The following article focuses on built environment, the architecture of spaces designed for human habitation. 
Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. A wider definition would include within its scope the design of the total built environment, from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of creating furniture. Architectural design usually must address both feasibility and cost for the builder, and function and aesthetics for the user.
In modern usage, architecture is the art and discipline of creating an actual, or inferring an implied or apparent plan of any complex object or system. The term can be used to connote the implied architecture of abstract things such as music or mathematics, the apparent architecture of natural things, such as geological formations or the structure of biological cells, or explicitly planned architectures of human-made things such as software, computers, enterprises, and databases, in addition to buildings. In every usage, an architecture may be seen as a subjective mapping from a human perspective (that of the user in the case of abstract or physical artifacts) to the elements or components of some kind of structure or system, which preserves the relationships among the elements or components.
Planned architecture often manipulates space, volume, texture, light, shadow, or abstract elements in order to achieve pleasing aesthetics. This distinguishes it from applied science or engineering, which usually concentrate more on the functional and feasibility aspects of the design of constructions or structures.
The Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, Athens, Greece
In the field of building architecture, the skills demanded of an architect range from the more complex, such as for a hospital or a stadium, to something simpler, such as planning simple residential houses. Many architectural works may be seen also as cultural and political symbols, and/or works of art. The role of the architect, though changing, has been central to the successful (and sometimes less than successful) design and implementation of pleasingly built environments in which people live.
Scope and intentions
According to the very earliest surviving work on the subject, Vitruvius' De architectura, good buildings satisfy three core principles: Firmness, Commodity, and Delight; architecture can be said to be a balance and coordination among these three elements, with none overpowering the others. A modern day definition sees architecture as addressing aesthetic, structural and functional considerations. However, looked at another way, function itself is seen as encompassing all criteria, including aesthetic and psychological ones.
Architecture is an interdisciplinary field, drawing upon mathematics, science, art, technology, social sciences, politics, history, and philosophy. Vitruvius states: "Architecture is a science, arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning: by the help of which a judgement is formed of those works which are the result of other arts". He adds that an architect should be well versed in fields such as music and astronomy. Philosophy is a particular favourite; in fact the approach of an architect to their subject is often called their philosophy. Rationalism, empiricism, structuralism, poststructuralism, and phenomenology are some topics from philosophy that have influenced architecture.

The Colosseum, Rome, Italy is an example of Roman architecture.
Architecture and buildings

The difference between architecture and building is a subject matter that has engaged the attention of many. According to Nikolaus Pevsner, European historian of the early twentieth century, "A bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture".
Architecture is also the art of designing the human built environment. Buildings, landscaping, and street designs may be used to impart both functional as well as aesthetic character to a project. Siding and roofing materials and colors may be used to enhance or blend buildings with the environment. Building features such as cornices, gables, entrances, window treatments and borders may be used to soften or enhance portions of a building. Landscaping may be used to create privacy and block direct views from or to a site and enhance buildings with colorful plants and trees. Street side features such as decorative lighting, benches, meandering walkways, and bicycle lanes may enhance a site for passersby, pedestrians, and cyclists.
Architectural history
Architecture first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (shelter, security, worship, etc.) and means (available building materials and attendant skills). Prehistoric and primitive architecture constitute this early stage. As humans progressed and knowledge began to be formalised through oral traditions and practices, architecture evolved into a craft. Here there is first a process of trial and error, and later improvisation or replication of a successful trial. What is termed Vernacular architecture continues to be produced in many parts of the world.
Virupaksha Temple, Hampi, India

Early human settlements were essentially rural. As surplus of production began to occur, rural societies transformed into urban ones and cities began to evolve. In many ancient civilisations such as the Egyptians' and Mesopotamians' architecture and urbanism reflected the constant engagement with the divine and the supernatural. However, the architecture and urbanism of the Classical civilisations such as the Greek and the Roman evolved from more civic ideas and new building types emerged. Architectural styles developed and texts on architecture began to be written. These became canons to be followed in important works, especially religious architecture. Some examples of canons are the works of Vitruvius, the Kaogongji of ancient China and Vaastu Shastra in ancient India. In Europe in the Classical and Medieval periods, buildings were not attributed to specific individual architects who remained anonymous. Guilds were formed by craftsmen to organise their trade. Over time the complexity of buildings and their types increased. General civil construction such as roads and bridges began to be built. Many new building types such as schools, hospitals, and recreational facilities emerged.
Islamic architecture has a long and complex history beginning in the seventh century CE. Examples can be found throughout the countries that are, or were, Islamic - from Morocco and Spain to Iran, and Indonesia. Other examples can be found in areas where Muslims are a minority. Islamic architecture includes mosques, madrasas, caravansarais, palaces, and mausolea of this large region.
With the Renaissance and its emphasis on the individual and humanity rather than religion, and with all its attendant progress and achievements, a new chapter began. Buildings were ascribed to specific architects - Michaelangelo, Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci - and the cult of the individual had begun. But there was no dividing line between artist, architect and engineer, or any of the related vocations. At this stage, it was still possible for an artist to design a bridge as the level of structural calculations involved were within the scope of the generalist.
With the consolidation of knowledge in scientific fields such as engineering and the rise of new materials and technology, the architect began to lose ground on the technical aspects of building. He therefore cornered for himself another playing field - that of aesthetics. There was the rise of the "gentleman architect" who usually dealt with wealthy clients and concentrated predominantly on visual qualities derived usually from historical prototypes. In the 19th century Ecole des Beaux Arts in France, the training was toward producing quick sketch schemes involving beautiful drawings without much emphasis on context.


Chrysler building, New York City, USA

Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution laid open the door for mass consumption and aesthetics started becoming a criterion even for the middle class as ornamented products, once within the province of expensive craftmanship, became cheaper under machine production.
The dissatisfaction with such a general situation at the turn of the twentieth century gave rise to many new lines of thought that in architecture served as precursors to Modern Architecture. Notable among these is the Deutscher Werkbund, formed in 1907 to produce better quality machine made objects. The rise of the profession of industrial design is usually placed here. Following this lead, the Bauhaus school, founded in Germany in 1919, consciously rejected history and looked at architecture as a synthesis of art, craft, and technology.
When Modern architecture first began to be practiced, it was an avant-garde movement with moral, philosophical, and aesthetic underpinnings. Truth was sought by rejecting history and turning to function as the generator of form. Architects became prominent figures and were termed masters. Later modern architecture moved into the realm of mass production due to its simplicity and economy.
However, a reduction in quality of modern architecture was perceived by the general public from the 1960s. Some reasons cited for this are its lack of meaning, sterility, ugliness, uniformity, and psychological effects.
The architectural profession responded to this partly by attempting a more populist architecture at the visual level, even if at the expense of sacrificing depth for shallowness, a direction called Postmodernism. Robert Venturi's contention that a "decorated shed" (an ordinary building which is functionally designed inside and embellished on the outside) was better than a "duck" (a building in which the whole form and its function are considered together) gives an idea of this approach.
Another part of the profession, and also some non-architects, responded by going to what they considered the root of the problem. They felt that architecture was not a personal philosophical or aesthetic pursuit by individualists; rather it had to consider everyday needs of people and use technology to give a livable environment. The Design Methodology Movement involving people such as Chris Jones, Christopher Alexander started searching for more people-orientated designs. Extensive studies on areas such as behavioural, environmental, and social sciences were done and started informing the design process.
As many other concerns began to be recognised and complexity of buildings began to increase in terms of aspects such as services, architecture started becoming more multi-disciplinary than ever. Architecture now required a team of professionals in its making, an architect being one among the many, sometimes the leader, sometimes not. This is the state of the profession today. However, individuality is still cherished and sought for in the design of buildings seen as cultural symbols - the museum or fine arts centre has become a showcase for new experiments in style: today Deconstructivism, tomorrow maybe something else.


