Political Postmodernisms shows how sites outside of Western Europe and North America undermine an established narrative of architecture theory and history. It focuses specifically on postmodern architecture, which is traditionally understood as embodying the flippant and apolitical aesthetics of capitalist affluence. By investigating postmodern architectures manifestations in the unlikely settings of Chile during the neoliberal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and Poland during the late socialist Polish Peoples Republic, the book argues for a new account that incorporates the political roles it plays when seen in a global perspective. Political Postmodernisms has three goals. First, it challenges the familiar narrative regarding postmodern architecture as following the cultural logic of late capitalism (Fredric Jameson) or as a socially conservative project (Jürgen Habermas). Second, it fills in portions of Chilean and Polish architectural history that have been neglected by Chilean and Polish architectural historians themselves. Third, Political Postmodernisms shows how architecture can work as a political form serving propagandistic purposes and functioning as part of oppositional projects. The book is projected to be of use to students and scholars in global modern and contemporary architecture history, history of urban planning, East European Studies, and Latin American Studies.
Acknowledgements Introduction The "Rise" and "Fall" of Postmodern
Architecture and Urbanism The Apolitical Legacy as Culminating in Postmodern
Revivalism Chilean and Polish Postmodernism Recent Scholarship on
Postmodernism Outline
1. Postmodernism and the State in Pinochets Chile 1.1.
From Eduardo Frei Montalva and Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet:
Transformations in Urban Space 1.2. Postmodern Architecture as Propaganda:
Plaza de la Constitución and Congreso de Chile
2. Postmodernism Against the
State Under Pinochets Dictatorship 2.1. The Origins of CEDLA and Its
Emergence in Santiago 2.2. CEDLAs Project for Santiago Poniente 2.3. Social
Housing 2.4. Dissent and Compliance 2.5. Chiles Distinctive Postmodernism
3.
Socialist Postmodernism in the Polish Peoples Republic 3.1. Postmodern
Architecture and Propaganda in the Polish Peoples Republic 3.2. Architektura
3.3. Na Skarpie Estate (Centrum E)
4. Postmodernism and Dissent in Socialist
Poland 4.1. Oppositional Postmodernism: Czesaw Bielecki and the DiM Group
4.2 Reforming the System from Within: Marek Budzyski and the Legacy of
Socialist Realism 4.3. North Ursynów: City, Church, and Continuity 4.4.
Polands Distinctive Postmodernism Conclusion: Postmodernism as a Political
Form Appendix: Interviews Humberto Eliash, August 23, 2016 Pedro Murtinho,
August 30, 2016 Pedro Murtinho, September 1, 2016 Pilar Garcia, September 1,
2016 Cristiįn Boza, September 5, 2016 Fernando Pérez Oyarzśn, September 6,
2016 Humberto Eliash, September 7, 2016 Fernando Pérez Oyarzśn, September 12,
2016 Marta Leniakowska, June 5, 2017 Czesaw Bielecki, June 9, 2017 Romuald
Loegler, July 1, 2017 Wojciech Szymborski & Ludwika Borawska Szymborska, July
26, 2021 Bibliography
Lidia Klein is an Assistant Professor in Architectural History at the School of Architecture, University of North Carolina Charlotte, specializing in global contemporary architecture. She earned her first Ph.D. from the University of Warsaw in Poland in 2013 and her second from Duke University in 2018. Prior to joining UNCC in 2018, Klein was awarded a Fulbright Junior Advanced Research Grant to the AAHVS Department at Duke (20102011) and was a Visiting Assistant in Research at the Yale School of Architecture (2016). Her book projects include the single-author study Living Architectures: Biological Analogies in Architecture of the End of the 20th Century (Warsaw: Fundacja Kultury Miejsca, 2014, in Polish) and the edited books Transformation: Polish Art, Design and Architecture after 1989 (Warsaw: Fundacja Kultury Miejsca, 2017, in Polish) and Polish Postmodernism: Architecture and Urbanism (Warsaw: 40000 Malarzy, 2013, in Polish).
