Debating Modernism: Will it ever end?

This past Monday I attended a lecture at the Architectural Association featuring theorist, architect, and landscape architect Charles Jencks and Architectural Review's editor Paul Finch. Defending his new book, "Critical Modernism" (Wiley Academy Press, 2007) Jencks was both enthused and inflamed while animatedly encapsulating his book in a series of witty images and well-articulated dilemmas.

After watching Jencks presentation, Finch's counterpoint, and the "post-formalities" debate, I was left with one primary question that never fails to prove itself as the buzzing mosquito in my ear:

Why, in 2007, are we still discussing modernism???? Can't we just say Corb is passe and move on? Can't we just accept the rule that if something has been proceeded by a "post" movement, then it can never again share a name with its former self?

Jencks would argue no... depending on your definition/three-dimensional understanding of modernism and "post-modernism" in the first place.

To Jencks, modernism is nothing more than a "default mode" that often becomes the normalizing condition (or at least this is my interpretation of his definition), manifested in three forms: modernization [i.e. social, technical, economic orders], modernism [i.e. those pesky "ism's that become was'ms"], and modernity [i.e. the result(s) of modernism].

At the heart of Jencks' lecture was the message that to look at "modernisms" as an abstraction is uncritical, especially when modernism can be directly related to the economy as well as sociology. Therefore, the only way to conceive of a new, "modern" way of thinking, is to be critical of the many "modern" precedents, and to counter with something that embodies this criticality in a progressive manner that both comments on the previous work while transcending its limitations and failures. (again, my interpretation)

One of many examples Jencks' cited to support his argument was Hirst's work "The Tranquility of Solitude" as a reinterpretation of Francis Bacon's triptych of the suicide of his lover, George Dyer (Triptych May-June 1973--Dyer committed suicide in 1971). In this graphic work, Bacon poses three scenes in which his lover is committing suicide in a different manner. In depicting Bacon's work in the typical Hirst fashion of animal in formaldehyde, Hirst was able to reinterpret the moment when nature turns into horror, while still achieving the sprezzatura of Bacon's work that embodies the cool remove and distance from the personal subject matter.

He also made the comment that critical modernism is found in the phenomenon of architects continually reinventing themselves (in cycles of every ten years or so). As usual, Eisenman and Gehry were cited as architects that continue to change their styles and tool kits as they scramble to remain critical while reinventing themselves. (One merely has to look at how Gehry's chain-link fence has evolved into a regurgitation of swoops, sails, and sculpture to understand this commercially-savvy concept.)

In conclusion, while Finch listened attentively to Jencks', he was not afraid to counter by explaining that while interesting, Jencks' new book is too dependent on "the assumptive close;" a condition that arises when the reader or lecture-goer must assume (i.e. "trust) that the author/lecturer's words are valid, rather than "KNOW" they are correct based on actual fact and foundation.

Finch further countered by joking that Jencks' book's message can be boiled down to the statement, "The Moderns-- they do those white things!" "The critical moderns--they don't!"

Wit and humor aside, Finch assuaded to admit that Jencks' continued contributions to the field of architecture in a time when there are almost no full-time architectural critics in Europe and even fewer in the United States was both important and relevant, a sentiment shared with the content of Jencks' new, controversial book.

At the end of the lecture, I was left feeling that my initial question had been somewhat answered; even though modernism in the form of "living machines" and radiant cities are no longer at the fore, post-modernism remains a blip on a dull radar as the actual concept of "modernism" remains a fluid topic that will inevitably be reincarnated again and again as brighter, bolder versions of the concrete foundations of its original palimpsest.