Modern architecture grew out of the Romantic movement of the nineteenth century. Far from rejecting nineteenth century notions of the picturesque, eclecticism and cultural relativism, as recent critiques of modern architecture would have us believe, it developed directly from such notions. This is the central argument in Richard A. Etlin's recent study, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: the romantic legacy. Working on this presumption, Etlin shows that the buildings constructed by two of the greatest architects of the twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, can and should be seen as having developed directly from a broad nineteenth century critique of "the Enlightenment's emphasis on the definition of universal man and its application of a single set of standards to different peoples" and to different disciplines. (xii) Etlin shows that Wright and Le Corbusier, and by implication all modern architects, were the willing beneficiaries of a century-old "Romantic quest for a modern architecture . . . expressive of the most significant or highest manifestations of contemporary life," wherever they took place. (xii) 
Etlin's is a crucial insight into the origins of modern architecture, made all the more crucial when it is held against recent criticism of the 'modernist project'. By demonstrating that issues such as the tectonic, regionalism and contextualism, and a critical historicism were germinal in nineteenth century architecture and present in more mature form in modern architecture, Etlin shows that rather than rejecting the tenets of modernism, recent critiques recapture some of its most significant insights. Also significant in Etlin's analysis is an optimistic view of the modernist project, a view which does not presume that it was a product of an alienated society, but of a reasoned and humane consideration of a cultural and historical legacy. 
Central to the Romantic quest for a modern architecture was the concept of 'the spirit of the age,' which Etlin describes as an "'elusive something' in shared values and vision which, however difficult to characterize, people felt, nevertheless, was real and compelling." (169) With a vision of this spirit before them, and a sense that, like every age, the modern age should develop an architecture suitable to and expressive of it, progressive architects of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century employed three "conceptual tools" in their quest: eclecticism, the picturesque and the architectural system. Starting with the latter, Etlin systematically reviews the origins and intellectual histories surrounding these three conceptual tools. In each section of the book, using numerous examples, Etlin describes how Wright and Le Corbusier employed these tools in their designs. 
Through careful reading of Quatremère de Quincy, Ludovic Vitet, Viollet-le-Duc, Gottfried Semper, Auguste Choisy and others Etlin shows that the notion of 'the architectural system' which developed out of nineteenth century discourse was intended to represent coherently the roles that consistent employment of constructional techniques and materials, architectural forms, aesthetic treatments and the distribution of spaces played in creating architecture both suitable to and characteristic of a particular culture. It not only provided insight into how architectural styles had developed in the past, but established flexible guidelines for the creation of good architecture (without recourse either to universally applicable laws for the creation of architecture nor to the application of past architectural styles). 
Appropriately enough, Le Corbusier and Wright each employed a different architectural system in their buildings. Etlin explains that Le Corbusier characterized an architectural system in Vers une architecture which provided an appropriate framework for the construction of buildings "that would respond to contemporary sensibilities and needs and symbolize contemporary culture." (14) Le Corbusier first articulated this system in his well-known five points, "developed from a modern system of construction," (17) and later, recognizing the potentially dehumanizing affect of the buildings that resulted from it, adjusted the system by introducing "rustic elements into his buildings," by "altering the basic relationship between the columnar grid and the walls," and by introducing the brise-soleil. (18)Ref.1 
Wright employs a system that, according to Etlin is less constructional and more symbolic than Le Corbusier's (though he also emphasizes that Wright was always cognizant of the important role that construction and materials would play within the symbolic system (55). Consistently employing the four elements that Gottfried Semper described in the late nineteenth century -- the hearth, the roof, the enclosure and the mound -- "Wright invested each of the four elements of Semper's symbolic architectural system with qualities that sustained the sense of shelter." (30) While Wright employed these elements consistently in the buildings that he built throughout his career, his houses and his institutional buildings responded in systematically different ways to their immediate localities: houses grew out of the ground; institutional buildings reached toward the light. "Whereas the warmth, both actual and poetic, from the fireplace at ground level dominated Wright's domestic architecture, the warmth from the sun, descending from the sky above, dominated his important institutional buildings." (39) 
The picturesque -- the second of the conceptual tools employed by Romanticism which Etlin describes -- served architects by facilitating the resolution of functional issues and by guiding aesthetic decisions, something which, according to Etlin, architectural systems were not equipped to do. (76) Etlin demonstrates that the notion of the picturesque, which developed in the English landscape garden tradition, in the nineteenth century revival of Gothic and Greek architecture and in the urban design of Camillo Sitte, provided operative clues for the arrangement of elements in an architectural composition by demanding variety, harmony and an unfolding of sequential experiences while also helping to provide appropriate constraints for their employment. 
In his analysis of the buildings of both Le Corbusier and Wright, Etlin shows that they consistently employ the picturesque notion of promenade. In Le Corbusier's buildings the promenade often appears physically as a ramp. Wright's use of the promenade is best characterized as an extended mise en scène. "Wright was a master of applying Viollet-le-Duc's notion of the mise en scène, which entailed a series of preparatory spaces to set the stage for the main event," (129) which was the hearth in his domestic buildings and a sky-lit atrium or sanctuary in his institutional buildings. Etlin's contention that Le Corbusier made use of the picturesque notions of variety, harmony and promenade in his buildings provides a thoughtful counterpoint to the many studies that profess the purely rational basis of his design; however Etlin does not adequately reconcile Le Corbusier's urban strategies, which seem so clearly to contradict the notion of the picturesque.Ref.2 Similarly Etlin seems to over-emphasize the architectural promenade in his analysis of Wright's work, and he makes only passing mention of how Wright employed the picturesque rules of variety and harmony in other aspects of his designs. 
Etlin's investigation into the third conceptual tool employed by Romantic architecture, eclecticism, is brief but pertinent. He notes that while avante garde architects of the twentieth century tended to reject the stylistic eclecticism of the nineteenth century they did embrace its tendency to derive a variety of insights from other cultures and from the past. They employed what Etlin calls a "'philosophical eclecticism,' meaning the extraction of the principles of past cultures without borrowing stylistic features." (151) Such an eclecticism, Etlin shows, can be clearly perceived in a number of late nineteenth century texts on architecture. 
Etlin argues that Le Corbusier makes explicit his debt to a large variety of historical sources in Vers une architecture, and though Wright was not as forthright about his employment of eclecticism, it is nevertheless evident, even literal. "Simply put, the four part division of the Wright's Prairie houses is modeled upon the divisions of the Greek temple into stylobate, column, entablature, and pediment." (159) In his later works Wright derived decorative treatment from pre-Columbian motifs and developed formal and spatial arrangements based a variety of sources. 
As significant exemplars of the Romantic quest for a modern architecture, Wright and Le Corbusier assume the central roles in this book; however, the book is not, as the title might suggest, intended to be primarily a study of their work. It is also, and perhaps more, an investigation into the legacy that these and other western architects of the twentieth century received from the previous century. The oeuvres of Wright and Le Corbusier provide two manifestations, presumably among many, of this legacy. Etlin explains that the book, in fact, offers the results of not one study, but two: "To a great degree, this book presents two parallel stories--one on nineteenth century theory, the other on the ways in which Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier used these principles to guide the creation of modern architecture." (xv) Etlin's narration of the first of these stories is masterful. His thorough, lucid explanation of Romantic architectural theory draws from a great wealth of sources and reveals a deep knowledge and understanding not only of these sources, but of the ideas of a complex and prolific century. For this narrative one could say that the book makes a very substantial contribution to recent studies of nineteenth century architectural theory, particularly because it establishes clear relationships among many figures who have received much attention in recent years (e.g. Quatremère de Quincy, Semper, Viollet-le-Duc). It also provides fresh, scholarly insight into the origins and significance of modern architecture. The second story, however, while full of insightful passages, is not nearly so satisfying as the first. Perhaps this is because its cast of characters is too small, or because the characters are only partially fleshed out. Wright and Le Corbusier were, admittedly, two of the most influential architects of the century, but their work was also highly idiosyncratic. Their performance in this story, though peerless, is enigmatic and ultimately leaves one wondering how less commanding presences and minor characters might fit in beside them. A brief mention of Robert Mallet-Stevens in a section concerning the picturesque arrangement of façades, for example, hints at much more complex and interesting narrative, but such instances are rare in the book. The development of the main characters themselves also seems inadequate. For example, the heavy emphasis on Vers une architecture, to the exclusion of the other volumes of Le Corbusier's Esprit Nouveau series, provides an incomplete picture of Le Corbusier's thinking in the 1920's when he was attempting to formulating a full and coherent theory of modern design.Ref.3 Similarly, some discussion of Wright's thoughts on the design of furnishings and of cities would have provided a more complete image of his response to the Romantic legacy, which was, as Etlin makes very clear, not exclusive to architecture. Nevertheless, the limitations of the second of Etlin's stories does not in any way diminish the very substantial merits of the first. 

Reviewed by Alex Anderson
College of Architecture
University of North Carolina at Charlotte 

Copyright 1997 Alex Anderson 

REFERENCES 
Ref.1:The efficacy of Etlin's analysis breaks down somewhat in the discussion of some of Le Corbusier's later works, and he is forced to admit that Le Corbusier employs a "second type of architectural system" in the weekend and Jaoul houses, and that later he "departed from these two models," using other systems in their place. This limitation results in part from Etlin's overemphasis of Vers une architecture, which gives only a limited definition of Le Corbusier's architectural system. Inclusion of a number of other pertinent texts in the discussion (particularly L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui and Urbanisme) would have outlined a broader system that includes many aspects of design, not just architecture. 
Ref.2:For example, Etlin makes no mention whatever of Le Corbusier's book Urbanism, in which he declares that in the modern city "the curve is ruinous, difficult and dangerous," that the modern city demands straight lines "for the construction of buildings, sewers and tunnels, highways, pavements." Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and its Planning (Urbanisme 1929), trans. Frederick Etchells (New York: Dover Publications 1987) 10. 
Ref.3:Vers une architecture was only intended to be a portion of a more complete theoretical statement, and it was followed in quick succession by two equally important, if less famous, books: L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui (1925) and Urbanisme (1929) 

Form follows function


Form follows function is a principle associated with Modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th Century.
In the context of design professions "form follows function" seems like solid good sense. On closer examination it becomes problematic, controversial, and open to interpretation. Linking the relationship between the 'form' of an object and its intended purpose is obviously a good idea for designers and architects, but is not by itself a design solution. Zeroing in on the precise meaning of 'form follows function' opens a discussion of design integrity that remains an important, live debate.

