Modernism In Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a region associated with modernity: modern design, modern living and a modern welfare state. This new history of modernism in Scandinavia offers a picture of the complex reality that lies behind the label: a modernism made up of many different figures, impulses and visions. It places the individuals who have achieved international fame, such as Edvard Munch and Alvar Aalto in a wider context, and through a series of case studies, provides a rich analysis of the art, architecture and design history of the Nordic region, and of modernism as a concept and mode of practice. Modernism in Scandinavia addresses the decades between 1890 and 1970 and presents an intertwined history of modernism across the region. Charlotte Ashby gives a rationale for her focus on those countries which share an interrelated history and colonial past, but also stresses influences from outside the region, such as the English Arts and Crafts movement and the impact of emergent American modernism. Her richly illustrated account guides the reader through key historical periods and cultural movements, with case studies illuminating key art works, buildings, designed products and exhibitions.

Scandinavia is a region associated with modernity: modern design, modern living and a modern welfare state. This new history of modernism in Scandinavia offers a picture of the complex reality that lies behind the label: a modernism made up of many different figures, impulses and visions. It places the individuals who have achieved international fame, such as Edvard Munch and Alvar Aalto in a wider context, and through a series of case studies, provides a rich analysis of the art, architecture and design history of the Nordic region, and of modernism as a concept and mode of practice. Modernism in Scandinavia addresses the decades between 1890 and 1970 and presents an intertwined history of modernism across the region. Charlotte Ashby gives a rationale for her focus on those countries which share an interrelated history and colonial past, but also stresses influences from outside the region, such as the English Arts and Crafts movement and the impact of emergent American modernism. Her richly illustrated account guides the reader through key historical periods and cultural movements, with case studies illuminating key art works, buildings, designed products and exhibitions.

Modernism was instrumental in the development of twentieth and twenty-first century Scandinavian architecture, for it captured a progressive, urbane character that was inextricably associated with, and embraced the social programmes of the Nordic welfare states. Recognized internationally for its sensitivity and responsiveness to place and locale, and its thoughtful use of materials and refined detailing, Nordic architecture continues to evolve and explore its modernist roots. This work covers the romantic and classical architectural foundations of Nordic modernism; the development of Nordic Functionalism; the maturing and expansion of Nordic modern architecture in the post-war period; international influences on Scandinavian modernism at the end of the twentieth century and finally, the global and local currents found in contemporary Nordic architecture.

Modernism was instrumental in the development of twentieth and twenty-first century Scandinavian architecture, for it captured a progressive, urbane character that was inextricably associated with, and embraced the social programmes of the Nordic welfare states. Recognized internationally for its sensitivity and responsiveness to place and locale, and its thoughtful use of materials and refined detailing, Nordic architecture continues to evolve and explore its modernist roots. This new book covers the romantic and classical architectural foundations of Nordic modernism; the development of Nordic Functionalism; the maturing and expansion of Nordic modern architecture in the post-war period; international influences on Scandinavian modernism at the end of the twentieth century and finally, the global and local currents found in contemporary Nordic architecture. Superbly illustrated with 100 colour images.

Swedish Modernism provides an in-depth, multilayered account of the process of modernization; whilst also highlighting the difficulties found. The debate is enriched from a diverse range of contributors including architects, researchers and leading academics from across the globe. Following an introduction from Helena Mattsson and Sven-Olov Wallenstein, the book is divided thematically into three sections. The first section of the book explores the construction of the welfare state. The contributions in this section analyze the peculiar modalities of this development from the point of view of sociology and political science, providing a more nuanced view of 'modernization' that shows to what extent it must always be understood on the basis of local context. The second section delves into the importance of consumers and spectacles analyzed in relation to the wide range of 'state programmes' from housing to national marketing programmes. This section includes case studies highlighting the importance of consumption for the formation of subjectivity, both in the pre-and post-war period, and range from analyzes of exhibition architectures and debated on standardization to the Co-Op movement and the gendering of taste. One of the contributors looks, for example, at the exhibition Modern Leisure, 1936, and explores how exhibitions were highly instrumental in the formation of the Swedish welfare state. Another contributor looks at how strategies of consumption are formulated in the political and architectural debates of the 1930s. The third and final section of the book deals with the problem of historiography on a broad level. The section also includes contributions from Roger Jonsson and Sven-Olov Wallenstein, who draw on the work of Michel Foucault and delineate a genealogical model of analysis that focuses on how architecture can take part in the production of subjectivity. AUTHORS Reinhold Martin is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University, and Director of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for Study of American Architecture, Columbia University. He is also partner in the firm Martin/Baxi Architects, New York. Penny Sparke is a Pro Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Design History at Kingston University, London. UK Joan Ockman is Director of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. She lives in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. Helena Mattsson is an architect and researcher. She is teaching at the School of Architecture/Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. She is a member of the architectural collaboration Testbedstudio Stockholm, as well as of the editorial board of Site magazine. Sven-Olov Wallenstein teaches philosophy at the University College of Södertörn, and architectural theory at the Royal Institute of Technology, both in Stockholm, and is the editor-in-chief of Site. ILLUSTRATIONS 173 colour & b/w illustrations

The term "modernism" is central to any discussion of twentieth-century literature and critical theory. Astradur Eysteinsson here maintains that the concept of modernism does not emerge directly from the literature it subsumes, but is in fact a product of critical practices relating to nontraditional literature. Intervening in these practices, and correlating them with modernist works and with modern literary theory, Eysteinsson undertakes a comprehensive reexamination of the idea of modernism. Eysteinsson critically explores various manifestations of modernism in a rich array of American, British, and European literature, criticism, and theory. He first examines many modernist paradigms, detecting in them a conflict between modernism's culturally subversive potential and its relatively conservative status as a formalist project. He then considers these paradigms as interpretations-and fabrications-of literary history. Seen in this light, modernism both signals a historical change on the literary scene and implies the context of that change. Laden with the implications of tradition and modernity, modernism fills its major function: that of highlighting and defining the complex relations between history and postrealist literature. Eysteinsson focuses on the ways in which the concept of modernism directs our understanding of literature and literary history and influences our judgment of experimental and postrealist works in literature and art. He discusses in detail the relation of modernism to the key concepts postmodernism, the avant-garde, and realism. Enacting a crisis of subject and reference, modernism is not so much a form of discourse, he asserts, as its interruption-a possible "other" modernity that reveals critical aspects of our social and linguistic experience in Western culture. Comparatists, literary theorists, cultural historians, and others interested in twentieth-century literature and art will profit from this provocative book.