132 The Postmodern Reflex

44 The humanizing of modernity, says Toulmin, entails a shift away from the de-contextualizing project which began with the Cartesian rationality of the mid-seventeenth century - su bordinating rhetoric to logic and geometry - and lasted until the 1950s. It entails a shift "from a focus on the problem of preserving sta bility and preventing insta bility, to a focus on creating institu tions and procedures that are adaptive . . . In an age of interdependence and historical change, mere stability and permanence are not enough. Like social and political institutions, formal techniques of thought too easily lapse into stereotyped and self-protective rigidity. Like buildings on a human scale, our intellectual and social procedures will do what we need in the years ahead, only if we take care to avoid irrelevant or excessive sta bility, a nd keep them operating in ways that are adaptable to u nforeseen - or even unforeseea ble- situations and functions" (Toulmin, p. 186, emphasis added). Rather than choose between sixteenth-century humanism a nd seventeenth-centu ry exact science, then, Toulmin recommends retaining "the positive achievements of them both" (Toulmin, p. 180).

45 In contrast to the modernist "aesthetic of identity or of orga nic unification"(Jameson, 1985, p. 86).

46 Along similar lines, Gitlin identifies an emergent sensibility which features "jubilant disrespect for the boundaries that are supposed to segregate cul ture castes, but [which] does not imply a leveling down, profaning the holy precincts of high culture" (Gitlin, 1989, p. 359).

47 This divide, says Huyssen, grew especially prqnounced during "the age of Stalin and Hitler when the threat of totalitarian control over all culture forged a variety of defensive strategies meant to protect high culture in general, not just modernism" (Huyssen, p 197). For postmodern artistic or critical sensibilities, Huyssen maintains, the great divide "that was codified in the va rious classical accounts of modernism no longer seems relevant"

( ibid.). Now, Huyssen observes that "in a n im porta nt sector of our culture there is a noticeable shift in sensibility, practices, and discou rse formations which distinguishes a postmodern set of assumptions, experiences, andpropositions from that of a preceding period" (Huyssen, p. 181). Contem porary postmodernism, Huyssen says, "operates i n a field of tension be tween tradition and innovation, conservation and renewal, mass culture and high art, in which the second terms a re no longer automatically privileged over the first; a field of tension which can no longer be grasped i n categories such as progress vs. reaction, left vs. right, present vs. past, modernism vs. realism, abstraction vs. representation, ava ntga rde vs. Kitsch" (Huyssen, pp. 216-17). These dichotomies, which a re central to the classical accounts of modernism, Huyssen says, have broken down . One outcome of this is that "artistic activities have become m uch more diff use a nd harder to contain in safe categories or sta ble institution s such as the academy, the m useum or even the esta blished gallery network" ( Huyssen, pp. 218-19). Huyssen contends that "postmodernism at its deepest level represents not just an other crisis within the perpetual cycle of boom and bust, exha ustion and renewal, which has characterized the tra jectory of modernist culture" (Huyssen, p. 217). Rather, "it represents a new type of crisis of that modern ist culture itself" (i bid.).

5

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

The reactions to modernist architecture and planning surveyed in chap ters 2 and 3 can be mapped along two axes, one indicating the formal ambitions of urban designers and the other the way in which they perceive their role (illustration 5.1). These axes meet at the point where urban designers aspire to realizing personal am bitions (artistic and remu nerative) with little or no theoretical justification and then diverge along their respective theoretical pa ths. The formal am bition axis moves from produci ng good and beautiful bu ilt forms to drawing inspiration from mass cultu re, the social context, the site, and the past. The urban design er's role axis proceeds from the businessperson and a rtist to the facilitator, political activist, a nd social engineer. Although the reactions to modernist architecture and pla n ning might be mapped along these axes, such a n exercise would ultimately reveal little since theory is often a mask or justification for personal a m bitions or vice versa.

