Late Modernism and Other Latenesses

Hurry up, we’re late: the early decades of the 21st century have demonstrated that we are already behind. Concepts like Moore’s Law, accelerationism, hyperloop, and rapid news cycles push the notion that speed is the answer. Modern-day futurists argue that salvation lies in technology and outer space, while architecture has strived to keep pace with cultural events through the late 20th century and into the present, even as we face environmental crises and build our lives around the remnants of late modernism.

Late Modernism and Other Latenesses offers an understanding of the contradictory impulses in architecture and culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, a period rich in utopian visions and revolution but also burdened by global expansionism and crisis. Topical essays explore aspects of lateness, referring to concrete buildings and architectural projects, and key texts from the period. The concept of lateness is used not as a backward-looking tool but as one that is simply behind the beat. The book is a reaction and rebuttal to the surging flows of finance, media, and culture that influence architectural production and its aligned disciplines, seeking missing conditions that might redefine architecture’s relationship to its cultural moment.