132

44

The Postmodern Reflex

The humanizing of modernity, says Toulmin, entails a shift away from the
de-contextualizing project which began with the Cartesian rationality of the
mid-seventeenth century - su bordinating rhetoric to logic and geometry and lasted until the 1950s. It entails a shift "from a focus on the problem of
preserving sta bility and preventing insta bility, to a focus on creating institu
tions and procedures that are adaptive . . . In an age of interdependence and
historical change, mere stability and permanence are not enough. Like social
and political institutions, formal techniques of thought too easily lapse into
stereotyped and self-protective rigidity. Like buildings on a human scale, our
intellectual and social procedures will do what we need in the years ahead,
only if we take care to avoid irrelevant or excessive sta bility, a nd keep
them operating in ways that are adaptable to u nforeseen - or even
unforeseea ble
- situations and functions" (Toulmin, p. 186, emphasis added). Rather than
choose between sixteenth-century humanism a nd seventeenth-centu ry
exact science, then, Toulmin recommends retaining "the positive
achievements of them both" (Toulmin, p. 180).
45 In contrast to the modernist "aesthetic of identity or of orga nic unification"
(Jameson, 1985, p. 86).
46 Along similar lines, Gitlin identifies an emergent sensibility which features
"jubilant disrespect for the boundaries that are supposed to segregate cul
ture castes, but [which] does not imply a leveling down, profaning the holy
precincts of high culture" (Gitlin, 1989, p. 359).
47 This divide, says Huyssen, grew especially prqnounced during "the age of
Stalin and Hitler when the threat of totalitarian control over all culture
forged a variety of defensive strategies meant to protect high culture in
general, not just modernism" (Huyssen, p 197). For postmodern artistic or
critical sensibilities, Huyssen maintains, the great divide "that was codified
in the va rious classical accounts of modernism no longer seems relevant"
( ibid.). Now, Huyssen observes that "in a n im porta nt sector of our culture
there is a noticeable shift in sensibility, practices, and discou rse formations
which distinguishes a postmodern set of assumptions, experiences, and
propositions from that of a preceding period" (Huyssen, p. 181). Contem
porary postmodernism, Huyssen says, "operates i n a field of tension be
tween tradition and innovation, conservation and renewal, mass culture and
high art, in which the second terms a re no longer automatically privileged
over the first; a field of tension which can no longer be grasped i n categories
such as progress vs. reaction, left vs. right, present vs. past, modernism vs.
realism, abstraction vs. representation, ava ntga rde vs. Kitsch" (Huyssen, pp.
216-17). These dichotomies, which a re central to the classical accounts of
modernism, Huyssen says, have broken down . One outcome of this is that
"artistic activities have become m uch more diff use a nd harder to contain in
safe categories or sta ble institution s such as the academy, the m useum or
even the esta blished gallery network" ( Huyssen, pp. 218-19). Huyssen
contends that "postmodernism at its deepest level represents not just an other
crisis within the perpetual cycle of boom and bust, exha ustion and renewal,
which has characterized the tra jectory of modernist culture" (Huyssen, p.
217). Rather, "it represents a new type of crisis of that modern ist culture
itself" (i bid.).

5
Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

The reactions to modernist architecture and planning surveyed in chap ters 2

and 3 can be mapped along two axes, one indicating the formal ambitions of

urban designers and the other the way in which they perceive their role
(illustration 5.1). These axes meet at the point where urban designers
aspire to realizing personal am bitions (artistic and remu nerative) with
little or no theoretical justification and then diverge along their respective
theoretical pa ths. The formal am bition axis moves from produci ng
good and beautiful bu ilt forms to drawing inspiration from mass cultu re,
the social context, the site, and the past. The urban design er's role axis
proceeds from the businessperson and a rtist to the facilitator, political
activist, a nd social engineer. Although the reactions to modernist
architecture and pla n ning might be mapped along these axes, such a n
exercise would ultimately reveal little since theory is often a mask or
justification for personal a m bitions or vice versa.
Rather than cha rt the rhetoric of these various approaches, then, this
chapter peers beyond it, by reviewi ng and assessing the ma jor themes
which fall along the axes of postmodern u rbanism as i nscribed within
the larger postmodern reflex outlined in the preceding chapter. These
overlapping themes include contextualism, historicism, the search
for urba nity, regionalism, a nti-u niversalism, pluralism, collage, self
referentiality, reflexivity, preoccupation with image/decor/scenogra phy,
superficiality , depthlessness, ephemerality, fragmentation, populism,
apoliticism, commercialism, loss of faith, and irony. The critique of