Rather than cha rt the rhetoric of these various approaches, then, this chapter peers beyond it, by reviewi ng and assessing the ma jor themes which fall along the axes of postmodern u rbanism as i nscribed within the larger postmodern reflex outlined in the preceding chapter. These overlapping themes include contextualism, historicism, the search for urba nity, regionalism, a nti-u niversalism, pluralism, collage, self referentiality, reflexivity, preoccupation with image/decor/scenogra phy, superficiality , depthlessness, ephemerality, fragmentation, populism, apoliticism, commercialism, loss of faith, and irony. The critique of

z

13•

4 Themes of Postmodern Urbanism Themes of Postmodern Urbanism •135

Certain Pasts (Historicism. the

(Theoretical)p. 40). In contrast to modernism's insistence upon architectu ral honestyand fu nctional ity, postmodern urbanism sought to satisfy needs that are not merely fu nctional and to convey meanings other than the building tectonics. In a rchitectu ra l theory, Ada Lou ise Huxta ble observed, there

Contextualisms : (To gain inspiration from :)

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search for urbanity)

The Site (Regionalism orphysical contextualism)

The Social Context (Social contextualism)

Mass Culture

To produce good and beautiful architecture and cities

was "a sea rch for mea ning a nd sym bolism, a wa y to esta blish architec ture's ties wi th h u man experience, a wa y to find and express a value system, a concern for a rchi tect u re in the context of society" ( Huxta ble, 1981a, pp. 73-4).

As modernism's increasingl y minimalistic tendencies grew ever more stifling, u rba n designers em braced maximalism and inclusivity, as ex pressed in the maxims "Less is a bore" (Ventu ri, 1966) and "More is more" (Stern in Williams, 1985). The parallel shift occu rring in literature is evocatively portrayed by the protagonist in John Barth's Tidewater Tales (1986), a writer whose increasingl y minimalistic style ultimately blocks his a bility to write or d rea m u ntil circu mstances (including the birth of his fi rst child ) re-ign ite his creative juices, this time in a maxima list form. Likewise in u rban design theory, universalism a nd purism were gra d ual ly su ppla nted by pl u ralism and contextualism while the role of the u rban designer sh ifted from that of inspired genius, artist, or social engi neer to that of a more hu m ble facilitator.

FOR M FO LLOWS FICTION

To effect change through urban design

I THE URBAN DESIGNER'S ROLE I5.1 The axes of postmodern u rba n ism.

postmodern u rba nism advanced in this cha pter is organize as follows: Form Follows Fiction· Form Follows Fear; Form Follows Fmesse; Form Follows Finance; and ,The Result. The concluding sction - On Balance_ presents certain correctives of postmodern u rba111sm as well as some

recent promising in itiatives. . .The challenge to the modern project a nd th e. declin e of the public

realm to which modern u rbanism was accompl ce called for new re sponses from urban designers. Whereas "moder111sm from t.he 1910s to the 1960s . . . responded to the challenge of esta blishing social order fr a mass society ; post-modernism since the 1960s . . ·resp?,nded to t e

challenge of placelessness and a need for u r ba n com m u n ity ( Ley, 1987,

Whereas modernist a rchitectu re and u rba n planning derived inspiration from the mach ine to house an industrial society, many reactions to modernism since the 1960s have sought inspiration from pre-ind ustrial townsca pes for a post -industria l society. While certa in ou tcomes of these efforts have been sal u ta ry (see "On Bala nce" below), the two-part denial inherent in th em often renders success elusive or merely partial. This denial entails a rel ucta nce to ack nowledge that post-industrial needs and tastes can differ vastly from pre-industrial ones, along with a related tendency to selectively edit history, valorizing and idealizing certain pasts while denigra ting and erasing others, particu larly ou r most recent past, that of modernism.

In its determi nation to improve u pon modernist urban design, postmodern u rban ism often fa ils to acknowledge the irreversi ble changes wrought by the ind ustri a l revol u tion. In a n earl y criticism of writers such as Jane Jacobs, John Dyckman (1962) contends that they

sim ply edit the factory ou t of the city a nd tal k a bout neigh borhoods i n which the monster of i nd ustrial ism never intrudes, either in la nd use or the lives of the ci ti zen. Di rt a nd disorder a re powdered over, colors a nd smells are someh ow blended as i n the a rtist's pa lette or the master's cuisi ne, so that tolera nce of thei r d iversity is no a ffi rma tion of sensuousness, but is as

136 Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

respectable as a showing in a n adva nced gallery, or a good dinner in mid town. Leisure is relaxed and reflective, because security underlies it, and work, with its meaning, is virtually out of sight. To build a n u rban aesthetic on this caricature of .urban life is wholly without mea n i ng forcontemporary city planning.

