Modernism's Ironic Legacy

All architecture is modern at least once. But for the modernists, that wasn’t enough; their revolution was meant to last forever.

However, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the birth of the great modernist pioneer in 1886, German-American architect Ludwig (Less is More) Mies van der Rohe, it’s clear the movement he helped create has become yet another style, an architectural bag of tricks that can be picked off the shelf to be used — or not — as desired.

Indeed, the irony of modernism’s legacy may be that it is best remembered not for its functionalist claims, but rather as one of a number of styles, an aesthetic, a look, that inform contemporary design.

And so the style that began as a renunciation of style has ended up a style.

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