Paean to Postmodernism: A Book Review

by John Morris Dixon | February 26th, 2018

Postmodern Design Complete, 2017, by Judith Gura, Thames & Hudson, Ltd., London and New York. You may have forgotten Postmodern design, assuming you’re old enough to remember it. Now comes an exuberant celebration of the movement, barely lift-able at 480 pages, 9-1/2″ by 12″, on fine stock, with 580 color illustrations. It documents PoMo’s accomplishments – some famous during its heyday, some relatively unknown. Supporting this visual smorgasbord are thoughtful texts by design historian Judith Gura and several guest authorities. Postmodernism seemed to have fizzled out by the early 1990s. And for many in the design professions, it was “Good riddance.” But the issues that inspired the movement, starting in the 1960s, were never fully resolved. The PoMo insurgents rebelled against the strictures of Modernism – its limited focus on function and structure – which was not producing the new world it had promised. They pointed out that symbolism and …