The more recent proponent of historicism, Leon Krier, would also like to ignore industrialization, which he has descri bed as a "total failure" ( Krier, 1984), as well as the institutiona l ized forms of ed uca tion that evolved along with it, which he referred to as "a tortuous necessity for all," the "decisive instrument" for social, cu ltu ral, and ideological con trol for social reproduction ( Krier, 1978a, p. 59). As a result, Manuel Castells maintains, although Krier's typology "has a n ice a ppeal," it is "reductive and ultimately meaningless" (Castells, 1983, p. 315). Thomas Dutton likewise observes "a wide gulf between Krier's ur ba n perceptions and prescri ptions" and contempora ry realities ( Dutton, 1986, p. 22), rendering him guilty of misrepresenting the actual relationship between domina nt and oppressed cultures, power and powerlessness, urban de sign and social change.1 Ultimately, Dutton claims, the realization of Krier's proposals would only prod uce su perficial cha nge, "leaving the city to the reign of domin a nt i nstitutions with business as usual"( Dutton, 1986, p. 24).

Along with industrialization and its socia l com ponents, this pu rsuit of u rba nity also tends to overlook the way in which new tra nsportation a nd comm u nications technologies have completely su bverted the logic of the pre-modern city with its high density and tight m ix of bu ild ing fu nctions,

while resha ping the use and perception of public and private space.2

The danger of this nostalgia is most blata ntly manifest in the oversight of the

car. As Richa rd Ingersoll contends, "Often, in the enth usiasm for a return to the city fabric, the city is treated as if postindustria l times were posta utomobile times" (Ingersoll, 1989c, p. 12). Interviewi ng Colin Rowe, Ingersoll asks, "Isn't the problem of the a utomobile, even if it was not the origi n of the formal solutions of Modernism, 3 still central in a

cu rrent u rban scheme? " ( i bid.). In a telling response, Rowe ad mits that "Here i n Rome there are times, in fact every day, when I wou ld

prefer to get into an automobile a nd go shopping i n a su perma rket than go shopping around in these little stores. The ideal thi ng wou ld be

to have a good American su burb adjacent to a very concentrated Italian town,

then you'd have the best of both worlds" ( ibid.). Rowe's ideal of living , and doing his errands in a well-appointed American su bu rb with an oldEu ropean town nearby - for charm, character, and possi bly status - is no dou bt a widely-shared sentiment, albeit ra rely admitted by those decry ing the decline of the pu blic real m and pu rsuing the

"search for u rba nity."4

•

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism 137

Although pre-modern typologies a nd morphologies may appear quaint and may be fun to visit, then, they usually do not correspond to contempora ry needs and tastes (see Ellin, 1994). Ingersoll addresses this issue, saying: "While the objective of walka ble streets and harmonious surroundings might appea r to be universal, at the heart of this postmodern alternative lies a trou bling paradox that is rarely taken into account and indeed calls into dou bt the wisdom of what are essentially formal solutions: preindustrial forms a nd spaces are not necessarily suited to posti nd ustrial ways of life" (Ingersoll, 1989a, p. 21). Ingersoll inquires: "If one proposes all kinds of nice pu blic spaces, connected streets a nd figu red piazzas, will there still be an a udience in a highly technological society for their use?" (ibid.). The answer is often no, as attested to by many carefully designed but un used indoor and outdoor pu blic spaces inserted into existing urba n fabrics or built in new towns and edge cities.5

The sea rch for u r banity is misguided when it ignores the contempo rary context altogether or falls into the tra p of environmental determin ism presuming that traditional u rban forms will engender traditional urban lifestyles.6 As James Holston has asserted, the problem with forays into contextualism "in today's city is pa radoxically a question of context: they a re out of context in their nostalgic references to (an imagined) social and economic order of the past" ( Holston, p. 317).

