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century. It is easily (but mistakenly) conflated
with its more philosophical contemporary,
post-structuralism, as well as with the
deeper currents (economic, political, social)
signalled by its epoch-defining cousin,post-
modernity. And though it is sometimes indis-
tinguishable from the intellectual trajectories
of the other two ‘posts’, most would agree to
constrain it to the cultural sphere (seecul-
ture). Uncertainty exists as to whether or
not postmodernism has ended, but clearly
the excitement and controversy it generated
has for the most part abated. While there is
evidence that its roots are older, beginning in
the 1960s and 1970s, many put postmodern-
ism’s apex alongside the popularization of
videomediaand the televisualization of the
Reagan presidency in the 1980s (or
the politician’s digital counterpart, Max
Headroom).
Broadly speaking, the thematics that char-
acterize postmodernism’s artistic dimensions
were said to constitute either a break from or
an extension of the desire ofmodernismto
turn the everyday and the mundane intoart.
Perhaps the most important result of this (dis)
connection was the effort to take art out of the
hands of the rich elite (historically, the main
consumers of art) by collapsing the distinction
between ‘high’ and ‘low’ aesthetic forms. The
notorious tendency of postmodernists to blend
multiple media in one work was often accom-
plished by combining forms that had previ-
ously been dismissed as vulgar elements of
popular culture and thus marginalized in art- as in, for example, comic books, advertise-
ments and graffiti. Modernist thematics often
encouraged, if not required, reflection and
contemplation about the layered meaning of
a work, which was in some cases paired with
the goal of faithfully recovering the artist’s
intentionality. In addition, many modernist
works highlighted themes of alienation,
increased mechanization and rationalization.
Postmodernism, to the contrary, often cele-
brated pastiche, depthlessness, multiplicity,
uncertainty and fragmentation. In the hands
of some postmodernists, history became less a
reservoir of facts awaiting excavation than a
playground of potential appropriations in
which authenticity, timeless values and fealty
to the truth were mocked by unceremonial
gestures towards nostalgia.
Postmodern architecture concretized these
concepts in the built environment. In contrast
to modern architecture’s allegiance to func-
tionality and its dismissal of ornamentation
(Relph, 1987), postmodern designs were
playful if not exuberant, aimed at creating
confusion by overlapping and juxtaposing in
contiguous spaces many different aesthetic
styles. As in art, postmodern architecture was
to pillage rather than revere history, borrowing
elements such as Greek and Roman pillars and
embellishing fac ̧ades with touches of Art
Deco. Postmodernism’s exchangeability of
parts implied a relativistic approach to mean-
ing, one that denies centres, or ‘depths’, of
understanding (see relativism). Even the
popular reflective windows of the 1980s were,
according to Harvey (1989b), a flippant
response to profundity, a refusal of a deeper
inside that turns the gaze back upon the
viewer.
That these architectural forms appeared
alongsidegentrificationand a raging con-
sumerism in the 1980s and 1990s was not lost
on human geographers, and for the most part
their reaction was unfavourable. Harvey’s
(1989b) critique of the condition of postmod-
ernity famously first situated postmodern
urban forms within a set of deeper economic
and political transformations (notably from
fordismtopost-fordismorflexible accu-
mulation), and then explained what he
regarded as the cultural ‘response’ (depthless-
ness, relativism, the ransacking of history etc.)
as the surface-level outcome of dislodged sens-
ibilities produced bytime–space compression
under latecapitalism. Among the spaces read
as signs of a distinctively postmodernspatial-
ity were Baltimore’s revitalized harbour
(Harvey, 1989b), Los Angeles’s Bonaventure
Hotel (Jameson, 1984), New York’s South
Street Seaport (Boyer, 1992), and Los
Angeles and Orange counties, in California
(Soja, 1989, 1992). Whether indicted for pre-
senting false history, structuring space for
maximumsurveillance,orattemptingpur-
posefully to disorient, each were tied in one
way or another to the excesses of postmodern-
ism. As Sorkin (1992b, p. 4; see also Goss,
1993) put it in describing Canada’s West
Edmonton Mall, ‘Mirrored columns ... frag-
ment the scene, shattering the mall into a kal-
eidoscope of ultimately unreadable images.
Confusion proliferates at every level; past and
future collapse meaninglessly into the present;
barriers between real and fake, near and far,
dissolve as history,nature, technology, are
indifferently processed by the mall’s fantasy
machine.’ Another part of the urban under-
belly of postmodernism was its socio-spatial
segregation, denounced by Davis (1990) as
‘Fortress LA’ (1992), and described by Dear
and Flusty (1998) as alternating betweenGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_P Final Proof page 567 1.4.2009 3:20pmPOSTMODERNISM