Making sense of Modernism (part 1)

At our June meeting the scents of summer were finally in the air, and the pub had a slightly hysterical sense of joie de vivre, as David the landlord was celebrating 20 years of running the place—marked by a 20% discount on all drinks. There had also been a lot of talk about the fact that planning permission had been granted to convert the upstairs rooms into private flats, which would obviously stymie our meetings, as we use the upstairs room. However, David was phlegmatic about this—permission had actually been granted ten years earlier, and in all that time nothing had been done, so he had no particular reason to think that would change. The latest event was simply the reconfirmation of permission, since the original permission had lapsed.

Our talk this time was from Luca Jellinek. I think it had originally been about Postmodernism, but he changed his mind and instead talked about Modernism in architecture, the various different styles that might, at one time or another, have considered themselves "modern", and how these related to one another. I had cheerfully illustrated the promotional material with a photo of the De La Warr Pavilion, thinking that this would be pretty safe Modernist territory. However, it turned out that this talk was just Part 1 of two—and Part 1 actually addressed proto-Modern buildings of the late 19th century, rather than the full-blooded Modernist creations of the 20th century. For the concluding part, we'll have to wait until Luca delivers this in December.

You can see a video of the talk on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/l0y-rztSE_Q.

Mike Reynolds (right) with new member John Stoten