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Wednesday, 14 June 2006 | Levent OZLER
Docomomo 2006: The IXth International DOCOMOMO Conference
The theme of the IXth International DOCOMOMO Conference, "Other" Modernisms, proceeds from the consensus that the mainstream historiographic construction of twentieth-century modernism through its canonic texts and buildings has marginalized or suppressed some modern trajectories, which are now gaining an unprecedented legitimacy as the subject matter of revisionist histories. Today the exclusive, totalizing and teleological histories of modern architecture are highly suspect and the presumed internal consistency and morphological integrity of modernism is no longer taken for granted by recent critical approaches in line with contemporary scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Recent literature has shed light on the differences within orthodox modernism itself, and questioned its canonical definitions. In addition, "non-western" contexts from Asia, Africa to South America or to the east of Europe, have been increasingly studied to broaden the limits of modernist production beyond Western Europe and North America, which were hitherto seen as centers of Modernism. Instead of a modernist mainstream, we now talk about a plurality of modernisms both within the global context and within individual societies comprising it.
The IXth International DOCOMOMO Conference, to be hosted by Turkey in 2006, will focus on these "other" modernisms in their full geographical, chronological, formal, ideological, and political diversity. We see the Conference as an opportunity for a timely, critical and rigorous discussion of these revisionist trends, not only to highlight the actual plurality, complexity and heterogeneity of modernisms across the globe from the early twentieth century to the 1970s, but also to ask the question in reverse: i.e., how far can these "other" modernisms challenge mainstream or canonic modernism and yet still remain "modern"? If the modern is no longer a "movement", nor a program or a style, how can we meaningfully delineate its theoretical, temporal and aesthetic boundaries? Or to put it differently, in the context of the new emphasis on pluralism, heterogeneity and difference, is there room for everything or are there limits beyond which "other" modernisms are no longer "modern"? Is modernism a historical phenomenon that has lived itself out after its two defining moments (interwar and postwar) or does the word "modern" designate certain trans-historical tenets that are as valid today as they were in the early twentieth century? Does the geographical and cultural diversification implicit in "other" modernisms also correspond to a chronological diffusion - i.e. different modernisms at different times?
These definitions and different perspectives bring forward another important issue in current discourse: the documentation and conservation of the "other" moderns. Related discussions of preservation versus transience - the conceptual conflict between conservation of selected modern buildings as "cultural heritage" versus the idea of modernity as a transient, fleeting moment is already a challenge for individuals and institutions involved in conservation practice. The reception and recognition of "other" modernisms poses a more complex situation, beginning with a theoretical discussion on selection criteria for documentation to conservation practice as a physical process at different scales. Such concerns form an integral part of the discourse on "other" modernisms.
Docomomo 2006: http://www.docomomo.org.tr/
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