In architecture
The origin of the phrase is traced back to the American sculptor Horatio Greenough, but it was American architectural giant Louis Sullivan who adopted it and made it famous. For Sullivan 'form follows function' was distilled wisdom, an aesthetic credo, the single "rule that shall permit of no exception".
Sullivan developed the shape of the tall steel skyscraper in 1900's Chicago at the very moment when technology, taste and economic forces converged violently and made it necessary to drop the established styles of the past. If the shape of the building wasn't going to be chosen out of the old pattern book, something had to determine form, and according to Sullivan it was going to be the purpose of the building. It was 'form follows function', as opposed to 'form follows precedent'. Sullivan's assistant Frank Lloyd Wright adopted and professed the same principle in slightly different form - perhaps because shaking off the old styles gave them more freedom and latitude.
In 1908 the Austrian architect Adolf Loos famously proclaimed that architectural ornament was a crime, and his essay on that topic would become foundational to Modernism and eventually trigger the careers of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe. The Modernists adopted both of these equations - form follows function, ornament is a crime - as moral principles, and they celebrated industrial artifacts like steel water towers as brilliant and beautiful examples of plain, simple, design integrity. Between 1945 and 1984 Modernism stood as the only respected architectural form in the mainstream of the profession. Everything else was illegitimate.
These two principles - form follows function, ornament is crime - are often invoked on the same occasions for the same reasons, but they don't mean the same thing. If you're willing to admit that ornament on a building may have social usefulness like aiding wayfinding, announcing the identity of the building, signaling scale, or attracting new customers inside, then ornament can be seen as functional, which puts those two articles of dogma at odds with each other.
Modernism in architecture began as a disciplined effort to return to first principles, and allow the shape and logic of the building to be determined only by functional requirements, not by a traditional style or a random aesthetic choice. It presupposes that somebody has done his or her homework and developed those functional requirements. The resulting structures tended to be shockingly simpler, flatter, and lighter than their older neighbors; their functionality and refreshing nakedness looked as honest and inevitable as an airplane. A recognizable Modern vocabulary began to develop.
At some point some architect skipped the functional homework and simply drew out plans for a building with Modern-looking materials and spatial rhythms. The necessary work behind Functionalism can be expensive, difficult and time-consuming; it can lead to the same set of utilitarian solutions; nobody could tell much difference. Shaking off those restrictions gave architects more freedom and latitude. But at that very moment Modernism became what it had been born to destroy - it became a traditional style. The experiment was over. We're back to "form follows precedent".
In architectural history, this is the subtle but critical break between Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson: Mies pursued Modernism as a disciplined search for order, and in the mid-1930's Johnson adopted it, renamed it, and advocated it as a surface style. Johnson later said, "Where form comes from I don't know, but it has nothing at all to do with the functional or sociological aspects of our architecture."
Today a small number of well-known architects, notably James Stewart Polshek, argue for some measure of architectural design integrity and responsibility to users. But as a whole the profession continues to be dominated by the view that architecture is a matter of aesthetics, and that form only follows form.
Philosophical arguments for classification system
There are many ways to study architecture and the forms that are created by architects. Two classification systems emerged out of the debate between Modernism and Postmodernism. On one hand is the idea of the archetype: walls, doors, columns, etc. The other theory was put forth as an extension of Kant and Heidegger's theory of Relative Homelessness, or the idea of relative values and icons in the world. Both theories serve architecture well as a construct of discourse. Yet both theories taken to extremes tend to muddy the picture for classifying and categorizing architecture. A discussion of the two theories and their ramifications need to be put forth as a sort of disclaimer, and to further the architectural discourse at Wikipedia.
In the theory of Archetypes, small elements that are universal truths are combined and arranged in a coherent, holistic building. This tradition extends from the Platonic/Pythagorean tradition of primary elements. A recent champion of this notion was Frank Lloyd Wright. His designs relied on the punning notion that "Home is where the Hearth is", with the hearth as the symbolic and literal center of the house and family. The archetype relies on the notion of universal truths or building forms. Many architectural treatises from Vitruvius, to Claude Perrault, to Gottfried Semper, to John Wellborn Root, to even Le Corbusier rely on the idea of archetypes to some degree.
At the other end of the spectrum lies a concept entirely foreign to archetype. A simple, unofficial title could be Relative Homelessness. The logical ideas are complex and very convoluted. A short, and very simplified explanation follows. Disclaimer: I am not a philosophy student; therefore this synopsis might have some small errors. I have studied this extensively in school and on my own, but a true student of philosophy could explain these ideas better.
This idea has roots in the work of Martin Heidegger, who was very interested in language and its effect on human beings, and his protégé Derrida, and the idea of relative truth. A synopsis of the logical chain goes like this. Heidegger is interested in the idea of Hermeneutics, or the study of the methodological principles of interpretation. Everyone is Hermeneutic; therefore everyone is interpreting life/world as he/she encounters it. Therefore there is no final truth, everything is relative and nothing is absolute. To be human is to interpret. Along with this logical chain goes the idea of context. Heidegger states that you cannot discover anything without using your predetermined context: social, place, area, age, etc. You cannot decide upon an issue without using your already existing content. Therefore the idea of the universal, and the idea of Archetype are void. Another assault on Archetype states that since human beings value systems are based on context, therefore are relative voids Archetype. The final assault also comes from context: the idea that physical forms somehow have intrinsic values. Values that somehow transcend space, time, and physical location are voided by Heidegger's idea of context.

Summary
Contemporary architect Peter Eisenman champions this theory. If Frank Lloyd Wright would say, "You can always go home", Peter would say, "Oh no you can't". This distinction of absolute to relative distinguishes the two philosophies. Current philosophical and architectural discourse oscillates between these two diametric entities. Movements such as Regionalism and the so-called New Urbanists [who are neither urban nor new, but that is another debate] rely heavily on the Archetype as a design element. Then there are architects such as the aforementioned Eisenman, Thom Mayne lead Morphosis, and a host of others who view the world as relative, interchangeable space. In actual practice architecture and architects generally fall within one camp or the other, with many distributed between two poles. It is helpful to think of this diagram a segment with two points and ideas, views and people as a continuum between the two views. For Wikipedia we will classify architecture using a modified Archetype. This makes sense because Wikipedia as a dictionary likes elemental ideas and classifications. We will break the elements of architecture down into archetypical elements, so as to understand architecture as a whole. The argument of whether or not these elements have basic intrinsic values that are universal to all can be set-aside in the quest to understand architecture.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 - April 9, 1959) was one of the most prominent and influential architects of the first half of the 20th century. To this day he is easily America's most famous architect (topping Philip Johnson, Paul Laszlo, Richard Neutra, and Louis Kahn) and still extremely well-known in the public eye.
Early years
Frank Lloyd Wright was born in the agricultural town of Richland Center, Wisconsin, USA, on June 8, 1867, just two years after the end of the American Civil War. He was brought up with strong Unitarian and transcendental principles (eventually, in 1905, he would design the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois). As a child he spent a great deal of time playing with the kindergarten educational blocks by Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel (popularly known as Froebel blocks) given by his mother. These consisted of various geometrically shaped blocks that could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions. Wright in his autobiography talks about the influence of these exercises on his approach to design. Many of his buildings are notable for the geometrical clarity they exhibit.


Wright's home in Oak Park, Illinois

Wright commenced his formal education in 1885 at the University of Wisconsin School for Engineering, where he was a member of a fraternity, Phi Delta Theta. He took classes part time for two years while apprenticing under Allen Conover, a local builder and professor of civil engineering. In 1887, Wright left the university without taking a degree (although he was granted an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the university in 1955) and moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he joined the architectural firm of Joseph Lyman Silsbee. Within the year, he had left Silsbee to work for the firm of Adler and Sullivan. Beginning in 1890, he was assigned all residential design work for the firm. In 1893, after a falling-out that probably concerned the work he had taken on outside the office, Wright left Adler and Sullivan to establish his own practice and home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, IL. He had completed around fifty projects by 1901, including many houses in his hometown.[1]


Darwin Martin House, Buffalo, New York
Between 1900 and 1910, his residential designs were "Prairie Houses" (extended low buildings with shallow, sloping roofs, clean sky lines, suppressed chimneys, overhangs and terraces, using unfinished materials), so-called because the design is considered to complement the land around Chicago. These houses are credited with being the first examples of the "open plan."
In fact, the manipulation of interior space in residential and public buildings, such as the Unitarian Unity Temple, in Oak Park, are hallmarks of his style.
He believed that humanity should be central to all design. Many examples of this work can be found in Buffalo, New York, resulting from a friendship between Wright and an executive from the Larkin Soap Company, Darwin D. Martin. In 1902 the Larkin Company decided to build a new administration building .
Wright came to Buffalo and designed not only the first sketches for the Larkin Administration Building (completed in 1904, demolished in 1950), but also three homes for the company's executives:
· George Barton House, Buffalo NY, 1903 
· Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo NY, 1904 
· William Heath House, Buffalo NY, 1905 
The houses considered the masterpieces of the late Prairie period (1907-9) are the Frederick Robie House and the Avery and Queene Coonley House, both in Chicago. The Robie House with its soaring, cantilevered roof lines, supported by a 110-foot-long channel of steel, is the most dramatic. Its living and dining areas form virtually one uninterrupted space. This building had a profound influence on young European architects after World War I and is sometimes called the "cornerstone of modernism." Wright's work, however, was not known to European architects until after 1910.

Europe and personal troubles
In 1904, Wright designed a house for a neighbor in Oak Park, Edwin Cheney, and immediately took a liking to Cheney's wife, Mamah Borthwick Cheney. The two fell in love, even though Wright had been married for over a decade. Often the two could be seen taking rides in Wright's automobile through Oak Park, and they became the talk of the town. Wright's wife, Kitty, would not grant him a divorce however, and at first, neither would Edwin Cheney grant one to Mamah. In 1909, even before the Robie House was actually completed, Wright and Mamah Cheney eloped to Europe. The scandal that erupted virtually destroyed Wright's ability to practice architecture in the United States.
Architectural historians have speculated on why Wright decided to turn his life upside-down. It has been said that he enjoyed living on the edge. Offered as proof of this are the facts that he was always digging himself into problems. He spent money almost as soon as he received it, and almost always seemed to be in debt. This argument has been coupled with speculation that Wright was himself having a professional midlife crisis (in 1907 he was already forty years old). Scholars argue that he felt by 1907-8 that he had done everything he could do with the Prairie Style, particularly from the standpoint of the one-family house. To illustrate, one can ask the question, "How many different permutations of the Prairie Style residence can you do without eventually feeling like you are going nowhere?" Wright was not getting larger commissions for commercial or public buildings, which frustrated him not only because of the desire for bigger and better work, but also because of his immense ego and desire to be recognized as the architectural genius he saw himself as.
Wright and Mamah Cheney traveled extensively throughout Europe, where Wright absorbed a great amount of architectural history. In 1910, during a stop in Berlin, Wright, with virtually all of his drawings, visited the publishing house of Ernst Wasmuth, who had agreed to publish his work there. In two volumes, the Wasmuth Portfolio was thus published, and created the first major exposure of Wright's work in Europe.
Wright remained in Europe for two years, though Mamah Cheney left for the United States a few times, and set up home in Fiezole, Italy. During this time, Edwin Cheney granted her a divorce, though Kitty Wright again refused to grant one to her husband. After Wright's return to the United States in 1911, he moved to Spring Green, Wisconsin, to land that was held by his mother's family, and began to build himself a new home, which he called Taliesin.

More personal turmoil
In 1923, Wright's mother, Anna, passed away. Wright wed Miriam Noel in November 1923, but her addiction to morphine led to the failure of the marriage in less than one year. In 1924, after the separation, Wright met Olga (Olgivanna) Lazovich Hinzenburg, at the Petrograd Ballet. They moved in together at Taliesin in 1925, but in 1926, Olga's ex-husband sought custody of his daughter. In Minnetonka, Minnesota, Wright and Olgivanna were accused of violating the Mann Act and arrested in October 1925. The charges were dropped in 1926. The couple married in 1928.

