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1 1 Postmodern Design and Planning

1.1 Postmodern Design and Planning
Contents list

"
Modernism, as a label, has currency in the arts, architecture, planning, landscape, politics, theology, cultural history and elsewhere. Politics can serve
as a starting point:

My friends, the past has been a time of woe. Let us go forward to a bright future, to a new age of Prosperity, Health and Happiness, founded on the principles
of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

Even now, who can resist the reformers utopian cry? Yet we hear much talk of postmodernism. When, in its turn, the age of postmodernism draws to a close,
as it must, will the next ages be known as post-postmodernism and post-post-postmodernism? Surely not. Time-based names have a limited shelf-life. Better
labels will be found, especially for such a practical art as environmental planning and design. For the present, "modernism remains the best name for
the trends that produced the culture of our times.

Political modernists plan a brave new world

1.2 Modernism and Design
Contents list

The pen is mightier than the swordIn a broad sense, modernism can be used, as by Habermas, to describe the "project of Enlightenment (Habermas, 1987).
By systematic doubt,
Descartes
arrived at the elementary principle "I think therefore I am. Thought was regarded as the very essence of existence, so that reason, rather than authority,
religion or tradition, became the criterion of truth. Philosophers, and then politicians, became persuaded that the sustained application of reason would
lead to truth, knowledge, freedom and happiness. These goals became the basis for utopian modernism in many areas of life.

J.C. Loudon,
a child of the Enlightenment, applied reason to many environmental questions. He wrote famous magazines and encyclopedias on Gardening, Architecture and
Agriculture, all of which propagated Enlightenment ideas.
John Robertson,
his admiring assistant, who later drew up
Paxtons
plan for the great public park in
Birkenhead,
penned an obituary poem to record Loudons passing (Loudon, 1845):

He wielded no sword in his countrys cause,
But his pen was never still;
He studied each form of Natures laws,
To lessen each human ill.

That voice is hushd -- and lost the sound
Employd to raise the poor;
But the echo shall, by his works, be found
To reach the rich mans door.

His pen is still! -- and his spirit fled
To brighten a world on high:
The cold, cold earth is his lowly bed;
But his name shall never die!

This is a noble statement of the means and ends of modernization: the pen will replace the sword; reason will explain Natures laws; each human ill will
be lessened; the poor will be raised up; the names of individuals who contribute to the enlightenment of mankind will be remembered forever. They contrast
with the medieval beliefs of pre-Renaissance Europe: Nature was a divine mystery, inaccessible to human reason; Man, having fallen from grace, was condemned
to a life of suffering and toil; works of art were inspired by God; individuals were of little importance; the Church should wield the sword to restrain
any manifestation of reason that threatened the one true faith, be it Christian or Moslem. By Loudons time (1783--1843), reason had become a grand avenue
to the modernization of society, art, religion and philosophy. Organized public education was a great hope for the future. In 1829 Loudon maintained:

That individual cultivation carried to its greatest practicable extent in any one society, however corrupt or misgoverned it may be, will, sooner or later,
effect, in the laws and government of that society, every amelioration, and, in the people, the highest degree of happiness and prosperity of which human
nature is susceptible under the given geographical circumstances... We premise, however, that our plan is neither original on our part nor striking, being
little more than what is already put in practice in Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden. (Loudon, 1829)

An enlightenment approach to the modernization of society spread from Europe to the whole world -- and may indeed have produced "the highest degree of happiness
and prosperity that is possible upon this earth. The technological benefits were great, and modernist principles led to parallel developments in the arts,
architecture, planning and design.

Click for biography of Rene Descartes

1.3 Modern Art and Design
Contents list

In painting and sculpture, "modern art is now used as a general term for the art of the twentieth century. This usage is found in numerous museums of modern
art. Quite often, the work is abstract or non-representational. This was a response partly to the invention of photography and partly to the analytical
spirit of the times. Classic non-representational works have had such titles as Study No. 47 and Composition No. 21. The public found it difficult to appreciate
these works, believing that paintings should be beautiful and representational, like Constables Hay Wain or, perhaps, Manets Déjeuner sur lherbe. Yet
"modern art developed over a long period.