In addition, the sea rch for urba nity has been accused of placing a "brake on the imagi nation" ( Luca n, 1989, p. 145) because its fatuous adherence to the forms of the past discou rage innovative solutions to the problems of a ra pidly-changi ng world. David Mangin maintains that while this new "false urbanity" may offer some advantages over modern urbanism, it is really a bout "managing mediocrity" (Mangin ) since only good architects can make modern architecture, but all architects can work within the fra me of urban architecture, which he regards as "an architecture of accompa niment" ( i bid.).7 Such management of mediocrity is apparent in the development of Battery Park City on Manhattan's southwestern ti p (see p. 77), which the New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp has descri bed as "a corrective to modern urbanism" ( Muscham p, 1994c), but a place where the design guidelines inspired by prewa r New York constrained architects from exercising originality with the result th at "There isn't one building with something fresh or stimulating to say a bout ur ban life today" ( ibid.). Another example of urban design which fa iled to elicit innovative approaches because of its nostalgia is the plan for revitalizing the waterfront of New York City. According to Muscha m p, this plan failed to grasp its potential for environmentally-sensitive development and for blending nature with the city beca use it "was soaked in the thinking of an earlier day: the

•138 Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

Industrial Age that treated natu re mainly as raw material to be

exploited for hu man use" ( Muschamp, 1993b).8

.

In part an outcome of exha usted creati:e energies, then, the infatuation with the past fu rther ham pers creative potential. As Muscham p suggests, this mentality in the world of design generates "a climat of indifference to the imagination" because "it has a pparently been decided in advance that every new building should look like the Art Deco a part ment buildings of the 1930s. Every street should be lighted by bishop crook lampposts. Every park shou ld look l ike a n Olmsted pa rk"

(Muschamp, 1993b). . .In addition to ignoring the vast im pact of the md ustnal mode of

production and the new tech nologies it has aa iled, postmodern u rbanism also tends to edit the efforts by u rban designers to accommo date these cha nges as manifest in modern u r ba n ism. Rather tha design in the context of modernist settings, postmodern u rba nism tu rns its back on these. Indeed, if it were truly contextual, it would la rgely be accom modating modernist settings, since these constitu te such a large percent

age of the landscape the world arou nd.9

Architects a nd urbanists such as Leon Krier, Robert Stern, andQuinlan Terry, according to Doug Davis, "ignore the specific ideo.logical or religious implications of the periods they q uote [and] ar in fact anti historicist: they prefer history-as-arcadian-sym bol, not h1story-as reality" (D. Davis, p. 21). McLeod simila rly criticizes. the European typologists Aldo Rossi, Vittorio Gregotti, and Rob Kner. for treating "architecture primarily as a static artifact, despite their pu rported

interest in hi story and political transforma tion" ( McLeod, p . 9). Al though they call for contextual ism, she says, their proposals are

actually couched in a language of u niversality since they view "type as a 'con stant' in a context of cha nging productive relations" (

ibid.). Indeed,

•Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

•139

Although certain designers seek a faithful retu rn to the past, most of them justify their more stylized historicisms as intentionally ironic. 10 Like the more generalized ironic response (see chapter 4), its manifestation in u rba n design a l so im plies that it is aware of the fictions being applied but ack nowledges thei r necessity . The strategy of "dou ble coding" proffered by Jencks (defined pp. 88-9), for instance, suggests that we use past forms in an ironic wa y (Jencks, 1978, p. 18) since there is no alternative in ou r cu rrent mass media-in undated world.

Yet the den ia l of contem porary needs and tastes along with the ten dency to reject the modern tradition rather than incorporate it have allowed for borrowings from the past which prove misguided and inap propriate. The pa rticu lar references favored by urban designers are usual l y selected from their readings and travels on the basis of personal taste a nd a re usually removed from their political and social contexts. Conseq uently, the meaning designers hope to bestow u pon their architec ture - so tha t it will commu nicate - is usually lost.