Enduring legacy
Wright is responsible for a concept or a series of extremely original concepts of suburban development united under the term Broadacre City. He proposed the idea in his book The Disappearing City in 1932, and unveiled a very large (12 by 12 feet) model of this community of the future, showing it in several venues in the following years. He went on developing the idea until his death.
It was also in the 1930s that Wright first designed "Usonian" houses. Essentially highly practical houses for middle-class clients, the designs were based on a simple, yet elegant geometry. He would later use similar, elementary forms in his First Unitarian Meeting House built in Madison, Wisconsin, between 1947 and 1950.


Fallingwater, one of the most famous of Frank Lloyd Wright's works
His most famous private residence was constructed from 1935 to 1939-Fallingwater-for Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Kaufmann Sr., at Mill Run, Pennsylvania. It was designed according to Wright's desire to place the occupants close to the natural surroundings, with a stream and waterfall running under part of the building. The construction is a series of cantilevered balconies and terraces, using limestone for all verticals and concrete for the horizontals. The house cost $155,000, including the architect's fee of $8,000. Kaufmann's own engineers argued that the design was not sound. They were overruled by Wright, but workmen secretly added extra steel to the horizontal concrete elements. There is a difference of opinion as to whether Wright's original design would have withstood the test of time. In 1994, Robert Silman and Associates examined the building and developed a plan to restore the structure. In the late 1990s, steel supports were added under the lowest cantilever until a detailed structural analysis could be done. In March 2002, post-tensioning of the lowest terrace was completed.
Wright practiced what is known as organic architecture, an architecture that evolves naturally out of the context, most importantly for him the relationship between the site and the building and the needs of the client. Wright's creations took his concern with organic architecture down to the smallest details. From his largest commercial commissions to the relatively modest Usonian houses, Wright conceived virtually every detail of both the external design and the internal fixtures, including furniture, carpets, windows, doors, tables and chairs, light fittings and decorative elements. He was one of the first architects to design and supply custom-made, purpose-built furniture and fittings that functioned as integrated parts of the whole design, and he often returned to earlier commissions to redesign internal fittings. His Prairie houses use themed, coordinated design elements (often based on plant forms) that are repeated in windows, carpets and other fittings. He made innovative use of new building materials such as precast concrete blocks, glass bricks and zinc cames (instead of the traditional lead) for his leadlight windows, and he famously used Pyrex glass tubing as a major element in the Johnson's Wax building. Wright was also one of the first achitects to design and install custom-made electric light fittings, including some of the very first electric floor lamps, and his very early use of the then-novel spherical glass lampshade (a design previously not possible due to the physical restrictions of gas lighting).
One of his projects, Monona Terrace, originally designed in 1937 as City and County Offices for Madison, Wisconsin, was completed in 1997 on the original site, using a variation of Wright's final design for the exterior with the interior design altered by its new purpose as a convention center. The "as-built" design was carried out by Wright's apprentice Tony Puttnam. Monona Terrace was accompanied by controversy throughout the sixty-years between the original design and the completion of the structure.
Wright's personal life was a colorful one that frequently made headlines. He married three times: Catherine Lee Tobin in 1889, Miriam Noel in 1922, and Olga Milanov Hinzenberg (Olgivanna) in 1928. Olgivanna had been living as a disciple of Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff, and her experiences with Gurdjieff influenced the formation and structure of Wright's Taliesin Fellowship in 1932. The meeting of Gurdjieff and Wright is explored in Robert Lepage's The Geometry Of Miracles. Olgivanna continued to run the Fellowship after Wright's death, until her own death in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1985. Despite being a high-profile architect and almost always in demand, Wright would find himself constantly in debt thanks in part to his lavish lifestyle. In one instance Wright was over $1,000 in debt, and reportedly would borrow $1,500 from a friend only to spend more than half of it on clothes, gifts, and trips.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Upper East Side, New York

Wright died on April 9, 1959, having designed an enormous number of significant projects including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, a building which occupied him for 16 years (1943-59) and is probably his most recognized masterpiece. The building rises as a warm beige spiral from its site on Fifth Avenue; its interior is similar to the inside of a seashell. Its unique central geometry was meant to allow visitors to experience Guggenheim's collection of nonobjective geometric paintings with ease by taking an elevator to the top level and then viewing artworks by walking down the slowly descending, central spiral ramp. Unfortunately, when the museum was completed, a number of important details of Wright's design were ignored, including his desire for the interior to be painted off-white. Furthermore, the Museum currently designs exhibits to be viewed by walking up the curved walkway rather than walking down from the top level.
1966 U.S. postage stamp honoring Frank Lloyd Wright
Wright built 362 houses. About 300 survive as of 2005. Three have been lost to forces of nature: the waterfront house for W. L. Fuller in Pass Christian, MS, which was destroyed by Hurricane Camille in August 1969, the Louis Sullivan Bungalow of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the James Charnley Bungalow of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, which was also gutted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Ennis House in California has also been damaged by earthquake and rain-induced ground movement. While a number of the houses are preserved as museum pieces and millions of dollars are spent on their upkeep, other houses have trouble selling on the open market due to their unique designs, generally small size and outdated features. As buildings age their structural deficiencies are increasingly revealed, and Wright's designs have not been immune from the passage of time. Some of his most daring and innovative designs have required major structural repair, and the soaring cantilevered terraces of Fallingwater are but one example. (A common joke was once how "Fallingwater" is falling into the water.) Some of these deficiencies can be attributed to Wright's pushing of materials beyond the state of the art, others to sometimes less than rigorous engineering, and still others to the natural wear and tear of the elements over time.
Many speculate that the character of Howard Roark, an architect in Ayn Rand's book The Fountainhead, is based, at least in part, on Frank Lloyd Wright. Rand, a Wright client herself, however, denied this.
In 1992 The Madison Opera in Madison, Wisconsin commissioned and premiered the opera Shining Brow, by composer Daron Hagen and librettist Paul Muldoon based on events early in Wright's life. The work has since received numerous revivals. In 2000, Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright, a play based on the relationship between the personal and working aspects of Wright's life, debuted at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater.
One of Wright's sons, Frank Lloyd Wright Jr., known as Lloyd Wright, was also a notable architect in Los Angeles. Lloyd Wright's son, (and Wright's grandson) Eric Lloyd Wright, is currently an architect in Malibu, California.

Quotations
"A doctor can bury mistakes, an architect can only advise their client to plant vines."
"I don't need to sign in, I'm the architect." - in response to a patron at Unity Temple asking him to add his name to the entry record.
"Continuously nature shows him the science of her remarkable economy of structure in mineral and vegetable constructions to go with the unspoiled character everywhere apparent in her forms."
"Give me the luxuries of life and I will gladly do without the necessities."
"Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union."
"That's how you can tell it's a roof." -- in response to complaints about roof leaks in his buildings


Industrial design

Industrial design is an applied art whereby the aesthetics and usability of products may be improved. Design aspects specified by the industrial designer may include the overall shape of the object, the location of details with respect to one another, colors, texture, sounds, and aspects concerning the use of the product ergonomics. Additionally the industrial designer may specify aspects concerning the production process, choice of materials and the way the product is presented to the consumer at the point of sale. The use of industrial designers in a product development process may lead to added values by improved usability, lowered production costs and more appealing products. It is important that in order to be an industrial design the product has to be produced in an industrial way, for example an artisan can't be considered an industrial designer although she may challenge the same aspects of a product.
Some industrial designs are viewed as classic pieces that can be regarded as much as works of art as works of engineering. The "Design classic" article lists some of the designs that are regarded as having reached this classic status.
Product design is focused on products only, while industrial design has a broader focus on concepts, products and processes. In addition to considering aesthetics, usability, and ergonomics, it can also encompass the engineering of objects, usefulness as well as usability, market placement, and other concerns.
Product design and industrial design can overlap into the fields of user interface design, information design and interaction design. Various schools of Industrial Design and/or Product Design may specialize in one of these aspects, ranging from pure art colleges (product styling) to mixed programs of engineering and design, to related disciplines like exhibit design and interior design.

Modern architecture

Modern architecture is a broad term given to a number of building styles with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament, that first arose around 1900. By the 1940s these styles had been consolidated and identified as the International Style and became the dominant way of building for several decades in the twentieth century.
The exact characteristics and origins of modern architecture are still open to interpretation and debate, but it's generally accepted that modernism was superseded by postmodernism and is now regarded as a historical style.
Origins
Some historians see the evolution of modern architecture as a social matter, closely tied to the project of Modernity and hence to the Enlightenment, a result of social and political revolutions.
Others see modern architecture as primarily driven by technological and engineering developments, and it's plainly true that the availability of new materials such as iron, steel, concrete and glass drove the invention of new building techniques as part of the Industrial Revolution. The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton at the Great Exhibition of 1851 is an early example; possibly the best example is Louis Sullivan's development of the tall steel skyscraper in Chicago around 1890.
Other historians regard modernism as a matter of taste, a reaction against eclecticism and the lavish stylistic excesses of Victorian Era and Edwardian Art Nouveau.
Whatever the cause, around 1900 a number of architects around the world began developing new architectural solutions to integrate traditional precedents (Gothic, for instance) with new technological possibilities. The work of Louis Sullivan in Chicago, Victor Horta in Brussels, Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, Otto Wagner in Vienna and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow, among many others, can be seen as a common struggle between old and new.