13

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

Certain Pasts
(Historicism.
the
search for urbanity)

;::

iii

The Site
(Regionalism or
physical contextualism)

The Social Context

(Social contextualism)

:::;

<
-

<:::;-'

Mass Culture

a:

0
LL.

To produce good and

beautiful architecture
and cities

FOR M FO LLOWS FICTION

challenge of placelessness and a need for u r ba n com m u n ity ( Ley,
1987,
To effect change through urban design

I
5.1

135

was "a sea rch for mea ning a nd sym bolism, a wa y to esta blish
architec ture's ties wi th h u man experience, a wa y to find and express a
value system, a concern for a rchi tect u re in the context of society" (
Huxta ble, 1981a, pp. 73-4).
As modernism's increasingl y minimalistic tendencies grew ever more
stifling, u rba n designers em braced maximalism and inclusivity, as ex
pressed in the maxims "Less is a bore" (Ventu ri, 1966) and "More is
more" (Stern in Williams, 1985). The parallel shift occu rring in literature
is evocatively portrayed by the protagonist in John Barth's Tidewater
Tales (1986), a writer whose increasingl y minimalistic style ultimately
blocks his a bility to write or d rea m u ntil circu mstances (including the
birth of his fi rst child ) re-ign ite his creative juices, this time in a
maxima list form. Likewise in u rban design theory, universalism a nd
purism were gra d ual ly su ppla nted by pl u ralism and contextualism
while the role of the u rban designer sh ifted from that of inspired genius,
artist, or social engi neer to that of a more hu m ble facilitator.

Cf)

z
0

p. 40). In contrast to modernism's insistence upon architectu ral honesty

and fu nctional ity, postmodern urbanism sought to satisfy needs that are
not merely fu nctional and to convey meanings other than the building
tectonics. In a rchitectu ra l theory, Ada Lou ise Huxta ble observed, there

(Theoretical)

Contextualisms :
(To gain inspiration
from :)

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

THE URBAN DESIGNER'S ROLE

The axes of postmodern u rba n ism.

postmodern u rba nism advanced in this cha pter is organize as

follows: Form Follows Fiction Form Follows Fear; Form Follows
Fmesse; Form Follows Finance; and ,The Result. The concluding
sction - On Balance
_ presents certain correctives of postmodern u rba111sm as well as some
recent promising in itiatives.
.
.
The challenge to the modern project a nd th e. declin e of the public
realm to which modern u rbanism was accompl ce called for new re
sponses from urban designers. Whereas "moder111sm from t.he 1910s to
the 1960s . . . responded to the challenge of esta blishing social order fr
a mass society ; post-modernism since the 1960s . . resp?,nded to t e

Whereas modernist a rchitectu re and u rba n planning derived inspiration

from the mach ine to house an industrial society, many reactions to
modernism since the 1960s have sought inspiration from pre-ind ustrial
townsca pes for a post -industria l society. While certa in ou tcomes of these
efforts have been sal u ta ry (see "On Bala nce" below), the two-part denial
inherent in th em often renders success elusive or merely partial. This denial
entails a rel ucta nce to ack nowledge that post-industrial needs and tastes can
differ vastly from pre-industrial ones, along with a related tendency to
selectively edit history, valorizing and idealizing certain pasts while denigra
ting and erasing others, particu larly ou r most recent past, that of
modernism.

In its determi nation to improve u pon modernist urban design,

postmodern u rban ism often fa ils to acknowledge the irreversi ble
changes wrought by the ind ustri a l revol u tion. In a n earl y criticism of
writers such as Jane Jacobs, John Dyckman (1962) contends that they
sim ply edit the factory ou t of the city a nd tal k a bout neigh borhoods i n
which the monster of i nd ustrial ism never intrudes, either in la nd use or the
lives of the ci ti zen. Di rt a nd disorder a re powdered over, colors a nd smells
are someh ow blended as i n the a rtist's pa lette or the master's cuisi ne, so
that tolera nce of thei r d iversity is no a ffi rma tion of sensuousness, but is
as

136

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

respectable as a showing in a n adva nced gallery, or a good dinner in mid

town. Leisure is relaxed and reflective, because security underlies it, and
work, with its meaning, is virtually out of sight. To build a n u rban
aesthetic on this caricature of .urban life is wholly without mea n i ng
for
contemporary city planning.

