1980 in Parallax: The Strada Novissima and Its Double

TY - JOUR

T1 - 1980 in Parallax

T2 - The Strada Novissima and Its Double

AU - Carolin, Clare

PY - 2023/11/11

Y1 - 2023/11/11

N2 - In 1980 the first ever Venice Architecture Biennale entitled ‘The Presence of the Past’ famously announced Post-Modernism as the international mainstream of architecture. It proposed a new canon that was to be more inclusive and polyphonic, and sought to embrace a diversity of narratives, a variety of styles, contradictions and irony. Yet despite these ideals, none of the case studies and architects presented at the Biennale went beyond the European and North-American context. Looking back – once again – in order to look forward, this series of essays addressing the question ‘Whose Post-Modernism?’ reconsiders the Post-Modern canon from the critical distance of 43 years to reinvigorate the pluralism suggested by the Biennale and Charles. It invites multiple voices to collectively remap the year 1980 from various geographical and cultural perspectives beyond the West, while reflecting on its legacies today. Eighth in the series, Clare Carolin’s essay points to a formal correspondence between the Post-Modern facades of the Strada Novissima at the Venice Biennale and the illusionistic political murals of the North of Ireland, exploring how their respective narratives might overlap and outline a political climate that defined the turn of the 1980s.

AB - In 1980 the first ever Venice Architecture Biennale entitled ‘The Presence of the Past’ famously announced Post-Modernism as the international mainstream of architecture. It proposed a new canon that was to be more inclusive and polyphonic, and sought to embrace a diversity of narratives, a variety of styles, contradictions and irony. Yet despite these ideals, none of the case studies and architects presented at the Biennale went beyond the European and North-American context. Looking back – once again – in order to look forward, this series of essays addressing the question ‘Whose Post-Modernism?’ reconsiders the Post-Modern canon from the critical distance of 43 years to reinvigorate the pluralism suggested by the Biennale and Charles. It invites multiple voices to collectively remap the year 1980 from various geographical and cultural perspectives beyond the West, while reflecting on its legacies today. Eighth in the series, Clare Carolin’s essay points to a formal correspondence between the Post-Modern facades of the Strada Novissima at the Venice Biennale and the illusionistic political murals of the North of Ireland, exploring how their respective narratives might overlap and outline a political climate that defined the turn of the 1980s.

KW - Venice Biennale

KW - 1980

KW - Charles Jencks

KW - Mairead Farrell

KW - North of Ireland

KW - Murals

KW - Post-modernism

KW - Architecture

M3 - Article

JO - Jencks Foundation

JF - Jencks Foundation

ER -