Review: Architectures 80: Une chronique métropolitaine (Architecture of the 80s: A metropolitan chronology)

Abstract

Architectures 80: Une chronique metropolitaine (Architecture of the 80s: A metropolitan chronology) Pavillon de l’Arsenal, Paris 3 May–25 September 2011 Architectural postmodernism has become topical in recent years and it seems it will remain so for some time. On the one hand, the proliferation of publications and exhibitions reflects the recent research led by historians who were often themselves educated during the two last decades of the twentieth century. On the other hand, the public seems to enjoy rediscovering the architecture from a time near enough to evoke nostalgia, yet old enough for its worst failures to be forgotten. The blooming of postmodernism coincided in France with the political, economic, and cultural upheavals that followed the change of government of 1981. An exhibit on view the Pavillon de l’Arsenal in Paris during the summer of 2011 confirmed this growing interest in a recent architectural past, which still needs to be fully documented. Architectures 80: Une chronique metropolitaine was curated by Lionel Engrand and Soline Nivet, two researchers of the ACS Lab of the Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de Paris–Malaquais, and designed by architect Christian Biecher. This exhibit offered a …