The more recent proponent of historicism, Leon Krier, would also like
to ignore industrialization, which he has descri bed as a "total failure"
( Krier, 1984), as well as the institutiona l ized forms of ed uca tion
that evolved along with it, which he referred to as "a tortuous necessity
for all," the "decisive instrument" for social, cu ltu ral, and ideological
con trol for social reproduction ( Krier, 1978a, p. 59). As a result,
Manuel Castells maintains, although Krier's typology "has a n ice a
ppeal," it is "reductive and ultimately meaningless" (Castells, 1983, p.
315). Thomas Dutton likewise observes "a wide gulf between Krier's ur
ba n perceptions and prescri ptions" and contempora ry realities ( Dutton,
1986, p. 22), rendering him guilty of misrepresenting the actual
relationship between domina nt and oppressed cultures, power and
powerlessness, urban de sign and social change.1 Ultimately, Dutton
claims, the realization of Krier's proposals would only prod uce su
perficial cha nge, "leaving the city to the reign of domin a nt i
nstitutions with business as usual"
( Dutton, 1986, p. 24).
Along with industrialization and its socia l com ponents, this pu rsuit of
u rba nity also tends to overlook the way in which new tra nsportation a nd
comm u nications technologies have completely su bverted the logic of the
pre-modern city with its high density and tight m ix of bu ild ing fu nctions,
2
while resha ping the use and perception of public and private space. The
danger of this nostalgia is most blata ntly manifest in the oversight of the
car. As Richa rd Ingersoll contends, "Often, in the enth usiasm for a
return to the city fabric, the city is treated as if postindustria l times were
posta utomobile times" (Ingersoll, 1989c, p. 12). Interviewi ng Colin
Rowe, Ingersoll asks, "Isn't the problem of the a utomobile, even if it was
not the origi n of the formal solutions of Modernism, 3 still central in a
cu rrent u rban scheme? " ( i bid.). In a telling response, Rowe ad mits
that "Here i n Rome there are times, in fact every day, when I wou ld
prefer to get into an automobile a nd go shopping i n a su perma rket
than go shopping around in these little stores. The ideal thi ng wou ld be
to have a good American su burb adjacent to a very concentrated
Italian town,
then you'd have the best of both worlds" ( ibid.). Rowe's ideal of living ,
and doing his errands in a well-appointed American su bu rb with an old
Eu ropean town nearby - for charm, character, and possi bly status - is
no dou bt a widely-shared sentiment, albeit ra rely admitted by those

decry ing the decline of the pu blic real m and pu rsuing the "search
for u rba nity."4

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

137

Although pre-modern typologies a nd morphologies may appear

quaint and may be fun to visit, then, they usually do not correspond
to contempora ry needs and tastes (see Ellin, 1994). Ingersoll
addresses this issue, saying: "While the objective of walka ble streets
and harmonious surroundings might appea r to be universal, at the
heart of this postmodern alternative lies a trou bling paradox that is
rarely taken into account and indeed calls into dou bt the wisdom of
what are essentially formal solutions: preindustrial forms a nd spaces
are not necessarily suited to posti nd ustrial ways of life" (Ingersoll,
1989a, p. 21). Ingersoll inquires: "If one proposes all kinds of nice
pu blic spaces, connected streets a nd figu red piazzas, will there still
be an a udience in a highly technological society for their use?"
(ibid.). The answer is often no, as attested to by many carefully
designed but un used indoor and outdoor pu blic spaces inserted into
existing urba n fabrics or built in new towns and edge cities.5
The sea rch for u r banity is misguided when it ignores the
contempo rary context altogether or falls into the tra p of
environmental determin ism presuming that traditional u rban forms
will engender traditional urban lifestyles.6 As James Holston has
asserted, the problem with forays into contextualism "in today's city is
pa radoxically a question of context: they a re out of context in their