Modernism as dominant style

The 'Glass Palace' (1935) in the Netherlands by Frits Peutz, made purely of concrete, steel and glass

By the 1920s the most important figures in modern architecture had established their reputations. The big three are commonly recognized as Le Corbusier in France, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius in Germany. Mies van der Rohe and Gropius were both directors of the Bauhaus, one of a number of European schools and associations concerned with reconciling craft tradition and industrial technology.
Frank Lloyd Wright's career parallels and influences the work of the European modernists, particularly via the Wasmuth Portfolio, but he refused to be categorized with them.
In 1932 came the important MOMA exhibition, the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture, curated by Philip Johnson. Johnson and collaborator Henry-Russell Hitchcock drew together many distinct threads and trends, identified them as stylistically similar and having a common purpose, and consolidated them into the International Style.
This was an important turning point. With World War II the important figures of the Bauhaus fled to the United States, to Chicago, to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and to Black Mountain College. Modernism became the pre-eminent, and then (for leaders of the profession) the only acceptable, design solution from about 1932 to about 1984.
Architects who worked in the international style wanted to break with architectural tradition and design simple, unornamented buildings. The most commonly used materials are glass for the facade, steel for exterior support, and concrete for the floors and interior supports; floor plans were functional and logical. The style became most evident in the design of skyscrapers. Perhaps its most famous/notorious manifestations include the United Nations headquarters, the Seagram Building, and Lever House by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, all in New York.
Detractors of the international style claim that its stark, uncompromisingly rectangular geometry is dehumanising. Le Corbusier once described buildings as "machines for living", but people are not machines and do not want to live in machines. Even Philip Johnson admitted he was "bored with the box." Since the early 1980s many architects have deliberately sought to move away from strictly geometrical designs.
Although there is much discussion as to when the fall of the modern movement occurred, criticism of Modern architecture began in the 1960s on the grounds that it was universal, sterile, elitist and lacked meaning. The rise of postmodernism is attributed to the general disenchantment with Modern architecture.
Characteristics
Modern architecture is usually characterised by:
· a rejection of historical styles as a source of architectural form (historicism) 
· an adoption of the principle that the materials and functional requirements determine the result 
· an adoption of the machine aesthetic 
· a rejection of ornament 
· a simplification of form and elimination of "unnecessary detail" 
an adoption of expressed structure 
Some catchphrases of Modern architecture
· "Form follows function" - first used by sculptor Horatio Greenough, more popularly by Louis Sullivan 
· "Less is more" - Mies van der Rohe 
· "Less is more only when more is too much" - Frank Lloyd Wright 
· "Less is a bore" - Robert Venturi, pioneer of Postmodern architecture; in response to the featureless International Style popularized by Mies van der Rohe 
In his 1941 essay "The mischievous analogy" (collected in Heavenly Mansions) the architectural historian Sir John Summerson identified several generalizations and clichés of modern architecture:
· it arises from an accurate analysis of the needs of modern society; 
· it represents the logical solution of the problem of shelter 
· achieved by the direct application of means to ends; 
· it expresses the spirit of the machine age; 
· it is the architecture of industrial living; 
· it is based on a study of scientific resources and an exploitation of new materials; 
· finally it is organic 
Summerson found that the modernist obsession was not with architecture itself, but with its relation to other aspects of life, and investigated the results.
In the US, the field of industrial design hit a high-water mark of popularity in the late '30s and early '40s, with several industrial designers becoming minor celebrities. Raymond Loewy, Norman bel Geddes, and Henry Dreyfuss remain the best known.
In the UK, the term "industrial design" increasingly implies design with considerable engineering and technology awareness alongside human factors-a "Total Design" approach, promoted by the late Stuart Pugh (University of Strathclyde) and others

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.

modern architecture


new architectural style that emerged in many Western countries in the decade after World War I. It was based on the "rational" use of modern materials, the principles of functionalist planning, and the rejection of historical precedent and ornament. This style has been generally designated as modern, although the labels International style, Neue Sachlichkeit, and functionalism have also been used. 1

Development of the Style 
Since the mid-19th cent. there had been repeated attempts to assimilate modern technology in practice and theory and to formulate a modern style of architecture suitable to its age. A functionalist approach eventually replaced the formerly eclectic approach to design. Technical progress in the use of iron and glass made possible the construction of Sir Joseph Paxton's celebrated Crystal Palace in London (1851), in which a remarkable delicacy was achieved. In the ensuing years iron, steel, and glass enabled architects and engineers to enclose the vast interior spaces of train sheds, department stores, and market halls, but often the structural forms were clothed with irrelevant ornament. 2
As late as 1889 the exposed, iron skeleton of the newly erected Eiffel Tower in Paris was met with public outrage. In Chicago, William Le Baron Jenney pioneered the use of a complete steel skeleton for the urban skyscraper in his Home Insurance Building (1883-85). His contemporary, Louis Henry Sullivan, first articulated the theory of functionalism (see functionalism), which he demonstrated in his numerous commercial designs. In addition, experiments in concrete construction were being carried out in France by François Hennebique and Auguste Perret, and in the United States by Ernest Ransome. 3
As a result of these advances, the formal conception of architecture was also undergoing a profound transformation. Frank Lloyd Wright, a pupil of Sullivan, experimented with the interpenetration of interior and exterior spaces in his residential designs. In Holland, where Wright's work was widely admired, the architects of de Stijl sought to organize building elements into new combinations of overlapping and hovering rectangular planes. 4

Form and Materials 
By 1920 there was an increasingly wide understanding that building forms must be determined by their functions and materials if they were to achieve intrinsic significance or beauty in contemporary terms, without resorting to traditional ornament. Instead of viewing a building as a heavy mass made of ponderous materials, the leading innovators of modern architecture considered it as a volume of space enclosed by light, thin curtain walls and resting on slender piers. The visual aesthetic of modern architecture was largely inspired by the machine and by abstract painting and sculpture. 5
In giving form and coherence to modern architecture, Le Corbusier's book Vers une architecture (1923, tr. 1927) played an important role, as did the writings of the Dutch architect J. J. P. Oud and the German architect Walter Gropius, who also headed the Bauhaus in Dessau. Other early leaders of the modern movement included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, and Ernst May in Germany and Raymond Hood, Albert Kahn, Richard J. Neutra, William Lescaze, and George Howe in the United States. 6
In 1932 the label "International style" was applied to modern architecture by the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, anticipating its growing acceptance around the world. The United States became a stronghold of modern architecture after the emigration of Gropius, Mies, and Breuer from Germany during the 1930s. By the mid-20th cent. modern architecture had become an effective instrument for dealing with the increasingly complex building needs of a global society. Large architectural firms such as Harrison and Abramovitz and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill did much to popularize modern architecture around the world after World War II. 7
At the same time new technological developments continued to influence architects' designs, particularly in the realm of prefabricated construction, as seen in the works of R. Buckminster Fuller and Moshe Safdie. The development of sophisticated air conditioning and heating systems also allowed modern architecture to spread from the temperate climates of Europe and North America to countries with extremely varied weather conditions. 8

The Style Evolves 
Increasingly, during the 1950s, modern architecture was criticized for its sterility, its "institutional" anonymity, and its disregard for regional building traditions. More varied and individual, as well as regionalist, modes of expression were sought by architects of the next generation, although the basic emphasis on structure and materials continued. This tendency was evident in the works of Louis Kahn, Edward Durell Stone, and Philip Cortelyou Johnson in the United States, and the architects of the so-called New Brutalism movement in England. A dynamic sculptural unity distinguished the buildings of Eero Saarinen and the late works of Le Corbusier. Other leading architects of this generation include Alvar Aalto of Finland, the Italians Pier Luigi Nervi and Paolo Soleri, and in Central and South America, Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, Juan O'Gorman, and Felix Candela. 9

Development of Postmodernism 
After 1960, a less evolutionary and more revolutionary critical reaction to modern architecture, first articulated in the writings of Robert Venturi, began to form. Architects have become more concerned with context and tradition. Ornament, once banished by modernism, has returned, often in the form of overtly historical revivalism, although it has just as often been reinterpreted in high-tech materials. This has resulted in a stylistic eclecticism on the contemporary scene. Prominent architects working in the postmodern mode include Philip Johnson in his later projects, Michael Graves, Ricardo Bofill, and Aldo Rossi. 10
See also articles on individual architects, e.g., Walter Gropius. 11

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is any of a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, history, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding modernism.
It can apply to movements in the arts, to mean stylistic developments such as collage, the return of ornament and historical reference, as well as appropriation of popular media. In sociology postmodernism is said to be an economic and cultural change coming from the ubiquity of mass production and mass media. In philosophy it refers to movements surrounding post-structuralism and other critiques of positivism. Postmodernism can also be used as a pejorative term to attack changes in society seen as undesirable as they relate to questioning of absolute value systems and other forms of foundationalism.
As with many other divisions, the use of the term is subject to the lumpers and splitters problem. There are those who use very small and exact definitions, and there are those who deny that there is a postmodernism at all distinct from the modern period, preferring instead to use terms such as "late modernism".
Uses of the term
The term derives from postmodernity, which postmodern theorist Jean-François Lyotard understood to represent the culmination of the process of modernity and Enlightenment thought, towards an accelerating pace of cultural change, to a point where constant change has in fact become the status quo, leaving the notion of progress obsolete.
In architecture, art, music and literature, postmodernism is a name for many stylistic reactions to, and developments from, modernism. Postmodern style is often characterized by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, and irony. Some artistic movements commonly called postmodern are pop art, architectural deconstructivism, magical realism in literature, maximalism, and neo-romanticism. Postmodern theorists see postmodern art as a conflation or reversal of well-established modernist systems, such as the roles of artist versus audience, seriousness versus play, or high culture versus kitsch.
In sociology, postmodernism is described as being the result of economic, cultural and demographic changes (related terms in this context include post-industrial society and late capitalism) and it is attributed to factors such as the rise of the service economy, the importance of the mass media and the rise of an increasingly interdependent world economy. See also postmodern, information age, globalization, global village, media theory.
As a cultural movement, postmodernism is an aspect of postmodernity, which is broadly defined as the condition of Western society after modernity. The adjective postmodern (in slang abbreviated to pomo) can refer to aspects of either postmodernism or postmodernity. According to Lyotard, postmodernity is characterized as an "incredulity toward metanarratives", meaning that in the era of postmodern culture, people have rejected the grand, supposedly universal stories and paradigms such as religion, conventional philosophy, capitalism and gender that have defined culture and behavior in the past, and have instead begun to organize their cultural life around a variety of more local and subcultural ideologies, myths and stories. Furthermore, it promotes the idea that all such metanarratives and paradigms are stable only while they fit the available evidence, and can potentially be overturned when phenomena occur that the paradigm cannot account for, and a better explanatory model (itself subject to the same fate) is found. See La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir (The Post Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge[1984]) in [Lyotard [1979]], and the results of acceptance of postmodernism is the view that different realms of discourse are incommensurable and incapable of judging the results of other discourse, a conclusion he drew in Le Différend (1984).
In philosophy, where the term is extensively used, it applies to movements that include post-structuralism, deconstruction, multiculturalism, gender studies and literary theory, sometimes called simply "theory". It emerged beginning in the 1950s as a critique of doctrines such as positivism and emphasizes the importance of power relationships, personalization and discourse in the "construction" of truth and world views. In this context it has been used by many critical theorists to assert that postmodernism is a break with the artistic and philosophical tradition of the Enlightenment, which they characterize as a quest for an ever-grander and more universal system of aesthetics, ethics, and knowledge. They present postmodernism as a radical criticism of Western philosophy. Postmodern philosophy draws on a number of approaches to criticize Western thought, including historicism, and psychoanalytic theory.
The term postmodernism is also used in a broader pejorative sense to describe attitudes, sometimes part of the general culture, and sometimes specifically aimed at critical theories perceived as relativist, nihilist, counter-Enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relationship to critiques of rationalism, universalism, or science. It is also sometimes used to describe social changes which are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of philosophy, religion, and morality.
The role, proper usage, and meaning of postmodernism remain matters of intense debate and vary widely with context.

