Press, 1979). See also Georges Teyssot’s introduction to the above-mentioned debate in
Lotus International.
36 Emmanuel Levinas, “Heidegger, Gagarin and Us” (1961), in Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Es-
says on Judaism(London: Athlone, 1990), pp. 231–241.
Constructing the Modern Movement
Epigraph: Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition
(1941; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), p. vi.
1 On the meaning of kitsch, see Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism,
Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism(Durham: Duke University Press, 1987),
pp. 223–262.
2 Adolf Loos, “Heimatkunst,” in Loos, Trotzdem. 1900–1930(1931; Vienna: Prachner,
1981), pp. 122–133; see also Adolf Behne, “Kunst, Handwerk, Technik,” Die neue Rund-
schau, no. 33 (1922), pp. 1021–1037, translated as “Art, Craft, Technology,” in Francesco
Dal Co, Figures of Architecture and Thought: German Architecture Culture 1880 –1920
[New York: Rizzoli, 1990], pp. 324–338).
3 Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” (1939), in Greenberg, The Collected Es-
says and Criticism,vol. 1:Perceptions and Judgments 1939 –1944(Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 5–22.
4 The distinction between avant-garde and modernism is a fairly recent one. Authors such
as Adorno, Poggioli, and Weightman used these terms as though they were interchange-
able. In recent years, however, a tendency has developed of defining the term avant-garde
rather strictly, only using it for the most radical artists who operated collectively. See
Jochen Schultesasse, “Foreword: Theory of Modernism versus Theory of the Avant-
Garde,” in Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1984); translated from Theorie der Avant-Garde(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974), pp.
vii–xlvii.
5 Renato Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant-Garde(Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1982); translated from Teoria dell’arte d’avanguardia(Bologna: Il Mulino, 1962).
6 Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity, p. 124.
7 Peter Bürger situates his interpretation of the avant-garde in the context of a historical evo-
lution. According to him, the history of art in Western society is characterized by an in-
creasing autonomy of art as an institution and as a system in society as a whole. The
summit of this autonomy was attained in the nineteenth century with aestheticism, the
tendency that extolled the idea of l’art pour l’art. Artists no longer saw themselves as arti-
sans in the service of the rulers or as interpreting some higher ideal, such as religion. Art
was now pursued for its own sake; it was answerable only to itself. According to Bürger
the avant-garde was a reaction against this notion. The corollary of the fact that art had be-
come an autonomous institution was that it became socially isolated: by retreating into a
world of its own—with its own system of values and means of distribution—it had lost any
broader relevance and was no longer capable of exercising any influence on social events.
The avant-garde wanted to break out of this confinement and to escape from the institu-
tional frame it was trapped in historically.
8 Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, p. 49; German text: “Die Avantgardisten intendieren
also eine Aufhebung der Kunst—Aufhebung im Hegelschen Sinn des Wortes: Die Kunst
soll nich einfach zerstört, sondern in Lebenspraxis überführt werden, wo sie, wenngleich
in verwandelter Gestalt, aufbewahrt wäre.... Was sie... unterscheidet, ist der Versuch
von der Kunst aus eine neue Lebenspraxis zu organisieren.” (Theorie der Avantgarde, p.
67.)
9 Miriam Gusevich, “Purity and Transgression: Reflection on the Architectural Avantgarde’s
Rejection of Kitsch,” Discourse10, no. 1 (Fall-Winter 1987–1988), pp. 90–115.
Notes to Pages 13–282