Paulo Martins Barata Proposes Metamodern Architecture as Post-2008 Era

Architect Paulo Martins Barata, founding partner of Promontório, argues in a new book that European architecture since the Great Recession belongs to a metamodern era, distinct from both modernism and postmodernism. Published by Porto-based Circo de Ideias, 'The Language of Metamodern Architecture' ironically borrows its title from Charles Jencks' 1977 'The Language of Post-Modern Architecture', which famously declared modern architecture dead at 3:32 PM on July 15, 1972, with the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe. Barata posits that another unacknowledged death occurred around 2008, and that architecture has since been operating in a new paradigm, largely unaware of the shift.