The development of postmodernism
Features of postmodern culture begin to arise in the 1920s with the emergence of the Dada movement, which featured collage and a focus on the framing of objects and discourse as being as important, or more important, than the work itself. Another strand which would have tremendous impact on post-modernism would be the existentialists, who placed the centrality of the individual narrative as being the source of morals and understanding. However, it is with the end of the Second World War that recognizably post-modernist attitudes begin to emerge.
Central to these is the focusing on the problems of any knowledge which is founded on anything external to an individual. Post-modernism, while widely diverse in its forms, almost invariably begins from the problem of knowledge which is broadly disseminated in its form, but not limited in its interpretation. Post-modernism rapidly developed a vocabulary of anti-enlightenment rhetoric, used to argue that rationality was neither as sure nor as clear as rationalists supposed, and that knowledge was inherently linked to time, place, social position and other factors from which an individual constructs their view of knowledge. To escape from constructed knowledge, it then becomes necessary to critique it, and thus deconstruct the asserted knowledge. Jacques Derrida argued that to defend against the inevitable self-deconstruction, or breaking down, of knowledge, systems of power (called hegemony) would have to postulate an original utterance, the logos. This "privileging" of an original utterance is called "logocentrism".
Instead of rooting knowledge in particular utterances, or "texts", the basis of knowledge was seen to be in the free play of discourse itself, an idea rooted in Wittgenstein's idea of a language game. This emphasis on the allowability of free play within the context of conversation and discourse leads postmodernism to adopt the stance of irony, paradox, textual manipulation, reference and tropes.
Armed with this process of questioning the social basis of assertions, postmodernist philosophers began to attack unities of modernism, and particularly unities seen as being rooted in the Enlightenment. Since Modernism had made the Enlightenment a central source of its superiority over the Victorian and Romantic periods, this attack amounted to an indirect attack on the establishment of modernism itself. Perhaps the most striking examples of this skepticism are to be found in the works of French cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard. In his book Simulacra and Simulation(1981), he contends that social "reality" no longer exists in the conventional sense, but has been supplanted by an endless procession of simulacra. The mass media, and other forms of mass cultural production, generate constant re-appropriation and re-contextualisation of familiar cultural symbols and images, fundamentally shifting our experience away from "reality", to "hyperreality".
Postmodernism therefore has an obvious distrust toward claims about truth, ethics, or beauty being rooted in anything other than individual perception and group construction. Utopian ideals of universally applicable truths or aesthetics give way to provisional, decentered, local petit récits which, rather than referencing an underlying universal truth or aesthetic, point only to other ideas and cultural artifacts, themselves subject to interpretation and re-interpretation. The "truth", since it can only be understood by all of its connections is perpetually "deferred", never reaching a point of fixed knowledge which can be called "the truth." This emphasis on construction and consensus often breeds antagonism with scientific thinking, as the Sokal Affair shows.
Postmodernism is often used in a larger sense, meaning the entire trend of thought in the late 20th century, and the social and philosophical realities of that period. Marxist critics argue that post-modernism is symptomatic of "late capitalism" and the decline of institutions, particularly the nation-state. Other thinkers assert that post-modernity is the natural reaction to mass broadcasting and a society conditioned to mass production and mass political decision making. The ability of knowledge to be endlessly copied, defeats attempts to constrain interpretation, or to set "originality" by simple means such as the production of a work. From this perspective, the schools of thought labelled "postmodern" are not as widely at odds with their time period as the polemics and arguments appear to point, for example, to the shift of the basis of scientific knowledge to a provisional consensus of scientists, as posited by Thomas Kuhn. Post-modernism is seen, in this view, as being conscious of the nature of the discontinuity between modern and post-modern periods which is generally present.
Postmodernism has manifestations in many modern academic and non-academic disciplines: philosophy, theology, art, architecture, film, television, music, theatre, sociology, fashion, technology, literature, and communications are all heavily influenced by postmodern trends and ideas, and are thoroughly scrutinised from postmodern perspectives. Crucial to these are the denial of customary expectations, the use of non-orthogonal angles in buildings such as the work of Frank Gehry, and the shift in arts exemplified by the rise of minimalism in art and music. Post-modern philosophy often labels itself as critical theory and grounds the construction of identity in the mass media.
Postmodernism was first identified as a theoretical discipline in the 1970s, but as a cultural movement it predates them by many years. Exactly when modernism began to give way to postmodernism depends on the observer and the theoretical framework. Some theorists reject that such a distinction even exists, viewing postmodernism, for all its claims of fragmentation and plurality, as still existing within a larger "modernist" framework. The philosopher Jürgen Habermas is a strong proponent of this view, which has aspects of a lumpers/splitters problem: is the entire 20th century one period, or two distinct periods?
The theory gained some of its strongest ground early on in French academia. In 1979 Jean-François Lyotard wrote a short but influential work The Postmodern Condition : a report on knowledge. Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes (in his more post-structural work) are also strongly influential in postmodern theory. Postmodernism is closely allied with several contemporary academic disciplines, most notably those connected with sociology. Many of its assumptions are integral to feminist and post-colonial theory.
Some identify the burgeoning anti-establishment movements of the 1960s as the earliest trend out of cultural modernity toward postmodernism.
Tracing it further back, some identify its roots in the breakdown of Hegelian idealism, and the impact of both World Wars (perhaps even the concept of a World War). Heidegger and Derrida were influential in re-examining the fundamentals of knowledge, together with the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and his philosophy of language, Søren Kierkegaard's and Karl Barth's important fideist approach to theology, and even the nihilism of Nietzsche's philosophy. Michel Foucault's application of Hegel to thinking about the body is also identified as an important landmark. While it is rare to pin down the specific origins of any large cultural shift, writers such as John Ralston Saul among others have argued that postmodernism represents an accumulated disillusionment with the promises of the Enlightenment project and its progress of science, so central to modern thinking.
The movement has had diverse political ramifications: its anti-ideological ideas appear conducive to, and strongly associated with, the feminist movement, racial equality movements, gay rights movements, most forms of late 20th century anarchism, even the peace movement and various hybrids of these in the current anti-globalization movement. Unsurprisingly, none of these institutions entirely embraces all aspects of the postmodern movement in its most concentrated definition, but reflect, or in true postmodern style, borrow from some of its core ideas.

Early usage of the term
In an essay From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: the Local/Global Context, [1], Ihab Hassan points out a number of instances in which the term postmodernism was used before the term became popular:
· John Watkins Chapman, an English salon painter, in the 1870s, to mean Post-Impressionism; 
· Federico de Onís, 1934, (postmodernismo) to mean a reaction against the difficulty and experimentalism of modernist poetry; 
· Arnold J. Toynbee, in 1939, to mean the end of the "modern," Western bourgeois order dating back to the seventeenth century; 
· Bernard Smith, in 1945, to mean the movement of socialist realism in painting. 
· Charles Olson, during the 1950s; 
· Irving Howe and Harry Levin, in 1959 and 1960, respectively, to mean a decline in high modernist culture. 
Also, many cite Charles Jencks' 1977 "The Language of Postmodern Architecture" among the earliest works which shaped the use of the term today.
For a thorough historical overview distinguishing the threads of development in different decades, cultural realms, and academic disciplines, see Hans Bertens' The Idea of the Postmodern: A History, (New York: Routledge, 1995).

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a term which is used to denote the application of post-modern ideas of criticism, or theory, to a "text" or "artifact". A deconstruction is meant to undermine the frame of reference and assumptions that underpin the text or the artifact.
In its original use, a "deconstruction" is an important textual "occurrence" described and analyzed by many postmodern authors and philosophers. They argued that aspects in the text itself would undermine its own authority or assumptions, that internal contradictions would erase boundaries or categories which the work relied on or asserted. Post-structuralists beginning with Jacques Derrida, who coined the term, argued that the existence of deconstructions implied that there was no intrinsic essence to a text, merely the contrast of difference. This is analogous to the scientific idea that only the variations are real, that there is no established norm to a genetic population, or the idea that the difference in perception between black and white is the context. A deconstruction is created when the "deeper" substance of text opposes the text's more "superficial" form. This too is not an idea isolated to post-structuralists, but is related to the idea of hermeneutics in literature, and was asserted as early as Plato, and by modern thinkers such as Leo Strauss. Derrida's argument is that deconstruction proves that texts have multiple meanings, and the "violence" between the different meanings of text may be elucidated by close textual analysis.
Popularly, close textual analyses describing deconstruction within a text are often themselves called deconstructions. Derrida argued, however, that deconstruction is not a method or a tool, but an occurrence within the text itself. Writings about deconstruction perhaps are referred to in academic circles as deconstructive readings, in conformance with this view of the word.
Deconstruction is far more important to postmodernism than its seemingly narrow focus on text might imply. According to Derrida, one consequence of deconstruction is that the text may be defined so broadly as to encompass not just written words, but the entire spectrum of symbols and phenomena within Western thought. To Derrida, a result of deconstruction is that no Western philosopher has been able to successfully escape from this large web of text and reach the purely text-free "signified" which they imagined to exist "just beyond" the text.
The more common use of the term is the more general process of pointing to contradictions between the intent and surface of a work, and the assumptions about it. A work then "deconstructs" assumptions when it places them in context. For example, someone who can pass as the opposite sex is said to "deconstruct" gender roles, because there is a conflict between the superficial appearance, and the reality of the person's gender.