Habermas sees in the development of modern art "a trend towards ever greater autonomy (Habermas, 1992). During the eighteenth century, the fine arts became
separated from religious and courtly life. During the nineteenth century, this separation developed into the idea of "art for arts sake. From then onwards,
colour, lines, sounds and movement ceased to serve primarily the cause of representation: the media of expression and the techniques of production became
themselves the aesthetic object. (Habermas, 1992)

Art became autonomous. To abstract means "to draw away from. This is what much twentieth century art has been about: the abstraction of colours, shapes,
forms, lines, tones, materials, sensations, concepts, words, textures, emotions, actions, gestures, bodily fluids. Everything abstractable has been abstracted.
Geometrical shapes, drips of paint and piles of bricks have been the result.

The avant-garde became a characteristic of twentieth century art. In asking "What is art?, in place of the former question, "What is beautiful?, artists
have, again and again, tried to break away from the work of their predecessors. This produced what Robert Hughes (1991) described as the Shock of the New.
Horror and ridicule have been typical responses. A Punch cartoon of July 1918 tells of the horror (Figure 1). "A child of six could do it tells of the
ridicule (Figure 2). In addition to cutting themselves off from patronage, modern artists sought to cut themselves away from everything that went before.
Being avant-garde was the goal of goals. Only thus could the poor struggling artist win a place in the art galleries of the world.

1.2 A child of six could do it!

Fig 1.1 The Horror of Modern Art
Mother: "Of course I dont understand them dear, but they give me a dreadful feeling. I cant bear to look at them. Is it really like that at the Front?
The Warrior (who has seen terrible things in battle): "Thank heaven, no, mother"

Composition No. 47

The Hay Wain, by Constable

Composition No. 21

1.4 Modern Architecture
Contents list

In architecture, Modern Movement is a general term for the new style of the twentieth century. Typically, it used a structural frame of reinforced concrete,
in which floors, roofs and vertical supports formed a homogeneous whole. The famous names of this movement included
Frank Lloyd Wright,
Le Corbusier,
de Stijl and the
Bauhaus.
For the public, modern architecture was as puzzling as modern art. Abstract concepts are not easy to grasp and, because architecture is a public art, those
who disliked modern architecture took it as a personal affront. It is one thing to put abstract paintings in private rooms; quite another to build them
on street corners where they disrupt familiar scenes. The Prince of Wales encapsulated this feeling with his jibe to the Royal Institute of British Architects
that a proposed addition to Britains National Gallery in Trafalgar Square was "a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a well-loved friend.

After Prince Charles intervention in the debate, a modernist design for Londons National Gallery Extension was replaced with a design by Robert Venturi
(above, center) full of contextual references to the old gallery (above, right). In my view, it was a wise decision.

1.5 Modern planning
Contents list

In planning, modernism is associated with the endeavour to make cities better, healthier and more functional. This began with nineteenth century public
health measures. Engineers were given powers to lay drains and supply fresh water, to prevent infectious diseases. Laws were enacted to get rid of narrow
streets because it was thought, incorrectly, that foul air caused the spread of infection. When traffic volumes increased, these laws were used to enable
street widening for vehicles. The process of modernizing cities became known as "urban renewal. Typically, governments purchased huge areas of "substandard
housing, destroyed the old buildings, constructed wide new highways and lined them with modern blocks (Figure 1.3). Every modern city has zones of this
type, which are especially loathed by families with children. Moscow, and other cities in the former communist countries, are almost entirely built in
this manner. "If it were done, the modernizers reasoned, "when tis done, then twere well. That old king, the European city form, was murdered in his
sleep. Only the ghosts survived.

