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Have not had time to read The Article people were arguing about yesterday, but wondering how mainstream architecture's attempt to empty itself of "politics" in the 90s-00s relates to Reaganism and death of the vaguely social democratic streak of 1932-80 in the US. (1/x)
I am super curious to learn more about the political ideologies embedded in architectural production prior to the 90s, for example, especially for practices that did not readily identify themselves as explicitly left leaning but that might have taken on socially driven work.
Like, what sort of political thinking was Minoru Yamasaki tapping into in designing the Pruitt-Igoe housing complexes, for example? My understanding was that P-I was designed as segregated housing from the onset, how did this register within the design practice that birthed it?
Paul Revere Williams also designed many public and social housing projects, was there an ideology there beyond the pressing social need for housing (and does there need to have been?)?
In later GSA-driven projects, like the Pei, Cobb, Freed courthouses of the 80s-90s, atriums exist as a reference to the social condenser and theres an attitude re: glass and openness relating to democracy / plurality, but what else beyond this?
With wholesale federal disinvestment in public works post-Nixon, we see the erosion of the US state as a viable client or as one with a clear agenda re: the function and purpose of architectural production.
So I wonder if the attempt to absolve architecture of a political nature comes out of the resulting political climate of the period, when capitalism is crowned triumphant at the end of the Cold War, the state is decimated, and all that’s left is corporatism and “the market”?
These are extremely disjointed thoughts, apologies, but I keep returning to the erosion of the power of the state as a client and as a proactive force in the lives of average people and how this must have had an impact on how architects approached their work and theory.
These thoughts come from a place of genuine / unresearched curiosity, Btw, I apologize if people have already made discursive contributions, please share if so!
