Militant Modernism (Zero Books) [Paperback]

Owen Hatherley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 16, 2009 | Series: Zero Books

Militant Modernism is a defence against Modernism's many detractors. It looks at design, film and architecture - especially architecture -- and pursues the notion of an evolved modernism that simply refuses to stop being necessary. Owen Hatherley gives us new ways to look at what we thought was familiar -- Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, even Vladimir Mayakovsky. Through Hatherley's eyes we see all of the quotidian modernists of the 20th century - lesser lights, too -- perhaps understanding them for the first time. Whether we are looking at Britain's brutalist aesthetics, Russian Constructivism, or the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich, the message is clear. There is no alternative to Modernism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

With svelte prose, agile wit, and alarming erudition, Owen Hatherley pries open the prematurely closed case of early 20th Century modernism. This slim and shapely, ideas-packed and intensely-felt book is neither a misty-eyed memorial nor a dour inquest, but a verging-on-erotic mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Rediscovering the enchantment of demystification and the sexiness of severity, Hatherley harks forward to modernism's utopian spirit: critical, radically democratic, dedicated to the conscious transformation of everyday life, determined to build a better world. Simon Reynolds, Author of Rip It Up and Start Again - Postpunk 1978-84"A call to have the courage to be modern against all the current postmodern pieties of exhaustion and fragmentation, Owen Hatherley's brilliant reactivation of the utopian impulses of the modernist avant-garde is Brecht meeting Ballard to create the science-fiction of socialism." Benjamin Noys, Author of Georges Bataille and The Culture of Death

About the Author

Owen Hatherley was born in Southampton in 1981. He writes the architecture/media/politics blog Sit Down Man, You're a Bloody Tragedy (nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com).He is a regular contributor to Blueprint, the New Statesman, Socialist Worker and The Wire and is on the editorial boards of Historical Materialism and Archinect. He lives in South-east London. Militant Modernism is his first book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: O Books, John Hunt (April 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1846941768
• ISBN-13: 978-1846941764
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #339,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)