Fig 1.3 A planned new town, in China

1.6 Postmodernism
Contents list

Doubts about the efficacy of reason and the project of the enlightenment have grown during the twentieth century. French revolutionaries used the slogan
"Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité! ou la mort (Figure 4). And la mort (death) turned out to be one of the great products of modern revolution. Once the French
Revolution was over, Europe basked in a century of near-peace, from 1815 to 1914. Optimists could believe in Progress, until the opening salvos of the
First World War. Since then, the pessimists have been able to gather much evidence for their view that human society is incapable of progress: Stalins
Great Terror, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, the Vietnam War, the 300 lesser wars between 1945 and 1990, the industrialization of
agriculture, environmental degradation and destruction of the worlds primeval forests. Bernard Levin attributes many of these evils to utopian modernism
(Levin, 1994).

A disturbing aspect of these twentieth century tragedies is that they were direct products of Reason and of Science, with the worst excesses in the most
advanced or most advancing nations. This has led to a re-evaluation of reason. Soldiers are now taught to listen to their "inner voice, as well as to
their officers; scientists are urged to be ethically responsible; green politicians speak of restraining economic growth. George Steiner suggests that
society may have entered Bluebeards Castle: when Reason opens the final door, labelled Knowledge, our species will hurtle to its own destruction (Steiner,
1971). It is no wonder that so many academic disciplines talk of "postmodernism. The term suggests, like postgraduate studies, the alluring prospect of
moving to pastures new: "Ladies and gentlemen, the past is behind us and the future lies ahead; let us go forward with confidence. It promises much but
means little. Some postmodernists have sought to strengthen their positions by forsaking rationalism. This makes texts very difficult to understand and
puts one in mind of Bertrand Russells observation that it is easy for irrationalisms to defend themselves with bad arguments. When the arguments fail
to convince, it proves the limitations of reason (Russell, 1961).

In the fine arts, to be postmodern is to be post-avant-garde. Instead of producing religious art, art for arts sake, or art for the gallerys sake, art
is produced to be sold. Critics speak of the commodification of art. Having tired of starving in garrets, many artists have ceased trying to express their
views on the human condition, the nature of the world and the nature of art. Instead, they often produce what people would like to buy. Who can blame them?

In architecture, postmodernism means anything that comes after the Modern Movement. Charles Jencks opens his account of the subject by describing the detonation
of the Pruitt-Igoe housing scheme at 3.32 pm on 15 July 1972. He explains:

Pruitt-Igoe was constructed according to the most progressive ideals of CIAM (the Congress of International Modern Architects) and it won an award from
the American Institute of Architects when it was designed in 1951. It consisted of elegant slab blocks fourteen storeys high with rational "streets in
the air (which were safe from cars, but as it turned out, not safe from crime)... Moreover, its Purist style, its clean, salubrious hospital metaphor,
was meant to instil, by good example, corresponding virtues in the inhabitants. Good form was to lead to good content, or at least good conduct; the intelligent
planning of abstract space was to promote healthy behaviour. (Jencks, 1991)

The evil genie in the above tale is hygienic rationalism. Jencks invented the July date and time, to poke additional fun at this genie, but he has no proposals
for Reason to be re-corked in its bottle and cast upon the oceans of time. Far from it. He identifies eleven reasons, described as "causes, for the crisis
in architecture. Only two are explained in detail: univalent form and univalent content. Univalent form is typified by the glass and steel "matchboxes,
which modern architects used as the "solution to every sort of architectural "problem: one way, one truth, one style. Univalent content is seen as a
consequence of the range of clients who commissioned modern buildings: faceless bureaucracies, large industrial combines, retail giants and mass housing
organizations:

With the triumph of consumer society in the West and bureaucratic state capitalism in the East, our unfortunate Modern architect was left without much uplifting
social content to symbolise. (Jencks, 1991)

Tailoring can do little for an antisocial body.

After identifying univalency as the problem, it is no surprise that Jencks should name multivalency as the solution. His introduction to the 1991 edition
of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture observes that "If anything reigns [in modern Western society] - it is pluralism. Pluralism is a strong and
easy position to defend. Any who rattle their keyboards in opposition tar themselves with the worst brush of the twentieth century: totalitarianism. "Postmodernism
is used as a label for a group of architectural styles that draw something from modernism and something from historical antecedents.