nostalgic references to (an imagined) social and economic order of the

past" ( Holston, p. 317).
In addition, the sea rch for urba nity has been accused of placing a
"brake on the imagi nation" ( Luca n, 1989, p. 145) because its fatuous
adherence to the forms of the past discou rage innovative solutions to the
problems of a ra pidly-changi ng world. David Mangin maintains that
while this new "false urbanity" may offer some advantages over modern
urbanism, it is really a bout "managing mediocrity" (Mangin ) since only
good architects can make modern architecture, but all architects can
work within the fra me of urban architecture, which he regards as "an
architecture of accompa niment" ( i bid.). 7 Such management of mediocrity
is apparent in the development of Battery Park City on Manhattan's
southwestern ti p (see p. 77), which the New York Times architecture
critic Herbert Muschamp has descri bed as "a corrective to modern
urbanism" ( Muscham p, 1994c), but a place where the design guidelines
inspired by prewa r New York constrained architects from exercising
originality with the result th at "There isn't one building with something
fresh or stimulating to say a bout ur ban life today" ( ibid.). Another
example of urban design which fa iled to elicit innovative approaches
because of its nostalgia is the plan for revitalizing the waterfront of New
York City. According to Muscha m p, this plan failed to grasp its potential
for environmentally-sensitive development and for blending nature with
the city beca use it "was soaked in the thinking of an earlier day: the

138

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

Industrial Age that treated natu re mainly as raw material to be

8
exploited
for
hu
man
use"
(
Muschamp,
1993b).
.

In part an outcome of exha usted creati:e energies, then, the infatu

ation with the past fu rther ham pers creative potential. As Muscham p
suggests, this mentality in the world of design generates "a climat of
indifference to the imagination" because "it has a pparently been decided
in advance that every new building should look like the Art Deco a part
ment buildings of the 1930s. Every street should be lighted by bishop
crook lampposts. Every park shou ld look l ike a n Olmsted pa
rk"
(Muschamp, 1993b).
.
.
In addition to ignoring the vast im pact of the md ustnal mode of
production and the new tech nologies it has aa iled, postmodern
u rbanism also tends to edit the efforts by u rban designers to accommo
date these cha nges as manifest in modern u r ba n ism. Rather tha design
in the context of modernist settings, postmodern u rba nism tu rns its back
on these. Indeed, if it were truly contextual, it would la rgely be accom
modating modernist settings, since these constitu te such a large percent
9

age of the landscape the world arou nd.

Architects a nd urbanists such as Leon Krier, Robert Stern, and
Quinlan Terry, according to Doug Davis, "ignore the specific ideo.logical
or religious implications of the periods they q uote [and] ar in fact
anti historicist: they prefer history-as-arcadian-sym bol, not h1story-as
reality" (D. Davis, p. 21). McLeod simila rly criticizes. the European
typologists Aldo Rossi, Vittorio Gregotti, and Rob Kner. for treating
"architecture primarily as a static artifact, despite their pu rported
interest in hi story and political transforma tion" ( McLeod, p . 9).
Al though they call for contextual ism, she says, their proposals are
actually couched in a language of u niversality since they view "type
as a 'con stant' in a context of cha nging productive relations" (
ibid.). Indeed,
their highly personal interpretation s of ty pe may actually reflect "a
past that may not have existed" (Moneo; cited b Fra nces ato, P 8).
With rega rds to the ty pologists' claim that q uoting. fa miliar typ s
is reassu ring while sim ultaneously offering a n arh1te.ctu ral
cnt1que, Boyer asserts: "This can be like walking on a thin t1gh
rope, fo decora tive pastiches do not necessarily arouse ou r
collet1ve memoy.
( Boyer, 1983, p. 289) . Not u nlike the Eu ropean ty polog1.sts, Ve?tun.
is a l so guilty of being only selectiv ely contextuaL As Lesmkowsk1
main tains "Ventu ri d id not add ress the com pos1t1on of the exa m ples
he desc;i bed in their contextual ( political, cultu ral, ph ysical ) totality but
picked u p fragmentary and seconda ry aspects to prove h is points
" ( Lesn ikowski, 1982). His interpreta tion of the great Eu ropean ma?ner

