Course Syllabus
Postmodernism and World Systems
Reinhold Martin
Spring 2023
A6514
Tuesday 11:00-1:00
409 Avery Hall
Office hours: 203 Buell Hall, by appointment
email: rm454@columbia.edu
What was—or is—postmodernism? In the recent past, architecture has been closely associated with this contested term, and with the related concept of postmodernity. In what ways, then, might these concepts still describe today’s image-centered architectural cultures? In what ways not? Drawing on important new scholarship, this seminar will provide a critical, historical introduction to postmodernist—and postmodern—architecture worldwide. We will consider the concepts as designating a style, a historical period, an ideology, and a discourse. In doing so, we will “provincialize” postmodernism by showing how, despite the Eurocentrism of its most well-known protagonists and their sources, it belongs to systemic processes under way globally since the latter part of the twentieth century, including decolonization (and neocolonialism), cultural globalization, and the rise of political-economic neoliberalism. Our approach will be comparative, with examples from throughout the world. We will also ask: To what extent is the study of comparative postmodernisms itself an artifact of the postmodern conjuncture? And: In what sense might we speak instead of a postmodern “world system”?
We will begin by introducing the concepts of postmodernity and postmodernism, and the debates in architecture and elsewhere in which these concepts arose during the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in Western Europe and in the United States. We will follow this with an introduction to world-systems theory, which—during the same period—sought to understand the long history and global political-economy of what, by the 1970s, was known as “late capitalism” or neoliberalism. We will then proceed, week by week, through a series of architectural examples drawn from the last quarter of the twentieth century from around the world. We will consider each example in the often contradictory—though sometimes coincident—terms given by the postmodernism debates on the one hand, and the world-systems perspective on the other. In this way, we will historicize, critically interpret, and compare significantly different works of architecture from many different contexts around the world; in turn, we will consider the degree to which those many contexts might also be understood as one—a world history of postmodernism, through architecture.
To do so, the syllabus is organized into three parts: four introductory weeks, seven weeks of case studies, and two final sessions for student presentations. For convenience, the case studies are organized roughly by region: a convention that, as we shall see, will likely prove inadequate to our object, and will also be subject to critique along the way. Rather than follow a strict chronology we will move back and forth across the last quarter of the twentieth century, evaluating each case against the historical background with which we began.
Course Requirements
Requirements include participation in weekly discussions, presentation of selected materials in class, and a final research paper or visual essay.
Weekly discussion posts
Students are each expected to post weekly questions to a semester-long, online discussion of the readings and related topics through the “Discussion” function on Canvas. Postings should be brief (one paragraph) and related to specific readings, Questions from this discussion will be incorporated into each week’s class.
Presentations
Each student will be required to:
- Make a brief (5 minute) presentation of one or more buildings or projects related to one of the weekly topics for Weeks 5-11. Sign-up is available on Canvas.
- Develop their example from Weeks 5-11 into a more detailed presentation (7 minutes) with an emphasis on context and interpretation, to be presented in a concluding session in Weeks 12-13.
Research Paper or Visual Essay
Each student will be required to make a final submission in one these formats:
Option 1
An academic research paper on a topic related to the subject of at least one reading listed in the syllabus and/or the material presented from Week 5-11.
Papers should be 15-20 pages, 12-point double-spaced, approx. 4,000-5,000 words plus footnotes (PhD students: 20-25 pages, approx. 5,000-6,000 words).
All papers should follow bibliographic, footnoting, and other guidelines outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (available online through CLIO).
https://www-chicagomanualofstyle-org.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/book/ed17/frontmatter/toc.html
Option 2
A visual essay on a topic related to the subject of at least one reading listed in the syllabus and/or the material presented from Week 5-11. This can take the form of an illustrated PDF document (20-25 pages) or an illustrated video (10 minutes). This should not simply repeat the class presentation; it should develop and present a well-crafted argument, with detailed visual analysis, that is comparable to a conference presentation.
Final papers and visual essays are due at 11:59pm on 5 May 2023, submitted as a PDF on Canvas (see Assignments).
All required readings will be available on Canvas, as e-books through CLIO, or online as indicated.