Postmodernism's manifestations

Postmodernism in language
Important to postmodernism's role in language is the focus on the implied meaning of words and forms the power structures that are accepted as part of the way words are used, from the use of the word "Man" with a capital "M" to refer to the collective humanity, to the default of the word "he" in English as a pronoun for a person of gender unknown to the speaker, or as a casual replacement for the word "one". This, however, is merely the most obvious example of the changing relationship between diction and discourse which postmodernism presents.
An important concept in postmodernism's view of language is the idea of "play" text. In the context of postmodernism, play means changing the framework which connects ideas, and thus allows the troping, or turning, of a metaphor or word from one context to another, or from one frame of reference to another. Since, in postmodern thought, the "text" is a series of "markings" whose meaning is imputed by the reader, and not by the author, this play is the means by which the reader constructs or interprets the text, and the means by which the author gains a presence in the reader's mind. Play then involves invoking words in a manner which undermines their authority, by mocking their assumptions or style, or by layers of misdirection as to the intention of the author.
Another key concept is the view that people are, essentially, blank slated linguistically, and that social acclimation, cultural factors, habituation and images are the primary ways of shaping the structure of how people view the outside world. For this reason Postmodernism in language is associated with post-structuralism and associated theories of nurture-driven intellectual development.
This view of writing is not without harsh detractors, who regard it as needlessly difficult and obscure, and a violation of the implicit contract of lucidity between author and reader: that an author has something to communicate, and shall choose words which transmit the idea as transparently as possible to the reader. Thus postmodernism in language has often been identified with poor writing and communication skills. The term pomobabble came to be within pop culture to illustrate this trend.
Postmodern philosophers are often regarded as difficult to read, and the critical theory that has sprung up in the wake of postmodernism has often been ridiculed for its stilted syntax and attempts to combine polemical tone and a vast array of new coinages. However, similar charges could be levelled at the works of previous eras, such as the works of Immanuel Kant, as well as at the entire tradition of Greek thought in antiquity.

Postmodernism in art

Where modernists hoped to unearth universals or the fundamentals of art, postmodernism aims to unseat them, to embrace diversity and contradiction. A postmodern approach to art thus rejects the distinction between low and high art forms. It rejects rigid genre boundaries and favors eclecticism, the mixing of ideas and forms. Partly due to this rejection, it promotes parody, irony, and playfulness, commonly referred to as jouissance by postmodern theorists. Unlike modern art, postmodern art does not approach this fragmentation as somehow faulty or undesirable, but rather celebrates it. As the gravity of the search for underlying truth is relieved, it is replaced with 'play'. As postmodern icon David Byrne, and his band Talking Heads said: "Stop making sense."
Post-modernity, in attacking the perceived elitist approach of Modernism, sought greater connection with broader audiences. This is often labelled "accessibility" and is a central point of dispute in the question of the value of postmodern art. It has also embraced the mixing of words with art, collage and other movements in modernity, in an attempt to create more multiplicity of medium and message. Much of this centers on a shift of basic subject matter: postmodern artists regard the mass media as a fundamental subject for art, and use forms, tropes, and materials - such as banks of video monitors, found art, and depictions of media objects - as focal points for their art. With his "invention" of "readymade", Marcel Duchamp is often seen as a forerunner on postmodern art. Where Andy Warhol furthered the concept with his appropriation of common popular symbols and "ready-made" cultural artifacts, bringing the previously mundane or trivial onto the previously hallowed ground of high art.
Postmodernism's critical stance is interlinked with presenting new appraisals of previous works. As implied above, the works of the Dada movement received greater attention, as did collagists such as Robert Rauschenberg, whose works were initially considered unimportant in the context of the modernism of the 1950s, but who, by the 1980s, began to be seen as seminal. Post-modernism also elevated the importance of cinema in artistic discussions, placing it on a peer level with the other fine arts. This is both because of the blurring of distinctions between "high" and "low" forms, and because of the recognition that cinema represented the creation of simulacra which was later duplicated in the other arts.
See also: Contemporary art 

Postmodernism in architecture

As with many cultural movements, one of postmodernism's most pronounced and visible ideas can be seen in architecture. The functional, and formalized, shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics; styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound.
Architects generally considered postmodern include: Peter Eisenman, Philip Johnson (later works), John Burgee, Robert Venturi, Ricardo Bofill, James Stirling, Charles Willard Moore, and Frank Gehry.


Postmodernism and Urban Design

Post modern landscapes in contemporary cities can be understood better in the context of globalisation which can be described as a 'variant form of capitalism where a growing proportion of all economic activity is being progressively organised at the international rather than the national, spatial scale.'(1) This international scope not only influences economic patterns, but also induces a multicultural ambience to metropolitan cities, effectively blending cultures into an altered context. David Harvey, in his seminal work, 'The Condition of Postmodernism' argues that post modernism, by way of contrasts, privileges heterogeneity and difference as liberative forces in the redefinition of cultural discourse and rejects meta-narratives and overarching theories.(2) It purports an existence of multi-visionary thinking within the mosaic of the contemporary metropolis. It heralded the shift from modernism to a 'perspectivism that questions how radically different realities may co-exist, collide and interpenetrate.'(3)

REFERENCE:
(1)Engels, B. (2000) 'City Make-overs: the place-marketing of Melbourne during the Kennett years, 1992-1999', Urban Policy and Research 18(4), p 470
(2)Harvey, D. (1990) The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell, U.K., p 9
(3)Harvey, D. (1990) The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell, U.K., p 41

Postmodernism in graphic design

Postmodernism in graphic design for the most part has been mainly a visual and decorative movement. Many designers and design critics contend that postmodernism, in the sense of literary or architectural understanding of the term, never really impacted graphic design as it did in these other fields. Alternatively, some argue that it did but took on a different persona. This can be seen in the work produced at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan during the late 1980s to late 1990s and at the MFA program at CalArts in California. But when all was said and done, the various notions of the postmodern in the various design fields never really stuck to graphic design as it did with architecture. Some argue that the "movement" (if it ever was one) had little to no impact on graphic design. More likely, it did, but more in the sense of a continuation or re-evaluation of the modern. Some would argue that this continuous re-evaluation is also just a component of the design process - happening for most of the second half of the 20th C. in the profession. Since it was ultimately the work of graphic designers that inspired pop artists like Warhol, Liechtenstein, and architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown, it could be argued that graphic design practice and designs may be be the root of Postmodernism.

Postmodernism in literature

Postmodern literature argues for expansion, the return of reference, the celebration of fragmentation rather than the fear of it, and the role of reference itself in literature. While drawing on the experimental tendencies of authors such as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner in English, and Borges in Spanish - writers who were taken as influences by American postmodern authors such as Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, John Barth, William Gaddis, David Foster Wallace and Paul Auster - the advocates of postmodern literature argue that the present is fundamentally different from the modern period, and therefore requires a new literary sensibility.

Postmodernism in music

Postmodern music is both a musical style and a musical condition. As a musical style, postmodern music contains characteristics of postmodern art-that is, art after modernism (see Modernism in Music); eclecticism in musical form and musical genre, combining characteristics from different genres, or employing jump-cut sectionalization (such as blocks). It tends to be self-referential and ironic, and it blurs the boundaries between "high art" and kitsch. Daniel Albright (2004) summarizes the traits of the postmodern style as bricolage, polystylism, and randomness.
As a musical condition, postmodern music is simply the state of music in postmodernity, music after modernity. In this sense, postmodern music does not have any one particular style or characteristic, and is not necessarily postmodern in style or technique. The music of modernity, however, was viewed primarily as a means of expression while the music of postmodernity is valued more as a spectacle, a good for mass consumption, and an indicator of group identity. For example, one significant role of music in postmodern society is to act as a badge by which people can signify their identity as a member of a particular subculture.

Postmodernism in political science

Many situations which are considered political in nature can not be adequately discussed in traditional realist and liberal approaches to political science. Brief examples include the situation of a "draft-age youth whose identity is claimed in national narratives of 'national security' and the universalizing narratives of the 'rights of man,'" of "the woman whose very womb is claimed by the irresolvable contesting narratives of 'church,' 'paternity,' 'economy,' and 'liberal polity.' In these cases, there are no fixed categories, stable sets of values, or common sense meanings to be understood in their scholarly exploration. Liberal approaches do not aid in understanding these types of situations; there is no individual or social or institutional structure whose values can impose a meaning or interpretive narrative.
In these margins, people resist realist concepts of power which is repressive, in order to maintain a claim on their own identity. What makes this resistance significant is that among the aspects of power resisted is that which forces individuals to take a single identity or to be subject to a particular interpretation. Meaning and interpretation in these types of situations is always uncertain; arbitrary in fact. The power in effect here is not that of oppression, but that of the cultural and social implications around them, which creates the framework within which they see themselves, which creates the boundaries of their possible courses of action.
Postmodern political scientists, such as Richard Ashley, claim that in these marginal sites it is impossible to construct a coherent narrative, or story, about what is really taking place without including contesting and contradicting narratives, and still have a "true" story from the perspective of a "sovereign subject," who can dictate the values pertinent to the "meaning" of the situation. In fact, it is possible here to deconstruct the idea of meaning. Ashley attempts to reveal the ambiguity of texts, especially Western texts, how the texts themselves can be seen as "sites of conflict" within a given culture or worldview. By regarding them in this way, deconstructive readings attempt to uncover evidence of ancient cultural biases, conflicts, lies, tyrannies, and power structures, such as the tensions and ambiguity between peace and war, lord and subject, male and female, which serve as further examples of Derrida's binary oppositions in which the first element is privileged, or considered prior to and more authentic, in relation to the second. Examples of postmodern political scientists include post-colonial writers such as Frantz Fanon, feminist writers such as Cynthia Enloe, and postpositive theorists such as Ashley and James Der Derian.

