Architecture and Modernity : A Critique

time as the Dialectic of Enlightenment, he devotes a short but fascinating reflection
to it, under the heading of “Late Extra.” The new emerges here in the first instance
as the false appearances behind which the old, that which is always the same, conceals
itself: “The new, sought for its own sake, a kind of laboratory product, petrified
into a conceptual scheme, becomes in its sudden apparition a compulsive return of
the old.” 62 Things that are proclaimed as new are merely reproductions of the same
old scheme foisted on us by the prevailing demands of the cycle of consumption and
production. There isn’t, in fact, anything that is genuinely new. On the other hand it
is equally clear to Adorno that “the cult of the new, and thus the idea of modernity,
is a rebellion against the fact that there is no longer anything new,” and again, “the
new is the secret figure of all those unborn.” 63 In other words, no matter how perverse
the forms of the new may be, no matter how false are its claims, in the constant
appeal to the new, in the fascination for the transitory—almost like a charm that
is repeated—the hope is concealed that something really new will emerge one day,
and that the ignition of the transitory might lead to the realization of the project of
emancipation.
Adorno’s concept of modernity is characterized, therefore, by a recurring tension
between contradictory aspects. He sees modernity as on the one hand tending
toward a monolithic, unambiguous control over both the individual and over social life
as a whole, while on the other hand it represents the promise of a different future
and provides the means and potential to achieve it. As far as its transitory aspect is
concerned, Adorno recognizes the new, the fleeting, and the constantly changing as
a false semblance behind which the old and the eternally returning are concealed,
but in which the figure of rebellion and hope is also inscribed.
Mimesis and Negativity
The concept of mimesis plays a crucial role in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. 64 It is a concept
that he rarely describes in precise terms, but which definitely has a much
broader connotation in his work than do the traditional notions of art as an imitation
of nature. Adorno’s interpretation of this concept is undeniably indebted to Walter
Benjamin and his mimetic theory of language. Benjamin’s influence can already be
perceived in the passage in Dialectic of Enlightenment in which Horkheimer and
Adorno explain how during the course of history the character of language underwent
radical change. Originally, they claim, sign and image formed, under the form
of the symbol, a unity in language, as can be seen from Egyptian hieroglyphs in which
signification is the result of the merging of abstract reference in a sign and imitation
in an image. This original unity dissolved and both modes of signification developed
separately. The sign became decisive for the development of language as denotation—in
science and scholarship—whereas the realm of the image has been reduced
to that of art and literature:
4 Architecture as Critique of Modernity