1st Edition
Political Postmodernisms Architecture in Chile and Poland, 1970–1990
Political Postmodernisms shows how sites outside of Western Europe and North America undermine an established narrative of architecture theory and history. It focuses specifically on postmodern architecture, which is traditionally understood as embodying the flippant and apolitical aesthetics of capitalist affluence. By investigating postmodern architecture’s manifestations in the unlikely settings of Chile during the neoliberal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and Poland during the late socialist Polish People’s Republic, the book argues for a new account that incorporates the political roles it plays when seen in a global perspective. Political Postmodernisms has three goals. First, it challenges the familiar narrative regarding postmodern architecture as following the “cultural logic of late capitalism” (Fredric Jameson) or as a socially conservative project (Jürgen Habermas). Second, it fills in portions of Chilean and Polish architectural history that have been neglected by Chilean and Polish architectural historians themselves. Third, Political Postmodernisms shows how architecture can work as a political form – serving propagandistic purposes and functioning as part of oppositional projects. The book is projected to be of use to students and scholars in global modern and contemporary architecture history, history of urban planning, East European Studies, and Latin American Studies.
Acknowledgements Introduction The "Rise" and "Fall" of Postmodern Architecture and Urbanism The Apolitical Legacy as Culminating in Postmodern Revivalism Chilean and Polish Postmodernism Recent Scholarship on Postmodernism Outline 1. Postmodernism and the State in Pinochet’s Chile 1.1. From Eduardo Frei Montalva and Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet: Transformations in Urban Space 1.2. Postmodern Architecture as Propaganda: Plaza de la Constitución and Congreso de Chile 2. Postmodernism Against the State Under Pinochet’s Dictatorship 2.1. The Origins of CEDLA and Its Emergence in Santiago 2.2. CEDLA’s Project for Santiago Poniente 2.3. Social Housing 2.4. Dissent and Compliance 2.5. Chile’s Distinctive Postmodernism 3. Socialist Postmodernism in the Polish People’s Republic 3.1. Postmodern Architecture and Propaganda in the Polish People’s Republic 3.2. Architektura 3.3. Na Skarpie Estate (Centrum E) 4. Postmodernism and Dissent in Socialist Poland 4.1. Oppositional Postmodernism: Czesław Bielecki and the DiM Group 4.2 Reforming the System from Within: Marek Budzyński and the Legacy of Socialist Realism 4.3. North Ursynów: City, Church, and Continuity 4.4. Poland’s Distinctive Postmodernism Conclusion: Postmodernism as a Political Form Appendix: Interviews Humberto Eliash, August 23, 2016 Pedro Murtinho, August 30, 2016 Pedro Murtinho, September 1, 2016 Pilar Garcia, September 1, 2016 Cristián Boza, September 5, 2016 Fernando Pérez Oyarzún, September 6, 2016 Humberto Eliash, September 7, 2016 Fernando Pérez Oyarzún, September 12, 2016 Marta Leśniakowska, June 5, 2017 Czesław Bielecki, June 9, 2017 Romuald Loegler, July 1, 2017 Wojciech Szymborski & Ludwika Borawska Szymborska, July 26, 2021 Bibliography
Biography
Lidia Klein is an Assistant Professor in Architectural History at the School of Architecture, University of North Carolina – Charlotte, specializing in global contemporary architecture. She earned her first Ph.D. from the University of Warsaw in Poland in 2013 and her second from Duke University in 2018. Prior to joining UNCC in 2018, Klein was awarded a Fulbright Junior Advanced Research Grant to the AAHVS Department at Duke (2010–2011) and was a Visiting Assistant in Research at the Yale School of Architecture (2016). Her book projects include the single-author study Living Architectures: Biological Analogies in Architecture of the End of the 20th Century (Warsaw: Fundacja Kultury Miejsca, 2014, in Polish) and the edited books Transformation: Polish Art, Design and Architecture after 1989 (Warsaw: Fundacja Kultury Miejsca, 2017, in Polish) and Polish Postmodernism: Architecture and Urbanism (Warsaw: 40000 Malarzy, 2013, in Polish).
