Architectural culture still seems to be working through the consequences of the fundamental change in ideas, forms, and professional discourse that occurred somewhere between 1910 and 1970, linked inextricably to changes in how architecture became conceived in relation to wider social, cultural, and political circumstances. Shifts from what became characterised as early modernism, expressed formally through structural frames and planes, to the more diverse concerns of mid-century modern design, and then to postmodernism expressed in the visual languages of high-tech and historicism, occurred comparatively quickly - indeed potentially in the span of one architectural career. It is perhaps inevitable, then, that contemporary architects and scholars remain preoccupied with the ambitions, legacies, and unfinished projects of mid-century modernism, and continue to puzzle through what it meant then, and what it still means now. This issue of arq collects together the work of architects and scholars taking the measure of mid-twentieth-century modern architecture, both as a historical phenomenon worthy of study, and as a set of ideas and practices with continuing potential.
展开▼