Grading
Grades for the class will be determined as follows:
Participation / presentation 30%
Final paper / essay 70%
Students with limited experience in writing research papers or writing in academic English are STRONGLY encouraged to seek support at the Columbia College Writing Center:
http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/uwp/writing-center
Students should adhere to the guidelines regarding academic honesty described in the GSAS Statement on Academic Honesty, available at:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsas/rules/chapter-9/pages/honesty/index.html
Readings
Part 1: Background
- Postmodernity
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), Chaps. 1-5, 3-17; Chap. 10, 37-41.
David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1990), Part IV, “The Condition of Postmodernity,” 327-359.
Jurgen Habermas, “Modernity versus Postmodernity,” trans. Seyla Benhabib, New German Critique 22 (Winter 1981): 3-14.
Further Reading
Seyla Benhabib, “Epistemologies of Postmodernism: A Rejoinder to Jean-François Lyotard,” New German Critique 33 (Autumn 1984): 103-126.
Immanuel Wallerstein, “The End of What Modernity?” Theory and Society 24, no. 4 (August 1995): 471-488.
For Reference
Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (New York: Verso, 1998).
- Postmodernism
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” New Left Review 146 (July-August 1984): 53-92.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?” Critical Inquiry 17 (Winter 1991): 336-357.
Rosalyn Deutsche, “Men in Space,” Artforum International 28, no. 6 (1 February 1990): 21-23.
Further Reading
Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson, “Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter between Feminism and Postmodernism,” Theory, Culture & Society 5 (1988): 373-394.
Andreas Huyssen, “Mapping the Postmodern,” New German Critique 33 (Autumn 1984): 5-52.
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), Chap. 4, “Spatial Equivalents in the World System,” 97-129.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14838744?counter=1
For Reference
Gary Aylesworth, "Postmodernism," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/postmodernism/
- World-Systems
Immanuel Wallerstein, World Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), “To Start: Understanding the World in Which We Live,” and Chap. 5, “The Modern World-System in Crisis: Bifurcation, Chaos, and Choices,” 76-90.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/11443748?counter=3
Immanuel Wallerstein, “What Hope Africa? What Hope the World?” in Wallerstein, After Liberalism (New York: New Press, 1995), 46-69.
Giovanni Arrighi, Iftikhar Ahmad, and Miin-wen Shih, “Western Hegemonies in World-Historical Perspective,” in Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly J. Silver, eds., Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 217-271.
Further Reading
Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (New York: Verso, 1994), Chap. 4, Part 4, “The Dynamics of Global Crisis,” 309-335.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16088296
Richard E. Lee, “The Modern World System: Its Structures, Its Geoculture, Its Crisis and Transformation,” in David Palumbo-Liu, Bruce Robbins, and Nirvana Tanoukhi, eds., Immanuel Wallerstein and the Problem of the World: System, Scale, Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 27-40.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/10676257
Shelley Feldman, “Intersecting and Contesting Positions: Postcolonialis, Feminism, and World-Systems Theory,” Review: Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations 24, no. 3 (1 January 2001): 343-371.
For Reference
Ramón Grosfoguel and Ana Margarita Cervantes-Rodríguez, eds., The Modern/Colonial/Capitalist World-System in the Twentieth Century: Global Processes, Antisystemic Movements, and the Geopolitics of Knowledge (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002).
Thomas R. Shannon, An Introduction to the World-System Perspective, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1989).
- Postmodernism in Architecture
Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, Rev. ed. (London: Academy Editions, 1978), Introduction, Part 1, “The Death of Modern Architecture,” 6-37.
Mary McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” Assemblage 8 (February 1989): 22-59.
Paolo Portoghesi, Postmodern: The Architecture of the Postindustrial Society (New York: Rizzoli, 1983), Chap. 1, “What is the Postmodern?” Chap. 2, “A New Renaissance,” Chap. 3, “The End of Prohibition,” 7-30.
Further Reading
Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, trans. Pellegrino d’Acierno and Robert Connolly (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), Chap. 8, “‘L’architecture dans le boudoir,’” 267-290.
Reinhold Martin, Utopia’s Ghost: Architecture and Postmodernism, Again (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), Chap. 5, “Materiality: Mirrors,” 94-122; and Chap. 6, “Subjects: Mass Customization,” 124-146.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/11874385
Emmanuel Petit, Irony: Or, the Self-Critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) Chap. 1, “Introduction,” 1-30.