The effort to re-center ou r de-centered world by creating centers offers one exa m ple. The Piazza d'Ital ia designed by Perez a nd Associates and Charles Moore was one effort to create such a center, but never became the vi brant pu blic space that its designers had hoped for. Highlighting the deadliness (as opposed to vita lity) of this plaza, Pa ul Walker Clarke points out that it has served as a stageset for two movies, both of which portrayed it as empty with the exception of a corpse in the fou ntain. He contends, "The design never overca me the limits of its commission; the false notion tha t u rba n i ty can be generated by the constitu tion of an 'u rban center' " (Clarke, 1988, p. 16).

The recent vogue for townsca pes of t he past is a pparent in movements arou nd th e globe for historic preservation, adaptive re-use, reha bili tation, restoration, a nd renovation. But in most cases, these attempts at

their highly personal interpretation s of ty pe may actually reflect "a past that may not have existed" (Moneo; cited b Fra nces ato, P· 8). With rega rds to the ty pologists' claim that q uoting. fa miliar typ s

is reassu ring while sim ultaneously offering a n arh1te.ctu ral cnt1que, Boyer asserts: "This can be like walking on a thin t1gh

rope, · · · fo decora tive pastiches do not necessarily arouse ou r collet1ve memoy.

( Boyer, 1983, p. 289) . Not u nlike the Eu ropean ty polog1.sts, Ve?tun. is a l so guilty of being only selectiv ely contextuaL As Lesmkowsk1 main tains "Ventu ri d id not add ress the com pos1t1on of the exa m ples he desc;i bed in their contextual ( political, cultu ral, ph ysical ) totality but picked u p fragmentary and seconda ry aspects to prove h is points " ( Lesn ikowski, 1982). His interpreta tion of the great Eu ropean ma?ner

isms, sa ys Lesnikowski, was per sonal, individ ualistic, detached, isola-

tionist, and forma listic (ibid.).

preserving built form are enti rely revisionary, for instance, turning houses into m useu ms or factories into housing. Often, these undertakings do not preserve an ything at all bu t start entirely from scratch and call it "renovation" ra ther tha n new construction to lend it greater cachet. This urban design trend is th us inscri bed in the larger trend of "inventing traditions" descri bed i n cha pter 4. 11

In order to make something a ppear truly old or "a uthentic," it is often necessa ry to begin anew a nd to use materia ls a nd tech niq ues wh ich were not used for the origi nal. 1 2 To give one exa m ple, an arch itect com missioned to design a seventeenth-centu ry Tusca n villa for his client on Long Isla nd rema rked: "We thought of renovating the existing house, but it beca me clear tha t to make a house tha t wou ld look old, we had to start anew" ( New York Times, August 30, 1990, C6). Given the empha sis u pon image-making i n u rba n design, it is not su rprising that develop-

140 Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

5 .2 "A rustic cabinet for all kinds of collections. Crafted of mahogany with a whitewashed finish that is carefully ru bbed to look as if time did the job." Pottery

Barn catalogue 1995, reproduced countesy of The Pottery Ba rn .

ers have made recourse to the entertainment industries - the masters of "imagineering" - particularly for the design of theme parks, hotels, and restaurants. Offering one example of how they work, a spokesperson from the entertainment industry explained that they use fiberglass to give the appearance of a rock because "you get a very artificial appearance with real rock" (cited by Huxta ble 1992, 27).

The disingenuous nature of these efforts to look effortless (as thoughthere had been no intervention by designers) a nd to make the new look old extends to interiors as well, as illustrated by the cu rrent predilection

among city-dwellers for acquiring home fu rnishings which a ppea r rural and old (Slesin 1993). To give new things the aged-look, a

salesperson explained, their "paint finishes intentionally show signs of wear and aging" (cited by Slesin 1993). Explaining this sensibility, one shopowner asserted that these items represent "nostalgia for the sim ple life" and another maintained, "I feel that esthetic is more im

porta nt than authen tic" (cited by Slesin 1993). This sensibility was pa ralleled in clothing fashion by the popularity of "vintage clothing, "

particularly the market ing of blue jeans which are already worn-i n and

"personalized" ( illustra-

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism 141

on .5.2). As California a rchitect Brian Murphy poignantly commented Ac1d- ashed 1eans a re a perfect metaphor for the perverse post-modern mentality. They take a perfectl y good fa bric and make it look old" ( B. Murphy). 13

