Advancing a Different Modernism Routledge Focus on Art History and Visual Studies Series

Advancing a Different Modernism analyzes a long-ignored but formative aspect of modern architecture and art. By examining selective buildings by the Catalan architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1850-1923) and by the Slovenian designer Jože Plecnik (1872-1957), the book reveals the fundamental political and ideological conservatism that helped shape modernism?s history and purpose. This study thus revises the dominant view of modernism as a union of progressive forms and progressive politics. Instead, this innovative volume promotes a nuanced and critical consideration of how architecture was creatively employed to advance radically new forms and methods, while simultaneously consolidating an essentially conservative nationalist self-image.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Critical and Theoretical Introduction

Chapter 2: Progressive Architecture for a Conservative Catalonia

Chapter 3: Jože Plečnik, an Idiosyncratic Slovenian Modernist

Chapter 4: Reflections on Modernism’s Complexity

Appendix

Steven Mansbach is Distinguished University Professor and Professor of the History of Twentieth-Century Art at the University of Maryland.