Postmodern City

Abstract

The postmodern city is an urban form associated with changes occurring in architectural design, urban planning, and social and economic conditions in the late twentieth century. Drawing from related postmodern movements in literary criticism and social theory, postmodern urban forms represent an attempt to move beyond the modern – in architecture, to move beyond functional and efficient style; in planning, beyond rationally scientific and top-down approaches; and in urban theory, beyond positivist and other epistemologies based on what are seen as outmoded social and economic conditions. While postmodern urban expressions share in common a rejection of the modern, they otherwise constitute a remarkably divergent and often contradictory set of values, theories, and practices. Much postmodern architecture strives to incorporate meaning and symbolism through decoration, historical references, pedestrian scales, and sometimes, humor. Postmodern planners attempt to transform their role from expert to facilitator, bring many voices into the planning process, and help guide the stakeholders to consensus. Much of postmodern urban theory, however, paints a different picture of a postmodern city by questioning the underlying social and economic formations that shape postmodern urban form, and identifying architectures of commodification, enclosure, and oppression underneath the playful facades. Whatever the interpretation, the postmodern impulse is leaving material traces in the landscape in the form of buildings, developments, and entire cities.