The valorization of artefacts of the industrial era offers one significant eample of the wa y in which the past is revised for current purposes . Smee. the 1970s, the factories, warehouses, machines, and products of our md ustnal past ha ve been elevated to preserva tion status - and ndwers of social status - as is apparent in museums devoted to display ing items from this period, the rise of "industrial archaeology," move ments for "preserving" ind ustrial landscapes, and loft-living. The "reason that people develop a sentimental - or a sensual - attachment to the industria l aesthetic," says Sharon Zukin, "is that it is not real. To be precise, it is no longer real" (Zukin, 1988a, p. 73). As Robert Harbison maintains, "They a re choosing to retu rn to a more manageable past. As.ach generation of machines becomes more complicated, we withdraw

mto dreams of obsolete machines and see ou rselves among windmills, clipper ships, even trolley cars' " (cited by Zukin, 1988a, p. 73). The smaller ou r machi nes become, the more the older larger ones evoke nostalgia and become part of a common folklore. We are also attracted by the dura ble quality of things such as reinforced steel shelving in conrast to the bu ilt-in obsolescence of so much that has replaced it.14

While ostmodern urba nism has la rgely chosen to overlook changes set m motion by the factory system, it has at the same time ascri bed new meanings to the industrial era by displacing its artefacts from their original contexts.

. Efforts at contextualism a nd preservation, then, are engaged in inventing a h1tor which lar?ely erases the chapter on the modern period, or re-valonzes 1t and idealizes selected earlier periods. Once the invention of tradition ?oes beyond a certain point, it produces "hyperreal" environ

ments which, Um berto Eco expla ins, must be a bsolutely fake in order to b betr than a nything real ( Eco, 1986, pp. 7, 8, 30). The pretense of

h1stonc1sm or preservation - of referring to a certain original - is su per seded by a n attempt to produce an encompassing environment which transcends its sou rces of inspiration. Much of our postmodern

landscape has thus. ?een descri bed as "hyperreal ," pa rticularly master-plan ned commu 1t1es, sho.pping malls, and theme parks or

entertainment palaces . Te mtrod ct1on of the magic ma rker in the 1960s, according to arch1t ct Da me! .Solomon, contributed to the

recasting of American urban.ism by magically su bstituting MPCs for the gridiron town and, in so domg, tra nsforming "the landscape of

banality of the 1950s into a ladscape of meta phor in the '60s: Mariner's Cove, Tonga Gardens, Bna r Heath, Broad Sun lit Uplands"

(Solomon, p. 31). Solomon thus

142 Themes of Postmodern Urbanism

contends that "If history was the victim of the first generation of post war development, reality was the victim of the second" (ibid.). New information tech nologies have also played an essential role in this devel opment. While increasingly usu rping the pu blic realm, they ha ve influ enced urban design from their use in the design and bu ilding processes to their influence on spatial organization a nd their impact on designers' aesthetic preferences. 15 Although some find the introduction of CAD ( Computer-Aided Design) and GIS ( Geogra phic Information Systems) constraining while others find it liberating, there is no q uestion that these new technologies have contri buted to an em phasis on a ppea ra nce over su bstance and image over content .16

The enhanced power of the image ushered in by these tools and byother tech nologies of comm u nication has incited arch itects and planners to design, more than ever before, with an eye toward getti ng pu blished, so they pay keen attention to how a build ing will a ppea r in a two dimensional frame. At the same time, architectu ral pu bl ications have a ltered their forma ts. Pointing ou t that the insides of bu ildings are no longer shown in architectu ral pu blications, on ly the exteriors, the French architectu ral historian Anatole Kopp sarcastically remarked: "Who cares how one is going to live inside? Is it not enough to have provided ma jestic Pu blic Spaces, streets and squa res? We will be a ble to take endless walks? We will go everywhere afoot . . . . How wonderful in the Pa ris or London climate!" ( Kopp, p. 37). Magazines which focus on interiors, on the other hand, ra rely include pla ns or even photogra phs of the exteriors of buildings, bespeaking the growing fragmenta tion of the design professions.

