Liwen's response on modernism

Liwen Zhang
Arch 209X – reading response, week 2

Modern

Architectural Modernism has always concerned itself with progress and the idea
of sanitation and the rational mechanical progress advancement of society. What
is interesting in Jencks’ articles is the connection between the artistic realm and
the socialist realm, where as Henri de Saint Simon said that artists have this
“common drive and a general idea”.

During times of social crisis, the very idea of having ‘common drives’ through an
aesthetic and socialist background is a very appealing one, upon which
revolutionary ideals of social stability can easily become influential. Thus it is no
surprise that Modernism became a ‘shared religion’ according to Jencks. The
cities at the turn of the 20th century were viewed by its elite inhabitants to be
overly decorated, corrupt and polluted. Thus the Modernism ideals of cleansing
and anti-ornamentation fit the needs directly. Le Corbusier labeled this the
“vacuum cleaning period”.

This is a very interesting notion, as it now implies that artists and namely,
architects are now in a way directly responsible for the cleansing and purification
of our cities, not just on a formal level, but also on a social and more importantly
psychological level. Also the idea of religion playing a decisive role in terms of
what constitutes to what Jencks refers to as either “good avant-garde” or
“diseased society” fits in well with this new set of responsibilities placed upon
artists and architects alike. This idea of the pure, clean and modern is what
eventually gives rise to the ‘international style’ and thus back the what Henri de
Saint Simon referred to as the “common drive and a general idea”. What is
perhaps not surprising is that once this so called common drive and vision is
shared and adopted, modernism then gives birth to the need for efficiency, mass
production and ultimately consumerism, and along with that comes a while new
string of problems.