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

139

Although certain designers seek a faithful retu rn to the past, most of

them justify their more stylized historicisms as intentionally ironic. 10 Like
the more generalized ironic response (see chapter 4), its manifestation in
u rba n design a l so im plies that it is aware of the fictions being applied
but ack nowledges thei r necessity . The strategy of "dou ble coding"
proffered by Jencks (defined pp. 88-9), for instance, suggests that we use
past forms in an ironic wa y (Jencks, 1978, p. 18) since there is no
alternative in ou r cu rrent mass media-in undated world.
Yet the den ia l of contem porary needs and tastes along with the
ten dency to reject the modern tradition rather than incorporate it have
allowed for borrowings from the past which prove misguided and inap
propriate. The pa rticu lar references favored by urban designers are
usual l y selected from their readings and travels on the basis of personal
taste a nd a re usually removed from their political and social
contexts. Conseq uently, the meaning designers hope to bestow u pon
their architec ture - so tha t it will commu nicate - is usually lost.
The effort to re-center ou r de-centered world by creating centers
offers one exa m ple. The Piazza d'Ital ia designed by Perez a nd
Associates and Charles Moore was one effort to create such a center,
but never became the vi brant pu blic space that its designers had hoped
for. Highlighting the deadliness (as opposed to vita lity) of this plaza,
Pa ul Walker Clarke points out that it has served as a stageset for two
movies, both of which portrayed it as empty with the exception of a
corpse in the fou ntain. He contends, "The design never overca me the
limits of its commission; the false notion tha t u rba n i ty can be
generated by the constitu tion of an 'u rban center' " (Clarke, 1988, p.
16).
The recent vogue for townsca pes of t he past is a pparent in
movements arou nd th e globe for historic preservation, adaptive re-use,
reha bili tation, restoration, a nd renovation. But in most cases, these
attempts at
isms, sa ys Lesnikowski, was per sonal, individ ualistic, detached,
isolationist, and forma listic (ibid.).

preserving built form are enti rely revisionary, for instance, turning
houses into m useu ms or factories into housing. Often, these undertakings
do not preserve an ything at all bu t start entirely from scratch and call it
"renovation" ra ther tha n new construction to lend it greater cachet. This
urban design trend is th us inscri bed in the larger trend of "inventing
traditions" descri bed i n cha pter 4. 11
In order to make something a ppear truly old or "a uthentic," it is often
necessa ry to begin anew a nd to use materia ls a nd tech niq ues wh ich

were not used for the origi nal. 1 2 To give one exa m ple, an arch itect com
missioned to design a seventeenth-centu ry Tusca n villa for his client on
Long Isla nd rema rked: "We thought of renovating the existing house,
but it beca me clear tha t to make a house tha t wou ld look old, we had
to start anew" ( New York Times, August 30, 1990, C6). Given the empha
sis u pon image-making i n u rba n design, it is not su rprising that
develop-

140

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

5 .2

"A rustic cabinet for all kinds of collections. Crafted of mahogany with a
whitewashed finish that is carefully ru bbed to look as if time did the job." Pottery
Barn catalogue 1995, reproduced countesy of The Pottery Ba rn .

ers have made recourse to the entertainment industries - the masters of

"imagineering" - particularly for the design of theme parks, hotels,
and restaurants. Offering one example of how they work, a
spokesperson from the entertainment industry explained that they use
fiberglass to give the appearance of a rock because "you get a very
artificial appearance with real rock" (cited by Huxta ble 1992, 27).
The disingenuous nature of these efforts to look effortless (as though
there had been no intervention by designers) a nd to make the new look
old extends to interiors as well, as illustrated by the cu rrent predilection
among city-dwellers for acquiring home fu rnishings which a ppea r
rural and old (Slesin 1993). To give new things the aged-look, a
salesperson explained, their "paint finishes intentionally show signs
of wear and aging" (cited by Slesin 1993). Explaining this sensibility,
one shopowner asserted that these items represent "nostalgia for the
sim ple life" and another maintained, "I feel that esthetic is more im
porta nt than authen tic" (cited by Slesin 1993). This sensibility was pa
ralleled in clothing fashion by the popularity of "vintage clothing, "
particularly the market ing of blue jeans which are already worn-i n and
"personalized" ( illustra-

