2008-09-11 - 8:48 a.m.
It is not yet Now. It is also no longer Then. “Postmodernity” is post-Then. At least three things have to happen to get to Now. Two of them you probably have no control over, but the most important part you do. I’ll start talking about the first part now, the second starting Veterans Day (hint, hint), and the third early next year.
That book I liked so much repeats architect Charles Jencks’ assertion that postmodernity began with the 1972 implosion of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis, MO. Certainly Pruitt-Igoe was a top example of modernity run amok, but there are a couple of problems with saying this was the start of postmodernity.
First of all, nothing replaced Pruitt-Igoe, postmodern or otherwise. It’s a bare patch to this day (actually a few years ago it was upgraded from dirt to a park). More importantly few outside St. Louis (and even people who’ve moved there in the last few decades) had any idea it happened. However, something happened in 1972 that everyone knew about: the Vietnam War ended.
Furthermore, something that was designed by the same architect as Pruitt-Igoe was destroyed that the whole world saw. The World Trade Center was also designed by Minoru Yamasaki and was oddly never a well-constructed building. It was never a well-loved part of the New York skyline, the way say the Chrysler Building or Empire State were.
Also it was too small. You might not think it for such a huge structure, but the floorplans weren’t big enough for contemporary offices and tenants had to rent multiple floors. Not quite the social failure of Modernism that Pruitt-Igoe was, but the buildings still didn’t quite work.
And now in uber-inaccessible New York, the World Trade Center is being replaced by the postmodern Freedom Tower. There’s a supposed time table for this (I think it’s supposed to be done by 2012). I’m dubious of schedules myself, but I’m quite sure it’ll get done eventually. I’ll talk about this over the next few entries. But rebuilding the WTC is the first step in getting to Now.
© 2008 Geoff Gladstone
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