Postmodern planning is also pluralist. Jane Jacobs launched a bitter attack on the singular zoning policies of modernist planning in 1961. Hating the idea
of hygienic zones for housing, industry and commerce, she admired the high density and diverse mixture of land uses in Bostons North End. Unlike her,
modernist planners saw it as "a three-dimensional textbook of ``megalopolis` in the last stages of depravity. Harvard and MIT students, under the guidance
of their tutors, spent time on "the paper exercise of converting it into super-blocks and park promenades, wiping away its non-conforming uses, transforming
it to an ideal of order and gentility. For Jacobs, "the general street atmosphere of buoyancy, friendliness and good health was so infectious that I began
asking directions of people just for the fun of getting in on some talk. She also described the streets to be "probably as safe as any place on earth
(Jacobs, 1962).

Instead of trying to create a rationalist utopia, with a place for everything and everything in its place, postmodern planners have embraced the concept
of diversity. Feminist critics, who attacked the literary dominance of DWEMs (dead white European males), have turned upon the WIMMPs (white live middle-class
male planners) who dominated modernist planning. Dyckman writes that: "From a poststructuralist perspective, it is no longer appropriate to assume that
the search for a true or right way to plan is desirable or possible (Dyckman, 1990). An inherent danger of plural planning is that the environment will
become an unholy jumble of ill-assorted land uses and building styles, devoid of the coherence that we admire in the ordered places made by our ancestors.

French Revolution Poster

1.7 post-Postmodernism
Contents list

1.5 Anything goes postmodernism gives us the architectural pluralism of a junk shop.

Giving names to periods is difficult. As cultural terms, "Classicism, "Neoclassicism, "Romanticism, "Impressionism and "Post-Impressionism are imprecise.
Yet we all find the terms useful, and arguing over their meaning keeps many scholars in gainful employment. With regard to time periods, "Ancient World
is fairly secure; "Middle Ages is becoming progressively inaccurate; "Modern Age keeps moving forwards. "Modernism is partly a cultural term and partly
a time word. Should its time reference make "Modern unusable as a cultural term, what might take its place? In art history, a case can be made for Age
of Abstraction. In a wider context, "Age of Analysis, "Age of Reduction or "Age of Science might serve. Each highlights a key characteristic of twentieth
century thought: the endeavour to analyse everything into essential constituents. Abstract artists reduced art to shapes and forms; music was reduced to
tones; novels became streams of consciousness; chemists hunted for the smallest components of matter; physicists looked for a single explanation of the
universe. It is too soon for us to know what period label will take the place of "Modern, but something will.

Postmodern may survive longer than "Modern because of its very eccentricity. It could however be replaced by Post-Abstract if Age of Abstraction came
into use. In the sixth edition of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, Jencks takes heart from his critics proclamation of the death of postmodernism
and classifies them, deftly, as Neo-Moderns. This places them after modernism yet before postmodernism. Jencks sees their criticism as proof of architectural
postmodernisms continued vitality, "for who is going to waste time flogging a dead style? Actually, it is a very popular activity. Postmodern architecture
can be seen as inherently trivial, glitzy and stunt-ish, appealing to the wallet, not to the mind and not to the soul. It belongs in shop windows and in
cinemas, in Madison Avenue and in Tinseltown. No one who uses retail shops or watches movies should despise the great products of these great industries.
But an "anything goes pluralist approach to urban design gives us the equivalent of a junk shop with, perhaps, an empty chocolate box, a kettle and an
old TV set (Figure 1.5). Alone, each might be elegant, stylish or beautiful; together they are jumble. As a direct consequence of pluralism, the postmodern
city street resembles an out-of-step chorus line. If anything goes, then nothing goes.