For Reference
Heinrich Klotz, The History of Postmodern Architecture, trans. Radka Donnell (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988).
Charles Jencks and George Baird, eds., Meaning in Architecture (New York: George Braziller, 1969).
Mark Crinson and Claire Zimmerman, eds., Neo-avant-garde and Postmodern: Postwar Architecture in Britain and Beyond (New Haven/London: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2010).
Part 2: Architecture
- Western Europe and North America
Anne Kockelkorn, “Palace on Mortgage: The Collapse of a Social Monument in France,” in Kenny Cupers, Catharina Gabrielsson, and Helena Mattsson, eds., Neoliberalism on the Ground: Architecture & Transformation from the 1960s to the Present (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), 19-44.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14935868?counter=1
Helena Mattsson, “Norm to Form: Deregulation, Postmodernism, and Swedish Welfare State Housing,” in Kenny Cupers, Catharina Gabrielsson, and Helena Mattsson, eds., Neoliberalism on the Ground: Architecture & Transformation from the 1960s to the Present (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), 167-194.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14935868?counter=1
Further Reading
Valéry Didelon, “Surfing the Wave of Neoliberalism: Rem Koolhaas in Lille,” in Kenny Cupers, Catharina Gabrielsson, and Helena Mattsson, eds., Neoliberalism on the Ground: Architecture & Transformation from the 1960s to the Present (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), 257-269.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14935868?counter=1
Reinhold Martin, “The Return of the Classical: Some Archaeological Fragments,” in Mark Crinson and Claire Zimmerman, eds., Neo-avant-garde and Postmodern: Postwar Architecture in Britain and Beyond (New Haven/London: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2010), 301-318.
- Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Andres Kurg, “Werewolves on Cattle Street: Estonian Collective Farms and Postmodern Architecture,” in Vladimir Kulić, ed., Second World Postmodernisms: Architecture and Society under Late Socialism (New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019), 111-127.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15522208
Igor Demchenko, “Critical Post-Functionalism in the Architecture of Late Soviet Central Asia,” Architecture Beyond Europe 13 (2018): 1-16.
Maroš Krivý, “Postmodernism or Socialist Realism? The Architecture of Housing Estates in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75, no. 1 (2016): 74-101.
Further Reading
Richard Anderson, “The Retro Problem: Modernism and Postmodernism in the USSR,” in Vladimir Kulić, ed., Second World Postmodernisms: Architecture and Society under Late Socialism (New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019), 17-32.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15522208
Virág Molnár, Building the State: Architecture, Politics, and State Formation in Postwar Central Europe (New York: Routledge, 2013), Chap. 4, “Questioning Modernity: Western or Vernacular?” 104-135.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14682893
For Reference
Florian Urban, Postmodern Architecture in Socialist Poland: Transformation, Symbolic Form and National Identity (New York: Routledge, 2020).
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15294610?counter=1
Second World Urbanity website
https://www.secondworldurbanity.org/
- North Africa and the Middle East
Talinn Grigor, “Of Metamporphosis: Meaning on Iranian Terms,” Third Text 17, no. 3 (2003): 207-225.
Mohammadjavad Mahdavinejad, Amene Doroodgar, and Abdolbaghi Moradchelleh, “The Impacts of Revivalist Trends on the Contemporary Architecture of Iran (1977-2011),” Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 11, no. 2 (2012): 176-183.
Panayiota I. Pyla, “Hassan Fathy Revisited: Postwar Discourses on Science, Development, and Vernacular Architecture,” Journal of Architectural Education 60, no. 3 (February 2007): 28-39.
Caecilia Pieri, “Modernity and Its Posts in Constructing and Arab Capital: Baghdad’s Urban Space and Architecture,” Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 42, no. 1-2 (Summer-Winter 2008): 32-39.
Further Reading
Łukasz Stanek, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020), Chap. 5, “Socialism within Globalization: Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City, 1979-90,” 239-301.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14880267
Udo Kulturmann, “Contemporary Arab Architecture: The Architects of Egypt,” Mimar 4 (April-June 1982): 56-61.
For Reference
Hāmid Ahmad, Hassan Fathy and Continuity in Islamic Architecture: The Birth of a New Modern (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2010).
