Unfinished Modern
April 11 and 18, 1984

At the height of postmodernism in 1984, the League commissioned Arthur Drexler, then the director of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, to deliver a two-part lecture on future directions in architecture. Drexler used the occasion to argue for a renewal of modernism, suggesting that though much of it was repetitious, modernist architecture was experiencing “a period of refinement that…merit[ed] investigation and analysis.” Recognizing the dilemma that postmodernism represented for many architects, Drexler asserts that modernism had not died, it had simply fulfilled many of its original aims and needed to look for new sources to revitalize itself.

The Devaluation of Architecture

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Recorded: April 11, 1984
Running time: 53:09

Architecture in the Millennium

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Recorded: April 18, 1984
Running time: 1:13:27

The Digital Archive Project is made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Image: Lecture poster, designed by Massimo Vignelli.