture in a broad
sense) of African or Chinese cities nor the enclaves of mostly unfinished buildings occupied by
immigrants or squatting activists.
It is the very status of socially misfit buildings which triggers the processes of customized
development of their architecture, which is not present in Jameson's analysis.
The urban condition in a city such as Shenzhen[Mutations] comes in many ways opposite to its
architecture. The architects here are more marginalized comparing with their counterparts in
Europe. State politics and religion negotiate the rules and ambitions in the edification of the
city. Corruption is maybe another particular way of planning the metropolis. The dynamics
of the economy is also a voice which dictates the values of mainstream architecture such as
sumptuousity, overwhelming hights, seduction or the requirement that it should inhabit its
potential (provide support for future developments). Style-wise the architecture is a mix of
Western and Eastern themes and traditions - multistories buildings decorated with pagoda-like
roofs accompaign fairly new emerged city scrapers - an image of the massive urbanization that
the country undergoes for quite a few years.
Next to this official spaces of habitation there is the parallel world of those who build the city
- a huge 'floating population' [Mutations] living in unofficial provisional buildings and creating a
big gap, a sharp contrast with the mainstream architecture. The incredibly high degree of the
occupation of these buildings turns these areas into enclaves marking a sheer opposition to the
emptiness of the architecture for the future.
This mutation has a counterpart on the other component of the overall infrastructure of the
city, the motorways. Build with the same modernist spirit this infrastructure is rather artificially
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utilized (usage of motorways is discourages because of their tolls) as the imperative is to create
for the future condition rather than for present needs.
One could find any number of such mutations around the world cities: the permanent shifting
administrative borders in cities such as Lagos, the continuity of urban condition along the
railways or motorways built by colonizers in countries such as Indonesia, the replacement of
warehouses with open markets in Belgrade, the occupation of underground sewers by homeless
people in the largest cities in Romania or the urban squatting movement in Western European
metropolis undertaken by both alternative artists or activists and illegal immigrants and the
enumeration can still carry on.
This sort of mass mutations are not included in Jameson's cognitive map. There, as it has
been mentioned before in this text, the infrastructure of a city was the answer provided to
solve certain present needs, improve certain aspects and enforce a particular system of social
engineering.
The focus was aimed only at the mainstream changes and continuities brought by postmodernism
as if there were not side effects, no variations of the current, no parallel realities added to it.