Just Finished Reading: Militant Modernism by Owen Hatherley (FP: 2008)

Some of you might be aware that I have a ‘bit of a thing’ about an architectural style called – not without reason – Brutalism. You’ll know the style even if you hadn’t up till that point know what to call it. A Brutalist building is something you see for the first time, stare at it in disbelief, try to wrap you head around how anyone could think of such a thing, never mind actually build it and, once you get over the shock walk away repeating under your breath…. WTF…. WTF…. WTF. Almost always made from completely non-fashioned bare concrete with towering flat surfaces and a no-nonsense feel to them they were designed to stand apart from the previous flow of design up to that point. Brutalism was a break with tradition, a rupture in the architectural culture purposefully designed to shock people out of their semi-conscious state and, in a real sense, wake them up to be receptive to new ideas and new ways of living. Depending how you view the movement the fact that precious few of the designs actually made it off the drawing board either fills you with delight or a nostalgia for a future we never actually had. That, the author maintains, is how we should see modernist architecture – not as something that happened in the past (generally from the 1920’s until the early 1970’s) – but something that still looks forward, still shocks and is still a break from design traditions. It should still have the power, even in its often dilapidated state to wake us up from the bland world where each city, each hotel, each airport, each house is interchangeable between Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Madrid or London. But the shock of the modern went far beyond concrete and glass. Modernism thrived in the theatre and the movie theatre. Russian and German playwrights and film directors used the modernist philosophy to produce works of art that have largely been forgotten by the ironically named modern world (obsessed as it is with nostalgia for things long dead). But some survive – especially the work of Bertoit Brecht whose plays are still performed and studied today. Modernism is alive and well, sometimes buried in rubble, sometimes buried in underground storage units and sometimes buried in criticism and university classrooms but it’s there – waiting and still so very modern.

This was a (short) book very much in three parts. The first part, which I enjoyed a great deal, was on Brutalist architecture and renewed my interest in that field (of which more later). The second part I found equally bizarre and difficult to get my head around – Soviet modernist cinema. As it was something very much outside my experience or knowledge I did find myself floundering a bit. The third part was an almost as strange (and difficult) discussion of modernist theatre again in the Soviet Union and 1920’s Germany. Which, again, was very far outside my comfort zone! But I must admit that, although much in this slim volume was knew (and very strange) to me I did manage to pick up enough to both keep reading and decide to investigate aspects of modernism further. I’m definitely getting the idea that this publishing house (Zero Books) excel in pushing the envelope of present day thought beyond the mundane and every-day. They’ve certainly stretched my mind more than once. Much more to come from them I assure you.