The Globalisation of Modern Architecture: The impact of politics,
economics and social change on architecture and urban design since 1990,
Robert Adam. Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars, 2012, 338 pp. np.
ISBN-9 781443 848244 pb.
This ambitious book by a practicing architect and Visiting Professor of Urban
Design at Strathclyde, begins by asserting that his world of architecture sees no
great changes to equal the momentous political and economic changes revealed
daily in the newspapers, TV and the internet. However, his claim that: ‘High
Modernism still dominates architectural practice’ (7) is not entirely confirmed
by the sometimes breath taking excursions into contemporary architecture that
follow the initial statement. Architecture changes slowly-- buildings take 5 to 10
years or more to complete, but we are in a new global era and the pace of
change appears very rapid. The central argument of the book is an attempt to
show how the wider picture affects architecture and vice versa, how ‘change in
society would be reflected by change in architecture and vice versa’ (xviii).
There is a great deal of general scene setting, starting off with ‘A Short History
of Globalisation and Architecture from 500 BCE to 1939 CE’ (pages 7 to 27).
This is a tall order, but as a general introduction to world history with a focus on
the last 50 years for students of architecture and urban design, it does work well.
There is nothing original here, but just enough information to clarify the main
structural changes within a rather loose but comprehensible global perspective,
with a useful set of references for any student wishing to follow something up in
more detail (though, annoyingly, no bibliography). Each section on sociohistorical changes is accompanied by a section outlining the main changes in
architectural styles and movements happening roughly at the same time. For
example, alongside side nationalism, internationalism and the birth of
modernism, Adam shows how the international style was really a western
phenomenon, a break with the past and with traditional architecture. American
Beaux Arts teaching, inherited from France, was exported to Republican China
and other places and Art Deco/Style Moderne of the early 20th century ‘could
absorb Egyptian, Aztec, Cubist, Expressionist and other influences’ (23). The
book is full of these and similar fascinating factoids but it is rarely explained
how the processes involved actually worked. The captions for Figures 6,7, and 8
illustrating different directions of architecture in Europe in 1920s and 1930s tell
us: ‘the distinctions between styles were not always clear’ (24) and this seems
to me something of a giveaway, blurring the possibility of any precise
explanation of how social change actually causes change in architecture (and,
more contentiously) vice versa.
Adam usefully connects the Golden Age of Capitalism and Heroic Modernism
(roughly the 1950s and 1960s) with the so-called ‘end of ideology’ thesis
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arguing that it was mirrored ‘in architecture too, the great style debates of the
past seemed to be over forever. There was a professional consensus that
Modernism was the only legitimate direction for the future’ (45) but this proved
to be as false for architecture as it was for ideology. The bulk of the book is an
often entertaining and always informative discussion of the period from the
1990s to the present—in fact, the book delivers several thousand years more
than it promises in the title. Postmodernism, deconstructionism, New Urbanism,
and various forms of regionalism are discussed, but everything is seen as yet
another new direction in modernism, even Critical Regionalism which, I am
sure, would surprise Lefaivre and Tzonis et al. Even Zaha Hadid claimed to be
'reinvestigating modernism' (quoted p.66). Again, the question of causation is
blurred, for example when Adam vaguely asserts that the future of radical
alternatives to postmodernism ‘would, however, be determined by international
events’ (ibid.), notably by events in China and Russia.
There follows a good summary of theories of globalization and contemporary
capitalism, including the issues raised by the phenomena of global tourism,
globalizing cities, urban megaprojects, iconic architecture and iconic architects
(starchitects). Adam makes good use of this reviewer’s research on how an
emerging transnational capitalist class drives iconic architecture in globalizing
cities, though his comment that this ignores the role of the media is
demonstrably false (100). His sections on ‘How Globalisation Makes Things the
Same’ and ‘How Globalisation Keeps Things Different’ I found a little
confusing, but that is possibly due to the fact that this is a very confusing set of
issues and, in the absence of a coherent analytical overall framework, they are
difficult to explain. In this context, I have a small suggestion to make. While
Adam is clearly conscious of the centrality of capitalist globalization to
architecture and urban design, in my view he fails to note that capitalists and
developers generally tend to favour the style of building that will generate the
greatest profits, and that governments will tend to favour what seems to project
the best image of their, usually spurious, version of national identity. Of course,
they don’t always get it right, and some architects have considerable powers of
persuasion. There is a very short discussion of the impact of the electronic
revolution (170ff.) and here I think Adam misses an opportunity for some
strong explanations of why architecture changed in certain directions over the
last few decades, notably making possible hitherto impossible buildings, many
of which were dubbed iconic.
Adam discusses at some length the Congress for the New Urbanism in USA and
his own connected work with INTBAU (International Network for Traditional
Building Architecture and Urbanism) in Europe. This traces the route from
Seaside to Poundbury, architecture and urban design phenomena that are
becoming institutionalised all over the world. In one of his few excursions into
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matters of aesthetics, he explains that in CNU/INTBAU debates about aesthetic
objectives, the stylistic neutrality of these organizations was made clear (252-3).
We are left wondering if this means that there are no criteria to distinguish good
buildings from bad buildings, or architecture from building per se? Predictably
Adam ends with speculations about the end of the era of triumphant global
capitalism, and asks about ‘The Next Modernism?’ He suggests that the role of
China will be important in determining the contours of this next stage for
architecture. The book has 78 illustrations, 9 in colour, mostly of fine quality
and a good index, all enhancing a very good, if somewhat flawed, read. This is a
book that one could recommend enthusiastically to students and practitioners of
architecture who want to know more about the world in which they are building.
Leslie Sklair
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
London School of Economics
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