Tracing Modernity

First published in 2004. Walter Benjamin famously defined modernity as "the world dominated by its phantasmagorias". The chapters in this book focus on one such phantasmagoria, namely that of 'modernity' itself. From the late seventeenth century until today, the 'modern' has served as a key category by which to understand an ever-changing present. Art and architecture have played a key role in this pursuit as the means by which the modern was to manifest itself. The aim of this anthology is to trace the modern project through its multifarious manifestations, in order to understand contemporary culture in a deeper sense than facile discussions of modernism and post-modernism often grant. Drawing on architectural and urban history as well as philosophy and sociology, the chapters outline the complex and conflicting roots of modernity by tracing its manifestations in architecture and the city. The book is divided into three parts, each exploring a distinct aspect of modernity. While part one scrutinizes the much-abused concepts of 'modernity' , 'modernism' and 'the modern' , parts two and three look at the manifestations of the modern in architecture and the city respectively. Focusing particularly on the transition between historicism and modernism, the chapters offer a re-interpretation of early modern architectural and urban culture as it came to expression in people such as Cerda, Semper, Bötticher, Scott, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Benjamin, Warburg, Kracauer, Mackintosh, Behrens, Taut, and Le Corbusier. For all their differences, these were thinkers and practitioners whose undisputed modernity arose from a deep preoccupation with history. A re-reading of their legacy may throw light on the neglected reciprocity between modernity and its historical conditions of becoming.

Mari Hvattum is an architect specialising in nineteenth century architectural thinking. She is Senior Lecturer in architectural history and theory at the Oslo School of Architecture, Norway and Lecturer at Strathclyde University. Christian Hermansen is Guest Professor at the Oslo School of Architecture, Norway and Senior Lecturer at the Mackintosh School of Architecture

Introduction. Part 1. Modernity 1. Analysing Modernity 2. What Moderniam was: Art, Progress and Avant-garde. 3. Modernity and Architecture 4. Modernity and the Uses of History: Understanding Classical Architecture from Botticher to Warberg 5. Projecting Modern Culture: 'Aesthetic Fundamentalism' and Modern Architecture 6. Modernity and the Question of Representation Part 2. Architecture 7. 'How is it that there is no Modern Style of Architrecture?' 'Greek' Thomson versus Gilbert Scott 8. 'A Complete and Universal Collection': Gottfried Semper and the Great Exhibition 9. The Interior as Aesthetic Refuge: Edmond de Goncourt's La Maison d'un Artiste 10. Timely Untimeliness? Architectural Modernism and the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk 11. Le Corbusier and the Restorative Fragment at the Swiss Pavilion 12. The Concrete Memory of Modernity: Excerpts from a Moscow Diary Part 3. The City 13. Lidefonso Cerda and Modernity 14. 'To Knock Fire out of Men' Forging Modernity in Glasgow 15. The Expressionist Utopia 16. Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project: A Prehistory of Modernity 17. Impromptus of a Great City: Siegfried Kracauer's Strassen in Berlin Und Anderswo 18. Orpheus in Hollywood: Sigfried Kracauer's Offenbach Film Bibliography