Postmodernism in philosophy

Many figures in the 20th century philosophy of mathematics are identified as "postmodern" due to their rejection of mathematics as a strictly neutral point of view. Some figures in the philosophy of science, especially Thomas Samuel Kuhn and David Bohm, are also so viewed. Some see the ultimate expression of postmodernism in science and mathematics in the cognitive science of mathematics, which seeks to characterize the habit of mathematics itself as strictly human, and based in human cognitive bias.
The term "Neo-liberalism" has been used in a theological sense as a drive to deliberately modify the beliefs and practices of the church (especially evangelical) to conform to post-modernism, for more on this please see emergent church.

Postmodernism and post-structuralism

In terms of frequently cited works, postmodernism and post-structuralism overlap quite significantly. Some philosophers, such as Jean-François Lyotard, can legitimately be classified into both groups. This is partly due to the fact that both modernism and structuralism owe much to the Enlightenment project.
Structuralism has a strong tendency to be scientific in seeking out stable patterns in observed phenomena - an epistemological attitude which is quite compatible with Enlightenment thinking, and incompatible with postmodernists. At the same time, findings from structuralist analysis carried a somewhat anti-Enlightenment message, revealing that rationality can be found in the minds of "savage" people, just in forms differing from those that people from "civilized" societies are used to seeing. Implicit here is a critique of the practice of colonialism, which was partly justified as a "civilizing" process by which wealthier societies bring knowledge, manners, and reason to less "civilized" ones.
Post-structuralism, emerging as a response to the structuralists' scientific orientation, has kept the cultural relativism in structuralism, while discarding the scientific orientations.
One clear difference between postmodernism and poststructuralism is found in their respective attitudes towards the demise of the project of the Enlightenment: post-structuralism is fundamentally ambivalent, while postmodernism is decidedly celebratory.
Another difference is the nature of the two positions. While post-structuralism is a position in philosophy, encompassing views on human beings, language, body, society, and many other issues, it is not a name of an era. Post-modernism, on the other hand, is closely associated with "post-modern" era, a period in the history coming after the modern age.

Postmodernity and digital communications

Technological utopianism is a common trait in Western history - from the 1700s when Adam Smith essentially labelled technological progress as the source of the Wealth of Nations, through the novels of Jules Verne in the late 1800s (with the notable exception of his then-unpublished Paris in the 20th Century), through Winston Churchill's belief that there was little an inventor could not achieve. Its manifestation in post-modernity was first through the explosion of analog mass broadcasting of television. Strongly associated with the work of Marshall McLuhan who argued that "the medium is the message", the ability of mass broadcasting to create visual symbols and mass action was seen as a liberating force in human affairs, even at the same time Newton N. Minow was calling television "a vast wasteland".
The second wave of technological utopianism associated with postmodern thought came with the introduction of digital internetworking, and became identified with Esther Dyson and such popular outlets as Wired Magazine. According to this view digital communications makes the fragmentation of modern society a positive feature, since individuals can seek out those artistic, cultural and community experiences which they regard as being correct for themselves.
The common thread is that the fragmentation of society and communication gives the individual more autonomy to create their own environment and narrative. This links into the postmodern novel, which deals with the experience of structuring "truth" from fragments.

Postmodernism and its critics

The term post-modernism is often used pejoratively to describe tendencies perceived of as Relativist, Counter-enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relationship to critiques of Rationalism, Universalism or Science. It is also sometimes used to describe tendencies in the society which are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of morality. The criticisms of postmodernism are often made complex by the still fluid nature of the term, in many cases the criticisms are clearly directed at poststructuralism and the philosophical and academic movements that it has spawned rather than the larger term postmodernism.
The most prominent recent criticism of postmodern art is that of John Gardner. Gardner wrote that the classification "post-modern" / "modern" applied to the art of his time was an evasion, a stab at nothing - i.e., a move to elude the basic function of criticism, which, as Gardner called it, is to judge art's moral value.
Charles Murray, a strong critic of postmodernism, defines the term:
"By contemporary intellectual fashion, I am referring to the constellation of views that come to mind when one hears the words multicultural, gender, deconstruct, politically correct, and Dead White Males. In a broader sense, contemporary intellectual fashion encompasses as well the widespread disdain in certain circles for technology and the scientific method. Embedded in this mind-set is hostility to the idea that discriminating judgments are appropriate in assessing art and literature, to the idea that hierarchies of value exist, hostility to the idea that an objective truth exists. Postmodernism is the overarching label that is attached to this perspective." [1] 
One example is the figure of Harold Bloom, who has simultaneously been hailed as being against multiculturalism and contemporary "fads" in literature, and also placed as an important figure in postmodernism.
Central to the debate is the role of the concept of "objectivity" and what it means. In the broadest sense, denial of the practical possibility of objectivity is held to be the postmodern position, and a hostility towards claims advanced on the basis of objectivity its defining feature. It is this underlying hostility toward the concept of objectivity, evident in many contemporary critical theorists, that is the common point of attack for critics of postmodernism. Many critics characterise postmodernism as an ephemeral phenomenon that cannot be adequately defined simply because, as a philosophy at least, it represents nothing more substantial than a series of disparate conjectures allied only in their distrust of modernism.
This antipathy of postmodernists towards modernism, and their consequent tendency to define themselves against it, has also attracted criticism. It has been argued that modernity was not actually a lumbering, totalizing monolith at all, but in fact was itself dynamic and ever-changing; the evolution, therefore, between "modern" and "postmodern" should be seen as one of degree, rather than of kind - a continuation rather than a "break." One theorist who takes this view is Marshall Berman, whose book All That is Solid Melts into Air (1982) (a quote from Marx) reflects in its title the fluid nature of "the experience of modernity."
As noted above, some theorists such as Habermas even argue that the supposed distinction between the "modern" and the "postmodern" does not exist at all, but that the latter is really no more than a development within a larger, still-current, "modern" framework. Many who make this argument are left academics with Marxist leanings, such as Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, and David Harvey (social geographer), who are concerned that postmodernism's undermining of Enlightenment values makes a progressive cultural politics difficult, if not impossible. For instance, "How can 'we' effect any change in people's poor living conditions, in inequality and injustice, if 'we' don't accept the validity of underlying universals such as the 'real world' and 'justice' in the first place?" How is any progress to be made through a philosophy so profoundly skeptical of the very notion of progress, and of unified perspectives? The critics charge that the postmodern vision of a tolerant, pluralist society in which every political ideology is perceived to be as valid, or as redundant, as the other, may ultimately encourage individuals to lead lives of a rather disastrous apathetic quietism. This reasoning leads Habermas to compare postmodernism with conservatism and the preservation of the status quo.
Such critics often argue that, in actual fact, such postmodern premises are rarely, if ever, actually embraced - that if they were, we would be left with nothing more than a crippling radical subjectivism. They point to the continuity of the projects of the Enlightenment and modernity as alive and well, as can be seen in the justice system, in science, in political rights movements, in the very idea of universities, and so on.
To some critics, there seems, indeed, to be a glaring contradiction in maintaining the death of objectivity and privileged position on one hand, while the scientific community continues a project of unprecedented scope to unify various scientific disciplines into a theory of everything, on the other. Hostility toward hierarchies of value and objectivity becomes problematic to them when postmodernity itself attempts to analyse such hierarchies with, apparently, some measure of objectivity and make categorical statements concerning them.
They see postmodernism, then as, essentially, a kind of semantic gamesmanship, more sophistry than substance. Postmodernism's proponents are often criticised for a tendency to indulge in exhausting, verbose stretches of rhetorical gymnastics, which critics feel sound important but are ultimately meaningless. In the Sokal Affair, Alan Sokal, a physicist, wrote a deliberately nonsensical article purportedly about interpreting physics and mathematics in terms of postmodern theory, which was nevertheless published by the Left-leaning Social Text, a journal which he and most of the scientific community considered as postmodernist.
Although Ken Wilber embraces many aspects of post-modernism, he distinguishes between a healthy form and an unhealthy 'extreme' form. Inherent in the extreme version is the irreconcilability of the performative contradiction. Wilber argues postmodernism must take the stance that its view is 'better' than what preceded it (modernity, Enlightenment, meta-narratives, positivism, etc.). This intrinsic and silent judgement that postmodernism imposes on its predessors is in itself not only a value judgement (a thing it often rejects), but a hierarchy in itself (a hierarchy of values). Wilber claims his recent work in integral theory addresses these performative contradictions, while retaining many of the important contributions of postmodernism. Wilber's approach is distinguished from other critiques by asking a different question. It does not ask whether postmodernism, or modernism, or any other system of thought as 'correct' or 'not correct'. Rather, it asks what are the emergent qualities of 'consciousness' that allow all of these systems of thought to arise in the first place? And, what important aspect of truth do they have to contribute?
In response to the critics of postmodernism, many people suggest that no "postmodern" ethos or movement has actually taken practical form, and that the term "postmodernism" has been coined by traditionalist intellectuals as a byproduct of their paranoia and resentments towards their less traditonal contemporaries.

Relationship between modernism and postmodernism

The relationship between modernism and postmodernism, can best be examined through the works of several authors, some of whom argue for such a distinction, while others call it into question. Following a methodology common among the authors whose work this article examines, a number of artists and writers commonly described as modernist or postmodernist will be considered, although it is noted that this classification is at times controversial. Although useful distinctions can be drawn between the modernist and postmodernist eras, this does not erase the many continuities present between them.
One of the most significant differences between modernism and postmodernism in the arts is the concern for universality or totality. While modernist artists aimed to capture universality or totality in some sense, postmodernists have rejected these ambitions as "metanarratives."

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