Mr. Edwin Heathcote’s essay on the remodel of Johnson’s AT&T building opens with a  paragraph awash in popular cultural references: to some of the ‘Billboard Top 100’: The Bee Gees about to be de-throned by Chic’s “Le Freak”of 1979, and to Tom Wolf’s debut as a ‘novelist‘  Bonfire of the Vanities makes this reader nostalgic for the voice of Ada Louise Huxtable! Having read her The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered and Goodbye History, Hello Hamburger: An Anthology of Architectural Delights and Disasters ,as exemplary, indeed standard setting for architectural criticism: Mr. Heathcote’s penchant for expressions like ‘tricksy’, ‘PoMo‘ ‘aesthetic sin-bin‘- who was was he addressing, the regular reader of Rolling Stone of 1979? Who would have absolutely no interest in Johnson’s Post Modern Folly!

After all this pseudo-hipster chatter, he actually demonstrates that he is capable of providing some interesting even engaging reporting! The imperative for the reader: cultivate patience!

For a history of the Postmodernity, in its varied expressions, read Perry Anderson’s ‘The Origins of Postmodernity’:

https://www.versobooks.com/books/579-the-origins-of-postmodernity

American Writer

https://www.ft.com/content/8f5e6fb4-f46a-11e7-8715-e94187b3017e