Book Review

Terry Smith, The Architecture of Aftermath, Chicago, IL: University of ChicagoPress, 2006

REVIEWED BY WOUTER DAVIDTS

When a group of Al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the two towers of the World Trade Centerin New York and the Pentagon in Washington on 11 September 2001, they attacked, as Osama BinLaden told us, ‘‘America’s icons of military and economic power’’ (p. 1). The buildings represented theglobal supremacy of the United States and thus served as a proper target for the Muslim terrorists. Theultimate impact of the attacks, art historian Terry Smith argues in his book Architecture of Aftermath,demonstrated that the buildings did not merely embody symbolical capital. The spectacular nature ofthe terrorist assaults was well calculated and underlined the fundamental role, impact and significanceof visual culture within today’s distinct and yet totally entangled realms of politics, economics and dailylife. The apocalyptical avalanche of war and violence that followed in the months after the 9/11 attacksdelivered tragic evidence of their status as supreme ‘assets’ in the contemporary trade and traffic inimages, or what he labels as ‘‘the iconomy’’ (p. 2). However, the new condition this has produced, Smithargues, is not easy to render. The existing terminology and concepts of late- and post-modernity seemno longer appropriate or fitting. Our present era is directed and shaped by forces that are, Smith says,‘‘persistently other-than-modern’’ as well as by other forces ‘‘that have passed beyond postmodernity’’(p. 8), creating a condition that he labels as the aftermath of modernity. We haven’t entered a radicallynew era, but an era that entails a differing notion of time: one of contemporaneousness or resolutepresentness of the now. In a prose that has its obvious roots in the deconstruction and differencediscourse of the 1990s, Smith states that the temporality that marks both modernity and post-modernityhas evaporated into an all-encompassing and immediate present. These days there is no longer acomprehensive totality that gathers, structures and gives meaning to the ever-growing differentiation. Weonly experience the sheer juxtaposition of difference, inequality and contradiction.

Surprisingly, Smith does not succumb to the often lyrical and utterly aggravating talk on the conditionof multiplicity and diversity and the resulting impossibility to make broad statements and sweepinggestures that were en vogue in critical circles over the last couple of years. The attacks of 9/11, Smithrightfully argues, were blatant exponents of the fact that not everyone takes peace with the status quoand does not approach ‘the other’ with respect or without fear. Smith’s book is marked by the ethicalaspiration to make a difference and to radically take up a position, and this from the perspective of the

ATR 12:2/07

ISSN 1326-4826 print/ISSN 1755-0475 onlineª 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13264820701730918

academic intellectual. That Smith to this end directs his attention to architecture, is not merely due tothe simple fact that the 9/11 attacks took buildings as their target, but first and foremost due to theprominent and advanced position of architecture in the contemporary iconomy. Within the ever-growingculture industry, architecture has evolved into a spectacular, profitable and consumable cultural item.Within this context, Smith poses the highly valuable and pertinent question of whether architecture canstill ‘‘fulfill its social contract at a time when societies are splintering, contracts go routinely unfulfilled,and architecture itself has become spectacularized, a hot, even fashionable topic’’ (p. 8). His departurepoint is that architecture always ‘speaks.’ Every building is seen or ‘read’ as an expression of thedifferent forces that shaped it or of the program it houses. In an era in which architecture is ever moredirected by the regime of visibility and buildings are first and foremost assessed on their spectacularvisuals, Smiths asks if there is still a meaningful symbolic role for architecture to discern. Canarchitecture, in other words, still represent the contemporary condition in a decent and meaningfulmanner without succumbing to the predictable pyrotechnics that merely serve the logic of global capital?

Smith takes up this question by means of a series of thorough and at times surprising studies of well-known examples of iconical architecture of the second half of the twentieth century, that, notsurprisingly, all contain a cultural program. He analyses the initial history of the projects, investigates towhat extent the buildings give expression to their program, and scrutinizes the different underlyinginstitutional, political and economical agendas that directed and influenced their ultimate appearance.

The first chapter inevitable starts with the Guggenheim Bilbao by Frank Gehry of 1997, a nodal point inthe history of ‘destination architecture.’ In the second chapter, Smith presents a comparison between theUluru or Ayers Rock in Australia and the Sydney Opera House by Jorn Utzon of 1973, a notoriouspredecessor to the Guggenheim Bilbao. Both the rock and the building represent Australia, albeitradically different in social and political terms. The rock symbolizes the ‘original’ land of theAboriginals, while the opera embodies the modern Australia. In the following chapters, Smith discussesagain two museums, the Getty Center in Los Angeles by Richard Meier and the Jewish Museum in Berlinby Daniel Libeskind. He unravels how these two buildings epitomize the cultural labor of preserving—and in the case of the Jewish museum, of commemorating—in a radically different fashion. The Jewishmuseum can count on Smith’s approval, since it, so he argues, most intricately houses and articulatesthe horror of the holocaust. While some regard Libeskind’s highly symbolical formal vocabulary as theidiosyncratic extravagance of a star architect, Smith reads it as a worthy attempt to use architecture as avehicle to express the inexpressible. This last analysis then serves as the overture for his ultimate enquiryinto the possibility of architecture in the aftermath of 9/11, in particular on the former site of the WorldTrade Center. Before embarking on this question, Smith delivers an account of the historical project ofthe two towers, widely considered as sweeping emblems of the American skyscraper and manifestsymbols of Western capitalist society. He describes in detail the different interests that influenced thedesign of the two high-rise towers by architect Minoru Yamasaki and shows that the WTC was the mostblatant product of reckless real estate politics and blind developmentalism in postwar New York. Since itsinception it was considered as a radical break with the surrounding urban fabric. The historicalreception reveals that the towers were never really loved by the New Yorkers, and that they could never

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count on much approval within critical architectural circles either. They reached their iconic statusmerely because of their unrivalled size.

At this point, Smith unfortunately strikes an overly moralistic tone. He seems to believe that pride goesbefore a fall in architecture as well as in life. The violent destruction of the WTC was, as it were,inscribed in its structure. While he rightfully remarks that all destination architecture has turned into atarget ever since 9/11, it nevertheless bespeaks a dangerous determinism to declare that these are the justdeserts for every pretentious building. Smith fairly points out the difficult task for architecture tocritically embody and convey the contemporary condition in an era of global spectacle and competition,but he nevertheless sticks to the outworn belief that this noble mission of architecture completelycoincides with its material form.

This does not inhibit the fact that the book delivers a considerable contribution to the discussion on thecritical capacity of contemporary architecture. Smith’s departure point is not situated within the practiceand discipline of architecture, but within the built reality and how the latter functions and isexperienced within the complex political, economical and cultural reality of today. He does not aim toprescribe architecture’s future powers, but looks at its fortunes in the recent past. Smith ends with ananalysis of the architecture competition on the former WTC site, the utter demonstration of how thornyit is for architecture, in the aftermath of an event like 9/11, to take up its emblematic role again,without falling into cheap and empty symbolism.

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