But there are signs of post-Postmodern life, in urban design, architecture and elsewhere. They are strongest in those who place their hands on their hearts
and are willing to assert "I believe. Faith always was the strongest competitor for reason: faith in a God; faith in a tradition; faith in an institution;
faith in a person. The built environment professions are witnessing the gradual dawn of a post-Postmodernism that seeks to temper reason with faith. Designers
and planners are taking to the rostrum and the pulpit. Christopher Day has written a book on Places of the Soul (Day, 1990). Christopher Alexanders work
is discussed at greater length later in this book, in essay the
Pattern Language.
and
Patterns in use.

As a youngster, Alexander was a mainstream technocratic modernist. When disillusion set in, he set forth on the road to San Francisco. Once there, he gathered
a community of designers, read Taoist philosophy, and published books on the Timeless Way of Building (Alexander, 1979). Jencks classifies him as a postmodern
ad hoc urbanist. Alexander, rightly in my view, rejects the label "postmodern (Alexander and Eisenman, 1984). The pattern language rests on deep faith
as much as it does upon reason. It is post-Postmodern, or pre-Modern. Alexander starts and finishes the first chapter of the Timeless Way with a traditionalist
creed:

There is one timeless way of building.

It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been.

The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very
close to the centre of this way.
...

To purge ourselves of these illusions, to become free of all the artificial images of order which distort the nature that is in us, we must first learn
a discipline which teaches us the true relationship between ourselves and our surroundings.

Then, once this discipline has done its work, and pricked the bubbles of illusion which we cling to now, we will be ready to give up the discipline, and
act as nature does.

This is the timeless way of building: learning the discipline - and shedding it.

The "artificial images of order that Alexander criticizes were rational, modernist and utopian. Postmodern "planning was anti-planning. When the hoped-for
urban paradise turned into a hated "concrete jungle, with streets in the air, criminal gangs, tall blocks and vacant open spaces, planners lost heart.
Post-Postmodern planning is a sign of returning self-confidence. Traditions are being rediscovered. In place of the old singular zones, for housing, industry,
commerce and recreation, a plural zoning, resembling a pile of rubber bands (Figure 1.6), is being founded on belief and sentiment. Plural zoning has a
greater similarity to natural habitats than singular zoning.

Fig 1.6 Singular and plural zoning

The waterfronts of the world are becoming Zones of Waterfront Character, with special regulations. Old high streets are now themed shopping areas, dominated
by antique bistros. London and San Francisco have Chinatowns.

In New York City, these generative rules are legion: a special district controls the recycling of Union Square as a luxury enclave; new contextual zoning
is abetting the development of the Upper West Side in a regenerated 1930s Art Deco format; while great parts of Manhattan stand cordoned off behind the
boundaries of historic districts as large as Greenwich Village and the Upper East Side. (Boyer, 1990)

The zones are cultural, not functional (Figure 1.7). They overlap and there are other possibilities. Central Paris is a zone of low buildings. Bavaria has
zones for timber buildings. Many cities now have ecological habitat policies. When Londons Isle of Dogs was designated as an Enterprise Zone, it could
also have become a "Willow World, using Salix as the major tree species. With dock basins and high walls of mirror glass, the willows would have been
beautiful and the symbolism would not have been inappropriate.

Fig 1.7 Cities can have many types of zone. This diagram shows city blocks in a waterfront town with names on the zones

New zones can be visual, historic, ecological, cultural, or they can give a spatial dimension to belief (see diagram, below) . Los Angeles has Koreatown,
Little India, Little Saigon and Gaytown, which could become self-managed communities (Figure 1.8). There could also be a Green Town, based on conservationist
principles, and an Esperanto Town, which uses the international language. As post-Postmodernism is a preposterous term, we must hope for something better.
The Age of Synthesis is a possibility. Coherent, beautiful and functional environments are wonderful things, which can be produced in different ways. The
modernist age, of "one way, one truth, one city, is dead and gone. The Postmodernist age of "anything goes is on the way out. Reason can take us a long
way, but it has limits. Let us embrace post-Postmodernism - and pray for a better name.

Fig 1.8 Ethnic zones in Los Angeles (after Jencks)