ERWIN PANOFSKY (1892-1968) Part Two: The System of Meaning: Art History as Symbolic Form Like the anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Erwin Panofsky considered social acts to be not natural but linguistic forms, which are cultural, and thus subject to human...
SIGMUND FREUD (1856 – 1939) PART TWO DREAMS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND The “psyche” was a term borrowed from Plato who had used the term as designated the “soul,” but for Sigmund Freud, the psyche was composed of energies or basic instincts. These instincts are...
The Masters of Postmodernism Postmodern architecture is a generational Oedipal act of rebellion against the Modernist fathers. Beginning with early criticisms of Modernist destruction of traditional cities, from the 1970s a genuine rebellion broke out among younger...
Mannerism and Symbolism in Architecture Robert Venturi began his famous book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, with a “gentle manifesto” for what he called “Nonstraightforward Architecture.” The young architect stated, I like...
POSTMODERNISM: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Part Two Defining Postmodernism is a difficult process. Even though it is now fashionable to declare Postmodernism as “dead” or “over,” one should proceed with caution before burying the body. Unlike...
THEODOR ADORNO (1903-1969) AND IDENTITY Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno wrote their critique of the culture of Western civilization, Dialectic of Enlightenment during the Second World War. When the book was published in German in 1947, the full extent of the...
