LAVOIR DE VILLIER IN DEUX-SÈVRES, FRANCE |
Grant Detail
John Morris Dixon
Modernism at Midlife
An Editor's View of Architecture 1960-2000
Research
The title Modernism at Midlife was chosen to characterize the situation of Modern Architecture during the period 1960 to 2000. Its fundamental principles developed early in the century, Modern Architecture reached its maturity in the decade leading up to 1960, when it became the dominant mode for corporate, institutional, and government buildings. With the achievements and disappointments of maturity came divergent alternative paths, leading to the widely proclaimed death of Modernism in the 1970s. But Modernism was in fact surviving a crisis comparable in some respects to the soul-searching widely attributed to individuals in midlife. What emerged is a broader, more tolerant, more sophisticated, and in some ways more adventurous Modern Architecture, now embracing aspects of Post-Modernism once seen as antithetical to Modernist principles. Attitudes toward preservation, contextual response, and urban design, in particular, have been permanently altered.
Throughout the period, the architectural press both reflected developments within the field of architecture and influenced them through its selective treatment of myriad developments.
Contact:
John Morris Dixon
382 Sound Beach Avenue
Old Greenwich, CT 06870
Email: jmdixon@snet.net
Principal Investigator(s):
John Morris Dixon
Project Subject:
Architecture-History and Design (American)
Chronological Period:
1950-1999
Completion Date:
2004
Year Funded:
2002
Related keywords:
Criticism
Modern Architecture