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

141

on .5.2). As California a rchitect Brian Murphy poignantly commented

Ac1d- ashed 1eans a re a perfect metaphor for the perverse post-modern
mentality. They take a perfectl y good fa bric and make it look old" ( B.
Murphy). 13
The valorization of artefacts of the industrial era offers one significant
eample of the wa y in which the past is revised for current purposes
. Smee. the 1970s, the factories, warehouses, machines, and products
of our md ustnal past ha ve been elevated to preserva tion status - and
ndwers of social status - as is apparent in museums devoted to display
ing items from this period, the rise of "industrial archaeology," move
ments for "preserving" ind ustrial landscapes, and loft-living. The
"reason that people develop a sentimental - or a sensual - attachment
to the industria l aesthetic," says Sharon Zukin, "is that it is not real. To
be precise, it is no longer real" (Zukin, 1988a, p. 73). As Robert
Harbison maintains, "They a re choosing to retu rn to a more
manageable past. As
.ach generation of machines becomes more complicated, we withdraw
mto dreams of obsolete machines and see ou rselves among windmills,
clipper ships, even trolley cars' " (cited by Zukin, 1988a, p. 73). The
smaller ou r machi nes become, the more the older larger ones evoke
nostalgia and become part of a common folklore. We are also attracted
by the dura ble quality of things such as reinforced steel shelving in
conrast to the bu ilt-in obsolescence of so much that has replaced it.14
While ostmodern urba nism has la rgely chosen to overlook changes set
m motion by the factory system, it has at the same time ascri bed new
meanings to the industrial era by displacing its artefacts from their
original contexts.
. Efforts at contextualism a nd preservation, then, are engaged in invent
ing a h1tor which lar?ely erases the chapter on the modern period, or
re-valonzes 1t and idealizes selected earlier periods. Once the invention of
tradition ?oes beyond a certain point, it produces "hyperreal" environ
ments which, Um berto Eco expla ins, must be a bsolutely fake in order to
b betr than a nything real ( Eco, 1986, pp. 7, 8, 30). The pretense of
h1stonc1sm or preservation - of referring to a certain original - is su
per seded by a n attempt to produce an encompassing environment
which transcends its sou rces of inspiration. Much of our postmodern
landscape has thus. ?een descri bed as "hyperreal ," pa rticularly
master-plan ned commu 1t1es, sho.pping malls, and theme parks or
entertainment palaces . Te mtrod ct1on of the magic ma rker in the
1960s, according to arch1t ct Da me! .Solomon, contributed to the
recasting of American urban.ism by magically su bstituting MPCs for
the gridiron town and, in so domg, tra nsforming "the landscape of
banality of the 1950s into a ladscape of meta phor in the '60s:

Mariner's Cove, Tonga Gardens, Bna r Heath, Broad Sun lit Uplands"
(Solomon, p. 31). Solomon thus

