Militant Modernism

Militant Modernism is a defense against modernism’s many detractors. It looks at design, film, and architecture – especially, architecture – and pursues the notion of an evolved modernism that simply refuses to stop being necessary.

Owen Hatherley gives us new ways to look at what we thought was familiar – Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, even Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Through Hatherley’s eyes, we see all of the quotidian modernists of the 20th century – lesser lights, too – perhaps, understanding them for the first time. Whether we are looking at Britain’s brutalist aesthetics, Russian constructivism, or the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich, the message is clear. There is no alternative to modernism.