[PDF] Pevsner: The BBC Years: Listening to the Visual Arts by Stephen Games in Arts-Photography

Description

This book investigates architecture as a form of diplomacy in the context of the Second World War at six major European international and national expositions that took place between 1937 and 1959. The volume gives a fascinating account of architecture assuming the role of the carrier of war-related messages; some of them camouflaged while others quite frank. The famous standoffs between the Stalinist Russia and the Nazi Germany in Paris 1937; or the juxtaposition of the USSR and USA pavilions in Brussels 1958; are examples of very explicit shows of force. The book also discusses some less known - and more subtle - messages; revealed through an examination of several additional pavilions in both Paris and Brussels; of a series of expositions in Moscow; of the Universal Exhibition in Rome that was planned to open in 1942; and of Londonrsquo;s South Bank Exposition of 1951: all of them related; in one way or another; to either an anticipation of the global war or to its horrific aftermaths. A brief discussion of three pre-World War II American expositions that are reviewed in the Epilogue supports this point. It indicates a significant difference in the attitude of American exposition commissioners; who were less attuned to the looming war than their European counterparts. The book provides a novel assessment of modern architecturersquo;s involvement with national representation. Whether in the service of Fascist Italy or of Imperial Japan; of Republican Spain or of the post-war Franquista regime; of the French Popular Front or of socialist Yugoslavia; of the arising FRG or of capitalist USA; of Stalinist Russia or of post-colonial Britain; exposition architecture during the period in question was driven by a deep faith in its ability to represent ideology. The book argues that this widespread confidence in architecturersquo;s ability to act as a propaganda tool was one of the reasons why Modernist architecture lent itself to the service of such different masters.