Modernism 101.
Modernism is conventionally associated with minimalism and the rejection of ornament, functionalism and rational design based on scientific analysis, and innovation based on the new materials and novel structures. Modernism was also inextricably linked to socio-economic modernisation and cultural modernity.
In Singapore’s context, modernism was closely associated with its history as a colonial port city, a post-colonial developmental state, and a global city. Modernism cannot be neatly separated from movements that preceded and succeeded it. In this page, we take an inclusive approach to understanding modernism and cover the different styles built under the various milieus of modernisation and modernities in Singapore.
Styles of the Modern Era.
Art Deco.
Art Deco is a catch-all name for various developments in the visual arts, design, and architecture during the interwar period. Known contemporaneously as Art Moderne, the term ‘Art Deco’ was coined by historian Bevis Hillier in 1968 to describe the decorative arts and architecture of the 1920s and 1930s. Its name was derived from the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, an international exhibition held in Paris in 1925.
Modernism.
Modernism is an aesthetic and philosophy brought about by the process of modernisation – urbanisation, industrialisation, secularisation, mass consumption, faster means of transport and communication, and the endless desire for progress. While some of these ideas were embryonic during the Renaissance, it was during the Industrial Revolution (beginning c.1760 and at its height in the 19th century) that forces of modernisation came to dominate material life.
Brutalism.
Derived from the French term of Béton Brut, or ‘raw concrete’, Brutalism is an architectural style popularised in the 1960s, characterised in many parts of the world by the use of exposed and unfinished concrete.
With the articulation of its structural frame in an undisguised manner, Brutalist buildings tend to impose a sense of monumentality with its visual weight and massiveness.
Postmodernism.
Postmodernism describes the cultural conditions of the 1970s and 1980s where prevailing sociocultural, political, and economic forces led to a multiplicity of styles. Developing out of a resistance to, or just plain boredom with, hegemonic modernist forms, post-modern works registered the growing pluralism in the arts and architecture of the 1970s. It challenged the sterile functionalism of post-war modernist architecture which reified both capitalist and socialist ideologies in ordered, simple, and clean design where form follows function.