The Sociohistoric Mission of Modern Architecture

A Platypus teach-in by Ross Wolfe and Sammy Medina meant to explore some issues connected to the “Ruins of Modernity: The failure of revolutionary architecture in the 20th century,” an upcoming panel event at NYU featuring Peter Eisenman, Reinhold Martin, Joan Ockman, and (hopefully) Bernard Tschumi.

This presentation will touch on modernist architecture’s attempt to address problems like the housing shortage, the poor living conditions of the urban proletariat, and the liberation of woman from domestic slavery. Approaches to homelessness past and present: the 1920s-1930s Social-Democratic utopia of the Siedlung vs. the 1990s-2000s anarchist utopia of the Squat. Housing the unemployed and underemployed — the so-called “reserve army of labor” or “surplus population” — from the sotsgorod to Occupy Your Home.

A room, or perhaps a “pod,” of one’s own, and its importance for modern bourgeois subjectivity. Annihilating the antithesis between town and country (Karl Marx, Ebenezer Howard, Mikhail Okhitovich), the absurdity of the nuptial bed (Karel Teige), the city of children (Leonid Sabsovich), and the creation of a hermaphroditic humanity (El Lissitzky).

Kitchen factory, 1928

Kitchen factory, 1928