That's So "Postmodern"

Sturken and Cartwright define the postmodern built environment as follows:

"Questions of how the built environment has changed in relationship to the shifts of space, time, and concepts of identity of postmodernism can be seen as crucial to the practices of postmodern architecture. On the one hand, postmodern architecture raises questions about how to think about space, history, and context; on the other hand, it reveals many aspects of the postmodern engagement with mass culture, popular culture, and kitsch" (338).

Any of us who has visited Las Vegas or even seen pictures of the Strip of fame know that the Western city features many buildings that are direct replicas--or attempts at replicas--of other buildings across the world. The authors of the textbook explain that the notion that all things original are no more is one that is very "postmodern."

According to Sturken and Cartwright, "postmodernism's central goal is to put all assumptions under scrutiny in order to reveal the values that underlie all systems of thought and thus to question the ideologies within them that are seen as natural. This means that the idea of authenticity is always in question in postmodernism" (313).

Therefore, is the Paris Las Vegas, featuring an Eiffel Tower, authentic? Can we obtain the unique "Eiffel Tower Experience" by visiting Las Vegas and skipping out on France?

One "theme" of the Postmodernism chapter of the textbook is arguably that we no longer are forced to leave one locale in order to experience another. From films such as The World to the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas, the constraints of time and space are becoming much less significant. How, then, do we ensure our lives are authentic in a "postmodern" world? Sturken and Cartwright conclude: "the importance of seeing and noticing the visual culture of the bricoleurs, the appropriators, and the pastiche workers who use these postmodern approaches [is] not simply to forge a new style but to live in the margins of a world economy" (343).