Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (48.2015)

ŠTÚDIE / ARTICLES

ARS 48, 2015, 1

Towards Understanding Visual Styles
As Inventions Without Expiration Dates
How the View of Architectural History as Permanent
Presence Might Contribute to Reforming Education
of Architects and Designers1

Jan MICHL

. the axe invented by historians to divide ancientfrom modern architecture never existedin
the minds of users of architecture, but only in the minds and intentions of the ‘employées’.”
- Paolo PORTOGHES1, 1980

“Modern architecture is like Esperanto, an attempt to invent and impose a common ‘rational’
language and succeeding only in being incompréhensible and allen to the majority of people. ”
-Louis HELLMAN, 1986.

“Scared of being just the design department of the construction industry, [modernists have]
created a monstrous delusion of self-importance. ” — Robert ADAM, 20092

1 This essay adds to the sizable work of many writers who have
feit, during the past 50 years or so, that something was serio-
usly amiss with the foundations of the modernist architecture,
and who searched for alternatives to the reigning modernist
concepts. The present páper has in various ways drawn from
them all. I listed many of these authors in the penultimate
section of MICHL, J.: A Case Against the Modernist Regi-
me in Design Education. In: Archnet-IJAR, Vol. 8, Issue 2,
July 2014/A (36-46) (online at http://janmichl.com/eng.
apartheid-ijar.pdf). - The present text develops further some
thèmes discussed in the following articles of mine: MICHL, J.:
On Seeing Design as Redesign: An Exploration of a Neglected
Problem in Design Education. In: Scandinavian Journalof Design
History 2002, no. 12, pp. 7-23 (online at http://janmichl.com/
eng.redesign.html); MICHL, J.: The Modernist Idea of Architecture
— orPlease, Do Not Disturb: Busy ProducingArtHistorically Correct
Expressions of the Modern Epoch. 2011 (unpublished; online
at http://janmichl.com/eng.modernism-plymouth.html);
MICHL 2014/A (see above); MICHL,}.: Taking Down the
Bauhaus Wall: Living Design History as a Tool for Better
Design. In: The Design Journal 2014/B, vol. 17, issue 3, pp.
445-454 (online at http://janmichl.com/eng.livingdesign.

pdf). What is new here are twin concepts from Karl Popper’s
late philosophy: his theory of “objective knowledge”, and his
concept of “world 3”. As far as I know, they are employed
here for the first time with the aim of establishing a realistic
philosophically Sound alternative to the modernist view of the
past. - A shorter version of the present text was read at the
International Karl Popper Symposium, The Written Word, at
the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, in February 2015. - The
title of the text was inspired by Martin Horâèek’s path-bre-
aking article on what he labelled “the problém of expiration
of style”; cf. HORÁČEK, M.: The Problem of Expiration of
Style and the Historiography of Architecture. In: Lepine, A.
- Lodder, M. — McKever, R. (eds.): Revival: Memories, Identities,
Utopias. London 2015, pp. 86-99 (online at http://courtauld.
org.uk/pdf/books-online/revival/7.%20HORACEK.pdf).
2 The three mottoes corne from PORTOGHESI, P: The End
of Prohibitionism. In: The Presence of the Past. First International
Exhibition of Architecture. La Biennale di Venezia 1980, p.
9; MILLAIS, M.: Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture.
London 2009, p. 1; and ADAM, R.: “Healing the Healthy.”
In: Building Maga jne, 22 May 2009, p. 25.

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