Modern?

Architect Annie Coggan, the curator for the Ft. Greene Modern Exhibition, asked noroof to write about our work in response to the following quote:

“The most important thing to realize is that what drives the modern movement is a spirit of inquiry; it’s a process of analysis and not a style. We work with ideals.”

—Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier’s collaborator.

Coming up to the 100 year birthday of Cubism (a good date for modernism), “modern” is a trigger-word in the public’s perception of architecture. Everyone has an opinion, from the Brownstoner (a Brooklyn blog) response to modernism as a normative style to the Dwell ideal of the affable modern lifestyle (complete with fruitbowl and kitty).

Following Coggan’s choice of quotes to rally the conversation, we see that an essential part of the modern movement was the assimilation of scientific investigation into the arts. But an unexpected thing happened when science and culture hooked-up, this arrangement “stripped the bride bare” (referring to Duchamp). The bride being ravished is in this case is the notion of science as unbiased inquiry. Creative research revelled in and laid bare the assumptions of how we know, by making compelling connections between things that are intellectually not linked.

If modernism was about ideals, today we work with ideas. Ideas set up certain limitations and values but come with built-in tolerances. We cultivate and accept things that didn’t go as we had expected, having decided that ideals often come with too many costs. What we have found is an architecture “in construction” versus an environment of “Design.” This idea of assembly is present both in the physical material and in the experience of the work. Perriand’s modernism lies in process and ideals; ours, in experience.