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/11427270
Hassan Fathy, Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14026856?counter=1
- East Asia
Cole Roskam, Designing Reform: Architecture in the People’s Republic of China, 1970-1992 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021), Chap. 7, “Postmodernism,” 180-202.
Wang Mingxian, “Notes on Architecture and Postmodernism in China,” trans. Zhang Xudong, boundary 2 2, no. 3 (Autumn 1997): 163-175.
Jianfei Zhu, “Beyond Revolution: Notes on Contemporary Chinese Architecture,” AA Files 35 (Spring 1998): 3-14.
Melany Sun-Min Park, “The Making of Architectural Design as Sŏlgye: Integrating Science, Industry, and Expertise in Postwar Korea,” in Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative, Architecture in Development: Systems and the Emergence of the Global South (New York: Routledge, 2022), 197-216.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16039977
Hajime Yatsuka, “Autobiography of a Patricide: Arata Isosaki’s Initiation into Postmodernism,” AA Files 58 (2009): 68-71.
Further Reading
Emmanuel Petit, Irony: Or, the Self-Critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), Chap. 4, “Arata Isosaki,” 117-146.
Jianfei Zhu, Architecture of Modern China: A Historical Critique (New York: Routledge, 2009), Chap. 5, “The 1980s and 1990s: Liberalization,” 105-128; and Chap. 7, “A Global Site and a Different Criticality,” 169-198.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15094341?counter=1
For Reference
Arata Isozaki and David B. Stewart, Japan-ness in Architecture, trans. Sabu Kohso (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006).
- South Asia / Southeast Asia / Asia Pacific
Diana Martinez, “From Rice Research to Coconut Capital,” in Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative, Architecture in Development: Systems and the Emergence of the Global South (New York: Routledge, 2022), 105-121.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16039977
Ritu Bhatt, “Indianizing Indian Architecture: A Postmodern Tradition,” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 13, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 43-51.
Shanti Jayawardine and J. M. Richards, “Geoffrey Bawa of Sri Lanka,” Mimar: Architecture in Development 19 (1986): 45-67.
For Reference
Martino Stierli, Anoma Pieris, and Sean Anderson, eds., The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947-1985 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2022),
- Latin America and the Caribbean
Hugo Segawa, Architecture of Brazil 1900-1990, trans. Denilson Amade Souza (New York: Springer, 2013), Chap. 9, “Disarticulation and Rearticulation? 1980-1990,” 227-240.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/10187804
Elisabetta Andreoli, “Lina Bo Bardi: The Anthopological Gaze,” Third Text 8, no. 28-29 (1994): 87-100.
Fredo Rivera, “Incomplete Postmodernism: The Rise and Fall of Utopia in Cuba,” in Vladimir Kulić, ed., Second World Postmodernisms: Architecture and Society under Late Socialism (New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019), 128-142.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/15522208
Further Reading
Ana María León, “A Ruin in Reverse: The National Library of the Republic of Argentina, 1961-1992,” in Kenny Cupers, Catharina Gabrielsson, and Helena Mattsson, eds., Neoliberalism on the Ground: Architecture & Transformation from the 1960s to the Present (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), 45-64.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14935868
For Reference
Barry Bergdoll et al. Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015).
Daniele Pisani and Franesco Dal Co, Paulo Mendes da Rocha: Complete Works (New York: Rizzoli, 2015).
- Sub-Saharan Africa
Kim De Raedt, “Shifting Conditions, Frameworks, and Approaches: The Work of KPDV in Postcolonial Africa,” Architecture Beyond Europe 4 (2013): 37-58.
Ikem Stanley Okoye, “Architecture, History, and the Debate on Identity in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 61, no. 3 (September 2002): 381-396.
Ayala Levin, “Learning from Johannesburg: Unpacking Denise Scott Brown’s South African View of Las Vegas,” in Aggregate Architectural History Collective, ed., Writing Architectural History: Evidence and Narrative in the Twenty-First Century (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), 235-246.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/16880491
Further Reading
J. A. Noble, “Architecture, Hybridities, and Post-Apartheid Design, South African Journal of Art History 23, no. 2 (January 2008): 71-88.
For Reference
Janet Berry Hess, Art and Architecture in Postcolonial Africa (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2006).
Part 3: Presentations
- Student presentations
- Student presentations
Course Summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
|---|---|---|