Architecture and Modernity : A Critique

Place and the organic relationship between man and house takes on a mythical character.
Rootedness and authenticity are presented as being superior to mobility and
the experience of rootlessness. What is more, he seems to be completely unaware
of the violence that is implicit in concepts like this: it is no coincidence these words
are part of the basic vocabulary of Nazi ideology. Levinas pointed out that the eulogizing
of place, of the village and the landscape, in Heidegger’s work, and the scorn
he expresses for the metropolis and technology, provided a fertile soil for racism and
anti-Semitism. 36 The same tendency can be found in every theory of architecture that
postulates the ideals of rootedness and connectedness.
Both Alexander and Norberg-Schulz appear to adopt a position outside of
modernity. In this respect they resemble Heidegger, whose work contains a radical
critique of modernity, but from a perspective outside of the process and without any
commitment to the modern. Heidegger did not develop his criticism of modernity
from the standpoint of a modern sensibility, from a sense of criticism as being integral
to the modern. When he condemns modernity he does not do so on the basis of
its own standards; rather, he attempts to find an Archimedean point of leverage for
his critique outside of modernity. He bases this critique on the past (the concept of
Being of the pre-Socratic philosophers) and on a quest for an “originality” and “truth”
that repudiate in uncompromising fashion the inauthenticity of modern existence.
Norberg-Schulz and Alexander also follow this sort of strategy; with them it becomes
an occasion for a discourse that at first sight is highly democratic and acceptable, but
which on closer inspection verges on abandoning the whole project of modernity,
and with it all prospect of emancipation and liberation.
But perhaps the most important objection to be made both to Cacciari and
Eisenman and to Alexander and Norberg-Schulz is that none of them has anything
that resembles a theory of the ambivalence of modernity. This is obviously the case
with Alexander and Norberg-Schulz because they situate themselves outside modernity
and cannot feel any empathy with the promises inherent in it. Cacciari and Eisenman,
on the other hand, do base their arguments on an experience of the modern,
but they only deal with the theme of the necessity of negation. They talk about silence,
empty signs, fragmentation and necessary incompleteness, dissonances and
fragility. It is as though all joy is absent from their discourse, as though they are unaware
that modernity is not only an occasion for loss and bereavement but also creates
opportunities for progress and development. For this reason they end up
appearing to share the negative assessment of modernity of Alexander and Norberg-
Schulz. The relation of fragility and vulnerability with the utopian moment, with the
promise of liberation and emancipation, is not acknowledged in their work.
The dilemmas that architecture is faced with have to do then with the fundamental
issue of its attitude to modernity and to dwelling. If architecture opts for harmony
and the organic commitment to a place, then it runs the risk of creating a
manner of “dwelling” that is purely illusory. Modernity has made such deep inroads
into the lives of individuals and communities that it is questionable whether authen-
1 Architecture Facing Modernity