This "retu rn of aest h etics" ( Boyer, 1990) is disti nct from its earlierincarnation, according to Boyer, beca use it now featu res "a free play of all styles, with a general quoting, a ppropriating, recycling of images

which easily slide over su rface structu res" ( Boyer, 1990, pp. 100-1). Not necessarily referring to any original, wha t is often prod uced is

simulacra (see p. 108). Such u rban design, Boyer ma intains, engenders a "blase attitude" ( Boyer, 1990, p. 97) for it im plies tha t the city is

"after all just entertainment; we are only there to look and to bu y. The city has become a place of esca pe, a wonderland that evades reality, for

there is nothing more to think a bout in pu re entertainment. There is no ou tside world, no place from which we feel alienated, for th is formalistic

city is known and comforta ble; it is a bove all a place to en joy oneself. The pleasure is affirmative and fa r from oppositional a nd

negative" ( Boyer, 1990, pp. 97-8). With consu mption replacing prod uction as the pri ma ry economic role of ou r central cities, Boyer

explains, they become places of "pure play" ( Boyer, 1990, p. 97). Trevor Boddy descri bes the product of

Themes of Postmodern Urbanism 143

postmodern u rbanism as "the analogous city," largely beca use its "urban prosthetics" ( pedestrian bridges and tunnels) which join towers, shop ping centers, and festival ma rketplaces "provide a filtered version of the experience of cities, a sim ulation of u rbanity" (Boddy, 1992, p. 124). By accelerating the stra tification of race and class, he says, they "degrade the very cond itions they su pposedly remedy - the amenity, safety, and envi ronmental conditions of the pu blic realm" ( i bid.).

With regards to theme parks, Harvey has observed that "it is now possi ble to experience the world's geography vicariously, as a sim ulacru m," in a way which conceals "almost perfectly any trace of origin, of the la bou r processes tha t produced them, or of the social relations im plica ted in their prod uction" (Harvey, 1989, p. 300). In a contem porary - a nd somehow u n nerving - twist, these simu lacra have become reality since many more people visit the sim ulacra of Africa and China presented in Disneyworld tha n actually visit these foreign lands and, for them, the sim u lacra are Africa and China more than the far-off places themselves. 17

The emphasis on appearance has tra n slated into the favoring of build ing fa1tades which disguise their real materials, scale, history, or pu rpose. This is usually done in an effort to maintain or generate a sense of urbanity or tradition . Rather than reveal the true structure of a building, fa\ades are often designed to make large buildings look like a num ber of smaller ones (sometimes explained as "building on a human scale"), to be decorative, or to make new construction look old. Thus, ou r cities today contain many examples of "prewar" (a term popularized by the real-estate ind ust ry , usua lly referring to the First World War though sometimes to the Second ) fa1tades of townhouses, mansions, shops, a nd factories masking la te twentieth-centu ry l uxu ry condominiums (e.g. 79 Street near Park Aven ue, 278 Pa rk Avenue - Grammercy Place l uxu ry condominiu ms, a nd Soho lofts, all in New York City), hotels (e.g. Helmsley Palace Hotel a bove the Villa rd Houses in New York City), retail stores (e.g. Barney's in New York City), cultu ral institutions, sports arenas (e.g. Oriole Park at Ca mden Ya rd in Baltimore), and corporate office buildings (e.g. 712 Fifth Aven ue in New York City, Red Lion Row on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC). The new typology of "festival ma rketplaces" a ppearing in CBDs since 1972 joins a variety of these functions a rou nd that of consu m ption in a vacated prewar building or a new building designed in the spi rit of the old .

Such design has been descri bed disparagingly as "fa1tadism" ( Choa y, 1985, p. 269; Richa rds) or "fa1tad-omy" ( Editorial, 1990). An editorial in the New York Times asserted that: "Modern America has tu rned facades inside out . . . Sma ll masks big. Old masks new. Elegant modesty