Learning from Modernism

Dear Colleagues,

In 1928, Hannes Meyer defined the future of architecture as a resolution of the equation ‘function x economy’. Throughout the twentieth century, modernists reconceptualised the practice of architecture socially, politically, and technologically so that it could address—across a series of scales—the key societal (and environmental) issues of the period. One of modernism’s central precepts was the conception of architecture as an instrument capable not only of expressing the human condition but also of actively transforming it.

The male-dominated, western-centric, and energy intensive universalism of modernism has latterly been exposed and catalogued. While acknowledging the intense importance of this critique, this Special Issue explores the continuing relevancies of modernist architecture. Looking backwards to look forwards during a time of energy and environmental crises; shifts within gender, racial, postcolonial, and posthuman relations; and rapid technological developments, it poses a series of questions. What, if anything, can still be learnt from the modernist project? What is its potential to address today’s wicked problems? What continuities and discontinuities can be discerned between modernism and contemporary and future architectural production? Do we require new methodologies to be created and deployed to assess these important questions?  

We seek papers that reflect upon the lessons of modernism within a global context, ones that may offer new knowledge and methods to understand its canonical and/or non-canonical forms, and which begin to explore how the definitions of function and economy within architecture might be expanded to address the complexities of designing the future.

The discussions in this Special Issue will focus on (but are not limited to) the potential lessons to be drawn from examining the relationships between twentieth-century modernist architecture and the following themes:

• Energy and environmental systems.
• Democracy and redistributions of wealth.
• Gender and race.
• Representation and media.
• Postcolonial theories and thinking.
• Natural and posthuman systems.
• Extraction and extractive industries.
• Technology and technological systems.
• Modernisation.
• Globalism.
• Food production and distribution.
• Sound, noise, and other senses.
• The Anthropocene and its wicked problems.

Prof. Dr. Gary Boyd
Dr. Sarah Lappin
Dr. Brian Ward
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Architecture is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• modernism
• anthropocene
• post-colonial
• posthuman
• gender
• energy
• environment
• extraction and extractive industries
• technological systems
• wicked problems
• food
• representation
• democracy