The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning

90 The passage from modernity to postmodernityPostmodernism in the city91Plate 1.22 Baltimore urban renewal of the 1960s in the modernist style: theFederal Building in Hopkins PlazaPlate 1.23 Baltimore urban renewal modernism: the Mies van der Rohebuilding of One Charles Centreby step inexorably less 'neighbourly' and more commercial (even theethnic groups began to profit from the sale of ethnicity), the fairbecame the lead item in drawing larger and larger crowds to thedowntown area on a regular basis, to see all manner of stagedspectacles. It was a short step from that to an institutionalizedcommercialization of a more or less permanent spectacle in theconstruction of Harbor Place (a waterfront development reputednow to draw in more people than Disneyland), a Science Center,an Aquarium, a Convention Center, a marina, innumerable hotels,pleasure citadels of all kinds. Judged by many as an outstandingsuccess (though the impact upon city poverty, homelessness, healthcare, education provision, has been negligible and perhaps even negative),such a form of development required a wholly different architecturefrom the austere modernism of the downtown renewal thathad dominated in the 1960s. An architecture of spectacle, with itssense of surface glitter and transitory participatory pleasure, of displayand ephemerality, of jouissance, became essential to the success of aproject of this sort (plates 1.24, 1.25, 1.26).- Baltimore was not alone in the construction of such new urbanspaces. Boston's Faneuil Hall, San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf(with Ghirardelli Square), New York's South Street Seaport, SanAntonio's Riverwalk, London's Covent Garden (soon to be followedby Docklands), Gateshead's Metrocentre, to say nothing ofthe fabled West Edmonton Mall, are just the fixed aspects of organizedspectacles that include more transitory events such as the Los AngelesOlympic Games, the Liverpool Garden Festival, and the re-stagingof almost every imaginable historical event (from the Battle of Hastingsto that of Yorktown). Cities and places now, it seems, take