I decided to start writing my response halfway through Collage City rather than after completing the readings in order to avoid another verbose blogpost.
I think one of our greatest faults as humans is the inability to acknowledge our differences without ascribing hierarchy. Racism is probably the most obvious products of this tendency. I think the whole idea of the noble savage is a perfect example of this. There was a mix of reverence and racism when Europeans contemplated this whole idea of a noble savage. On one end the noble savage is viewed as an uncorrupted version of contemporary humans. On the other hand, the noble savage is also seen as parochial and uncivilized. Probably the most offensive thing about this is that native Americans, Australian aboriginals, and Africans were often cited as ”prime examples” of noble savages. This was largely inspired by a very jarring misconception, popularized when Europeans first encountered other races, which asserted that the hunter-gathers and the peoples of the tribal societies of the Americas, Africa, and Europe, were actually earlier forms of the modern human (which is obviously wrong, because all races evolved simultaneously through a process that concluded millennia ago). This stupid conviction was due to the fact that Europeans had at that time a textbook definition of the word ”civilization” which corroborated their convictions in the legitimacy of the societies they had built in response to the environments their societies were born into. But all societies are born into different environments.
I think Modernism refutes concepts like the noble savage (even though Collage city argues that the utopian vision of modernism is somewhat rooted in enlightenment ideas such as the noble savage). Well for one I think, for the most part, science refutes all bigoted philosophical ideas and Modernism embraces a scientific approach to design. The text, Collage City, argues that although modernism claims to synergize rationality with societal good, it has failed in this regard. I don’t know. Maybe we should examine what came before. Whenever we study architectural history we are often concerned with hegemonic edifices – palaces, cathedrals, elaborate burial forms, etc. How big a deal was social housing 400 years ago? How much attention was paid to designing homes for families? ”Good” Design, for the most part of human history, was largely reserved for the upper echelons of society. This might have been due to the fact that building technology in the past required the input of numerous resources which only a few had access to. I believe, that just as there has been a gradual (though perhaps too gradual) trend, within the last two centuries, of humans across the world being lifted out of poverty, Modernism does hold the possibility of democratizing good design for humanity. I think there is a certain sense of rationality that can lead to an efficient, and humane approach to building. I think this approach reflects a recognition that we have limited resources on this planet and maybe we cannot afford to always self-indulge in the over-consideration of idiosyncratic factors. Also, I think using a more multi-faceted approach in defining the word ”function” (I think our modern tools can help us with that), could help us produce buildings that are both rational and beneficial for society.
Rowe, C., Koetter, F., & Hylton, K. (2005). Collage city. Gollion: Infolio.