Many Modernisms

Throughout Brigitte Le Normand’s Designing Tito’s Capital, I was very interested in the idea of many different modernisms, or different uses of the concept of modernism. Le Normand shows us that, although the Athens Charter was designed by European architects specifically to address problems in European cities, the idea traveled to areas “outside the West” (Le Normand: 11). Modernism arrived in the “European periphery” and postcolonial world by colonial government or elites of authoritarian states, and was used to assert power and legitimacy. In these areas, modernism was based on imitating European examples. However, in post-colonial areas that often meant imitating colonial styles, which gave modernism a different interpretation. Vikram Prakash finds that in a time when the postcolonial leaders in India should have used modernism to emphasize decolonization, or “put decolonization on stage” (Prakash: 152), modernism rather was used as “an antidote to the ‘pitfalls of ancient identities’” (Le Normand: 12). Prakash sees modernism as a failure in postcolonial India because of how it was introduced—in a “top-down” fashion that did nothing to help India’s problems attached to a recent colonial history.

In Belgrade, there are struggles with taking the concept of modernism, originally conceived of in the Athens Charter to optimize capitalist cities, and integrating socialist goals into the plan—community-centered living and social equality. In both uses of modernism, there are the general goals of using scientific planning and technique to help citizens achieve a “better standard of life”. There can be tensions, though, in visualizing what the better life looks like. This tension derailed urban planning in Belgrade, once overall goals became somewhat conflicted: does the better life include detached single-family housing or a more connected community-centered plan, and is it possible to have both? You can see that modernism isn’t a stable or bounded concept—people pick out different aspects of what comprises modernism and find use for or discard them to fit certain needs or ideologies. However, it is usually posed as a solution for social life, whatever that ideal solution may look like.

I was curious to compare these ideas to the Philippines. I found a couple different uses of the idea of modernism. They represent a much more current interpretation of what it means to be modern, or live modern, in the Philippines, and it was interesting that both concepts center on environmental responsibility—being “green” or “sustainable”—to combat the problem of climate change.

In this article, from a middle/upper class newspaper (http://www.philstar.com/modern-living/614693/green-urban-design), the author describes “landscape urbanism” which finds success not only in maximizing the flow of goods and people, but also integrates environmental protection: “The success of modern districts, cities, and larger metropolitan areas depend on changing the old paradigm based on just urban economics or functional circulation of goods, services, and people. An even more overarching approach is emerging that requires a new type of urbanism, one that addresses the standard economic and functional requirements but puts emphasis on greening and being green” (Alcazaren 2010). Just as modernism imitates European example, this proposed urban model for the Philippines would imitate other more economically successful cities, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Modernism is offered here as a solution for climate change.

A statement written by the Philippines socialist party (Party of the Laboring Masses), on the other hand, also sees climate change as the central social problem to be addressed, but sees different techniques of modernism as the solution. (http://climateandcapitalism.com/2014/09/24/philippines-socialists-capitalism-sustainable/). This modernism highlights the distribution of new technology, like solar lanterns, and also on developing the renewable energy sector but criticizes capitalism’s ability to adequately address social problems associated with climate change: “It’s capitalism, a global system based on prioritizing profits over people, which has brought us to the brink of a climate-induced catastrophe that can destroy humanity. There is no ‘sustainable capitalism’. There’s ‘disaster capitalism’, which epitomizes capitalist greed for profit, at any cost” (Climate and Capitalism 2014). Later in the article, it becomes clear that the party’s conception of modernism imitates the example of socialist government in Bolivia.

So, similar to examples in Le Normand’s book, modernism is used in different ways to combat different enemies to social welfare or “standard of living” (and sometimes shared enemies in the case of climate change).

References

Alcazaren, P. (2010, September 25). Green Urban Design. Philippine Star. Retrieved from http://www.philstar.com/modern-living/614693/green-urban-design

Climate and Capitalism. (2014, September 24). Philippines Socialists: Capitalism Cannot Be Sustainable. Retrieved from http://climateandcapitalism.com/2014/09/24/philippines-socialists-capitalism-sustainable/