Dwelling in Expanded Biotic Communities: Steps Toward Reconstructive Postmodern Communities - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 320

18.2 Foundations of Postmodern Communities
An initial difficulty facing any attempt to describe what are and should be postmodern
communities results from the fact that the term postmodern is itself ambiguous, given
the multiple means of the term postmodern. This ambiguity can be found in the distinc-
tions made between “postmodernism” and “postmodernity” where the former refers
to changes in the arts, philosophy, and other social and political views, while the latter
refers to actual social and political changes in the industrialized world, especially since
the 1960s.*
The ambiguity is further compounded by the fact that the term has a descriptive
and a normative sense. It first can refer to the significant changes in society in the last
50 years, which supposedly warrant a new term to describe this new state of affairs.
Accordingly, the development of postmodern communities would refer to the types
of communities that have been developed in post-World War II years that do not share
many or most of the features of modern communities that developed in Western coun-
tries since, at least, the Industrial Age. The difference between modernism and post-
modernism can be seen in the contrast between architectural works by Miles van der
Rohe, Le Corbusier, and the Bauhaus Movement on one hand, and the works of Philip
Johnson and Michael Graves on the other. The unadorned structures of the modern
period reflecting a “form follows function” philosophy is now being replaced with an
eclectic approach that draws on the past † and reintroduces the idea of facades on build-
ings, nonorthogonal angles, and nontraditional surfaces. ‡
The alternative, normative meaning to postmodernism refers to a critique of modernism
with its focus on progress, rationality, a devaluing of emotional responses, and emphasis
on order and structure. The history of the movement from modern to postmodern
thinking in urban design can be found in published works by scholars such as Ellin 4 and
Frampton. 5 The rationalism implicit in community design, with emphasis on functionality,
grid layout, and monotonous order, was now understood as providing a defense against
subversive, dangerous, “wild” aspects of the world. The urban area, which was once a
place of safety, became, itself a place of danger. Nan Ellin has also described how fear and
a desire for safety has shaped the development of communities by invoking “an idealized
past, an exoticized other, a fantasy world, group cohesion, or oneself,” 6 where Levittown
is being replaced by Celebration, Florida. § The “New Urbanism” movement itself can
be understood through such a critique as having its impulse in a response against the
authoritarian control by external power centers, creating communities that are friendly,
small scale, and safe but are also, at the same time, gated, restrictive to outsiders, and fixed
in a single overarching design theme.
Given the horrific social events of the twentieth century, some have held that
the project of modernity needs to be replaced or deconstructed so that a better social
world can emerge. 7 But I do not share such a radical view. Instead I am arguing that
the problems of alienation, domination and control of individuals, objectification of
nature, and the consequent postmodern attempts to build communities that address
* This distinctions made by Giddens. 2
† Las Vegas, Nevada is a prime example of this postmodernism. See Venturi and Brown. 3
‡ An instance of this in Las Vegas can be found in Frank Gehry's design of the Lou Ruvo Alzheimer's Institute.
http://www.dexigner.com/architecture/news-g6875.html (accessed August 10, 2011).
§ http://architecture.about.com/od/communitydesign/g/newurban.htm (accessed August 10, 2011).