142

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

contends that "If history was the victim of the first generation of post
war development, reality was the victim of the second" (ibid.). New
information tech nologies have also played an essential role in this devel
opment. While increasingly usu rping the pu blic realm, they ha ve influ
enced urban design from their use in the design and bu ilding processes to
their influence on spatial organization a nd their impact on designers'
aesthetic preferences. 15 Although some find the introduction of CAD
( Computer-Aided Design) and GIS ( Geogra phic Information Systems)
constraining while others find it liberating, there is no q uestion that these
new technologies have contri buted to an em phasis on a ppea ra nce over
su bstance and image over content .16
The enhanced power of the image ushered in by these tools and by
other tech nologies of comm u nication has incited arch itects and planners
to design, more than ever before, with an eye toward getti ng pu blished,
so they pay keen attention to how a build ing will a ppea r in a two
dimensional frame. At the same time, architectu ral pu bl ications have
a ltered their forma ts. Pointing ou t that the insides of bu ildings are no
longer shown in architectu ral pu blications, on ly the exteriors, the French
architectu ral historian Anatole Kopp sarcastically remarked: "Who
cares how one is going to live inside? Is it not enough to have provided
ma jestic Pu blic Spaces, streets and squa res? We will be a ble to take
endless walks? We will go everywhere afoot . . . . How wonderful in the
Pa ris or London climate!" ( Kopp, p. 37). Magazines which focus on
interiors, on the other hand, ra rely include pla ns or even photogra phs of
the exteriors of buildings, bespeaking the growing fragmenta tion of the
design professions.
This "retu rn of aest h etics" ( Boyer, 1990) is disti nct from its
earlier
incarnation, according to Boyer, beca use it now featu res "a free play of
all styles, with a general quoting, a ppropriating, recycling of images
which easily slide over su rface structu res" ( Boyer, 1990, pp. 100-1).
Not necessarily referring to any original, wha t is often prod uced is
simulacra (see p. 108). Such u rban design, Boyer ma intains, engenders
a "blase attitude" ( Boyer, 1990, p. 97) for it im plies tha t the city is
"after all just entertainment; we are only there to look and to bu y. The city
has become a place of esca pe, a wonderland that evades reality, for
there is nothing more to think a bout in pu re entertainment. There is no
ou tside world, no place from which we feel alienated, for th is formalistic
city is known and comforta ble; it is a bove all a place to en joy
oneself. The pleasure is affirmative and fa r from oppositional a nd
negative" ( Boyer, 1990, pp. 97-8). With consu mption replacing prod
uction as the pri ma ry economic role of ou r central cities, Boyer
explains, they become places of "pure play" ( Boyer, 1990, p. 97).
Trevor Boddy descri bes the product of

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

143

postmodern u rbanism as "the analogous city," largely beca use its "urban
prosthetics" ( pedestrian bridges and tunnels) which join towers, shop ping
centers, and festival ma rketplaces "provide a filtered version of the
experience of cities, a sim ulation of u rbanity" (Boddy, 1992, p. 124). By
accelerating the stra tification of race and class, he says, they "degrade the
very cond itions they su pposedly remedy - the amenity, safety, and envi
ronmental conditions of the pu blic realm" ( i bid.).
With regards to theme parks, Harvey has observed that "it is now
possi ble to experience the world's geography vicariously, as a
sim ulacru m," in a way which conceals "almost perfectly any trace of
origin, of the la bou r processes tha t produced them, or of the social
relations im plica ted in their prod uction" (Harvey, 1989, p. 300). In a
contem porary - a nd somehow u n nerving - twist, these simu lacra have
become reality since many more people visit the sim ulacra of Africa and
China presented in Disneyworld tha n actually visit these foreign lands
and, for them, the sim u lacra are Africa and China more than the far-off
places themselves. 1 7
The emphasis on appearance has tra n slated into the favoring of build
ing fa1tades which disguise their real materials, scale, history, or pu rpose.
This is usually done in an effort to maintain or generate a sense of
urbanity or tradition . Rather than reveal the true structure of a building,
fa\ades are often designed to make large buildings look like a num ber of
smaller ones (sometimes explained as "building on a human scale"), to
be decorative, or to make new construction look old. Thus, ou r cities
today contain many examples of "prewar" (a term popularized by the realestate ind ust ry , usua lly referring to the First World War though
sometimes to the Second ) fa1tades of townhouses, mansions, shops, a nd
factories masking la te twentieth-centu ry l uxu ry condominiums (e.g. 79
Street near Park Aven ue, 278 Pa rk Avenue - Grammercy Place l uxu
ry condominiu ms, a nd Soho lofts, all in New York City), hotels (e.g.
Helmsley Palace Hotel a bove the Villa rd Houses in New York City),
retail stores (e.g. Barney's in New York City), cultu ral institutions, sports
arenas (e.g. Oriole Park at Ca mden Ya rd in Baltimore), and corporate
office buildings (e.g. 712 Fifth Aven ue in New York City, Red Lion Row
on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC). The new typology of
"festival ma rketplaces" a ppearing in CBDs since 1972 joins a variety of
these functions a rou nd that of consu m ption in a vacated prewar building
or a new building designed in the spi rit of the old .
Such design has been descri bed disparagingly as "fa1tadism" ( Choa y,
1985, p. 269; Richa rds) or "fa1tad-omy" ( Editorial, 1990). An editorial
in the New York Times asserted that: "Modern America has tu rned
facades inside out . . . Sma ll masks big. Old masks new. Elegant modesty