Modern Architecture - A Critical History

Ardeth
A magazine on the power of the project

10-11 | 2022
Competency
Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical

History
Hyun-Tae Jung
Electronic version
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/ardeth/3253
ISSN: 2611-934X
Publisher
Rosenberg & Sellier
Printed version
Date of publication: December 1, 2022
Number of pages: 344-345
ISSN: 2532-6457
Electronic reference
Hyun-Tae Jung, “Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History”, Ardeth [Online], 10-11 |
2022, Online since 01 November 2023, connection on 05 December 2023. URL: http://
journals.openedition.org/ardeth/3253
This text was automatically generated on December 5, 2023.
The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported
files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.
Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History 1
Kenneth Frampton, Modern

Architecture: A Critical History
Hyun-Tae Jung
REFERENCES
Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, New York, Thames and
Hudson, 735 pp. – 2020 (5th edition). Paperback: € 29,00 – ISBN 0500204446
EDITOR'S NOTE
DOI: 10.17454/ARDETH10-11.19
Ardeth, 10-11 | 2022

1 Since its first publication in 1980, Modern

Architecture has been recognized as an
essential book on the modern movement
in architecture. Kenneth Frampton’s
latest fifth edition is a significant
improvement from its earlier fourth
edition in 2007, employing a much more
open and comprehensive approach both
geographically and theoretically. The
author’s sharp observations on critical
works in the modern movement have
inspired generations of students for an
ethical and intellectual approach to
architecture. Profoundly influenced by
the phenomenology of Hannah Arendt
and the critical theory of Walter Benjamin
and Theodor W. Adorno, Frampton
recognizes the constraints on building
culture by the economic and political
structure of capitalism and examines each building as a phenomenological experience
of the human subject. His texts and selection of images weave deep sociological and
philosophical insight with keen spatial, formal, and material observations. In doing so,
he advocates for an architecture of resistance, which is based on the intrinsic
uniqueness of the bodily experience of the human subject.
2 Previous editions of Modern Architecture have been criticized for inaccessibility and
Eurocentrism. Apparently, the first edition was the product of the author’s days as a
technical editor for Architectural Design in London and one of the co-editors of
Oppositions in New York City. His writings were within the tradition of modern Western
architectural historiography, alongside books by Sigfried Giedion, Manfredo Tafuri, and
Rayner Banham. Frampton admits that “a disturbing Eurocentric bias has been evident
in almost all the received histories of modern architecture” in the preface to the fourth
edition. With the fifth edition, the author aims at widening “the scope of the book to
redress the Eurocentric and transatlantic bias of previous editions”.
3 Frampton’s corrective effort is transformative. Both quantitative and qualitative
changes coincide. The new book has 736 pages, 311 more pages than the fourth edition.
The total number of illustrations is 813, with 396 more than the previous one. These
added texts and illustrations embody Frampton’s intention of repositioning the book in
the contemporary architectural community. When we compare all five editions
together, this objective appears to be most decisive. The first edition of Modern
Architecture (1980) has three parts, including three chapters in Part I, 27 chapters in
Part II, and four chapters in Part III. Without changing the primary organization, the
second edition (1985) adds a new chapter on critical regionalism in Part III, evocative of
the author’s classic essay, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an
Architecture of Resistance (1981)” The third edition (1992) introduces another chapter
titled “World architecture and reflective practice”. Despite the title, this chapter
mainly discusses architecture in the four well-developed countries of Finland, France,
Spain and Japan. The fourth edition (2007) adds a long chapter, “Architecture in the
Ardeth, 10-11 | 2022

Age of Globalization: topography, morphology, sustainability, materiality, habitat and

civic form 1977-2007”, to analyze the recent changes brought by globalization. Thus,
the first four editions develop gradually.
4 The new fifth edition reveals much more significant changes. Frampton adds two more
chapters to Part II, which deal with architectural developments in Czechoslovakia and
France between the two world wars. Part III now has only five chapters. The last
chapter of the fourth edition, “Architecture in the Age of Globalization”, is a coda in
the new edition. The 14-page chapter on “World architecture and reflective practice” in
the fourth edition is replaced with Part IV, entitled “World Architecture and the
Modern Movement’, with 275 pages of texts and illustrations. Following Luis
Fernández-Galiano’s Atlas: Global Architecture circa 2000 (2007), Frampton divides the
world into four global regions: The Americas, Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the
Pacific, and Europe. Each chapter covers many countries and architects of the world in
the last fifty years. As the author admits, the USSR and some South Asian countries are
missing, and the book is still too short to sufficiently cover the architecture of the
world. Nevertheless, Part IV is a solid introduction to the global history of modern
architecture. Carefully selected photos and drawings help the readers access the works
of often underrepresented architects of Africa, Asia, America, and Europe such as
Kamran Diba of Iran, Swoo-Geun Kim of South Korea, Alberto Kalach of Mexico, Raul
Mehrotta of India, Diébédo Francis Kéré of Burkina Faso, Kabbaj, Kettani & Siana of
Morocco, and Kashef Chowdhury of Bangladesh.
5 The fifth edition is more accessible to readers unfamiliar with certain socio-
philosophical theories such as phenomenology and critical theory. Part IV allows
readers to approach chapters or subchapters independently. With this change, the
author seems to encourage readers to access all other parts of the book similarly, as a
collection of vibrant pieces. The book is much less a theoretical monolith but is instead
an effort to map diverse, rich traditions of modern architecture in the world. At the
beginning of Part IV, Frampton clarifies that he is guided by the efforts to identify
“another deeper strand of ‘regionalism’ that is critically creative in itself, but also
‘critical’ in the sense of its fragile and unique poetic character”. In this new edition,
Frampton remains as consistently insightful and critical as he has always been, now
with the eagerness to explore the world beyond the transatlantic region.
6 The fifth edition of Modern Architecture: A Critical History offers a concise and consistent
history of global modern architecture. This book is filled with Frampton’s profound
knowledge and brilliant insights into the contemporary world and its architecture. Of
course, a more thorough study of specific countries and architects would be desirable.
He could also address certain issues such as gender and racial inequality as well as the
environmental crisis at regional and global levels more substantially. Perhaps those
issues might be better addressed by new generations. Despite some limits, Modern
Architecture is one of the best – if not the best – books available to begin the study of the
global history of modern architecture.
Ardeth, 10-11 | 2022

AUTHORS
HYUN-TAE JUNG
New York Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Design
Ardeth, 10-11 | 2022

Modern Architecture - A Critical History

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Modern Architecture - A Critical History

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Modern Architecture - A Critical History

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ardeth

A magazine on the power of the project

Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical

This text was automatically generated on December 5, 2023.

Kenneth Frampton, Modern

Ardeth, 10-11 | 2022

1 Since its first publication in 1980, Modern

Ardeth, 10-11 | 2022

Age of Globalization: topography, morphology, sustainability, materiality, habitat and

Ardeth, 10-11 | 2022

New York Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Design

Ardeth, 10-11 | 2022

You might also like

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.