The primitive in modern architecture and urbanism Introduction

摘要

Fascination with the 'savage' or 'primitive', in contrast to the 'civilised', manifested itself in the arts and literature in compelling and often contradictory ways from the mid-eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries. Subversive and paradoxical examples of this phenomenon reflected the Enlightenment opposition to traditional belief systems in favour of empiricist, naturalist and materialist approaches to knowledge, as well as its embrace of the notion of a fundamental continuity between humans and nature at a time when the impact of industrialisation was first being felt. The savage and the primitive challenged academic and historicist attitudes grounded in the classical cultures of the West; and they patently rejected the decadence of 'civilisation' in favour of a return to 'origins'. Although criticism and historical studies have addressed the appeal of the primitive and savage in art and literature, the same cannot be claimed for the field of architecture.