November 1, 2010

Slavoj Zizek.

Living in the End Times, London, Verso, 2010

Chapter: “The Architectural Parallax” (borrowed from Kojin Karatani—the apparent displacement of the object caused by the change in observational position that provides a new line of sight.) pp 244

Are we justified in using the (now already half-obsolete) term “post-modernism”?

Insofar as post-68 capitalism forms a specific economic, social and cultural unity, this very unity justifies the name “postmodernism.”

“…when Jean-Francois Lyotard, in his The Postmodern condition, elevated the term from merely describing certain new artistic tendencies (especially in writing and architecture) to designating a new historical epoch, there was an element of authentic nomination in his act: “ postmodernism” effectively functioned as a new Master-Signifier which introduced a new order of intelligibility into the confused multiplicity o historical experience.” pp 246

As has been often remarked, postmodernism can be said to stand for the deregulation of architecture—for a radical historicism where, in a globalized pastiche, everything is possible, anything goes. pp 250

This indifference bears witness to how, in postmodernism, the parallax is opening admitted, displayed—and, in this way neutralized: the antagonistic tension between different standpoints is flattened out into an indifferent plurality of standpoints. “Contradiction” thus loses it subversive edge: in a space of globalized permissiveness, inconsistent standpoints cynically co-exist—cynicism is the reaction of “So What?” to inconsistency. One ruthlessly exploits natural resources but also contributes to Green causes—so what? pp253

The very relationship between urbanism and architecture is thus to be historicized: it changes with postmodernism, where the difference is progressively blurred: postmodern buildings tend to function as their own urban spaces (like parks inside malls, self-contained capsule worlds). In this way, the public space is privatized to such an extent that it potentially suspends the very dialectical tension between private and public. pp263

Peter Sloterdijk:

The world as a foamy space filled with bubbles and balloons of different scales and qualities. This capsular society and its phenomena such as global provincialism, the politics of climatization and social uteri describe a new paradigm that requires not just a reconsideration of the technologies and economics of the building envelope but of its political social and psychological implications. pp266.

12 IDEAL CITIES, SUPERSTUDIO, 1971