'New Classical' Contemporary Architecture

Retrotopic Trends and Phantasms of Tradition

Authors

  • Pierre Chabard Ensa Paris la Villette

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.15.2.5402

Abstract

Cet article s’attache à retracer la généalogie des idées portés par le réseau anglo-saxon d’architectes new classical qui partagent le souhait de renouer avec les traditions prémodernes et avec une « architecture classique », largement idéalisée et réinventée. Résonnant avec les arguments réactionnaires et identitaires de la droite populiste actuelle, cette doctrine architecturale s’est structurée au tournant des années 1980 au plus fort des débats autour du postmodernisme et s’est développée depuis lors, en dehors des scènes courantes de l’architecture contemporaine, à la faveur d’importants relais politiques (notamment, au Royaume Uni, celui du Prince de Galles) et de la structuration d’un cadre institutionnel et d’une commande spécifiques. Au-delà de leur positionnement stylistique, les protagonistes de cette new classical architecture revendiquent une volonté de revenir aux modes de construction artisanaux traditionnels et manifestent un certain rapport au temps résolument anti-historiciste qui rejoint ce que Zygmunt Bauman a appelé la retrotopia.

Author Biography

Pierre Chabard, Ensa Paris la Villette

Pierre Chabard is an architect, critic and historian of architecture and urbanism. He is currently Associate Professor of History and Theory at the Paris-La Villette Architecture School, HESAM University. Author of a PhD about Patrick Geddes’s Cities exhibitions, his current research deals with the social and cultural history of architectural mediation in the postmodern era. Author and editor of various books and founding member of the French journal Criticat (2008–18), he now runs Éditions de la Villette.

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Published

2022-05-31