Joan Ockman, ‘Conjurando con fantasmas (Geists): Un cuento de hadas dialéctico’, in Silvia Colmenares, Federico Soriano (eds), CRITIC ALL VOL I, Libro de conclusiones 2015/ Book of Findings 2015, DPA Prints, Department of Architectural Projects, Madrid School of Architecture, 2015.
Translated from English and Italian into Spanish
¿Cuándo ocurrió la Modernidad? ¿Empezó en 1900? ¿1851? ¿1789? ¿1450? ¿Dónde empezó? La historia es como una barra de pan que se puede cortar por distintos sitios. En su libro Una modernidad singular (2002), Fredric Jameson señala nada más y nada menos que catorce posibles puntos de partida de la época que en Occidente vagamente denominamos moderna. Pero si estamos de acuerdo con su afirmación de que los historiadores “no pueden no dividir la historia en periodos”, deberíamos tener en cuenta que el lugar donde pongamos el cuchillo, el principio que escojamos, tiene un peso sobre la historia que estamos narrando. […] Los respectivos puntos de partida, que también suponen implicaciones geopolíticas, nos llevan a entender la modernidad o bien como una historia de éxito o bien como un proyecto desigual e incompleto.Las diferentes historias canónicas de la arquitectura moderna también toman posturas distintas respecto a sus comienzos. Podríamos emprender un instructivo estudio con Kaufmann, Giedion, Pevsner, Hitchcock, Zevi, Banham, Benevolo, Collins, Tafuri, Frampton, Curtis, o Colquhoun, y anotar la manera en la que cada historiador comienza y termina su historia. Por ejemplo, ¿quién comienza con el Palacio de Cristal y quién con Boullée y Ledoux? ¿Quién comienza con Brunelleschi y quién con el Art Nouveau? De esta forma, también seríamos conscientes de la interrelación que existe entre los principios y los finales. Lo cual reforzaría nuestras sospechas de que por muy neutral o “científico” que pretenda ser el historiador, cada narrativa está inevitablemente influida por las razones que llevaron a escribirla, además de estar inevitablemente arraigada en la época y el lugar de cada historiador.
When was modernity? Did it begin in 1900? 1851? 1789? 1450? Where was it?
History, hypothetically, is like a loaf of bread that you can slice in different places. In his book A Singular Modernity (2002), Fredric Jameson ticks off no fewer than fourteen plausible starting points for the epoch that we in the West loosely call modern. But if we agree with him that historians “cannot not periodize, we should bear in mind that where we put the knife—which beginning—matters to the story we are telling.[…] These respective points of departure, which have geopolitical implications as well, lead us in turn to regard modernity either as a success story or as an uneven and incomplete project.The canonical histories of modern architecture also take different positions with respect to beginnings. We could undertake an instructive survey—Kaufmann, Giedion, Pevsner, Hitchcock, Zevi, Banham, Benevolo, Collins, Tafuri, Frampton, Curtis, Colquhoun, Cohen, among our principal exhibits—noting the way each historian starts and ends his story. Who begins with, say, the Crystal Palace, and who with Boullée and Ledoux? Who with Brunelleschi and who with Art Nouveau? In doing so, we would also become aware of the interrelationship between beginnings and endings. This would reinforce our suspicion that no matter how neutral or “scientific” the historian’s scholarship purports to be, every narrative is inevitably driven by the reasons for writing it, and is inextricably embedded in the historian’s time and place.
History, hypothetically, is like a loaf of bread that you can slice in different places. In his book A Singular Modernity (2002), Fredric Jameson ticks off no fewer than fourteen plausible starting points for the epoch that we in the West loosely call modern. But if we agree with him that historians “cannot not periodize, we should bear in mind that where we put the knife—which beginning—matters to the story we are telling.[…] These respective points of departure, which have geopolitical implications as well, lead us in turn to regard modernity either as a success story or as an uneven and incomplete project.The canonical histories of modern architecture also take different positions with respect to beginnings. We could undertake an instructive survey—Kaufmann, Giedion, Pevsner, Hitchcock, Zevi, Banham, Benevolo, Collins, Tafuri, Frampton, Curtis, Colquhoun, Cohen, among our principal exhibits—noting the way each historian starts and ends his story. Who begins with, say, the Crystal Palace, and who with Boullée and Ledoux? Who with Brunelleschi and who with Art Nouveau? In doing so, we would also become aware of the interrelationship between beginnings and endings. This would reinforce our suspicion that no matter how neutral or “scientific” the historian’s scholarship purports to be, every narrative is inevitably driven by the reasons for writing it, and is inextricably embedded in the historian’s time and place.