Text: Rudolf Klein

Architecture and art theory in general are keen to embrace explicitly (self-)contradictory concepts, among them such striking ones as Post-Modernism. Even though not as obvious, the term ‘other modern’ is also a problematic one. Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonnis were the first ones to suggest it, and it was later coined by Sir Colin Saint John Wilson, who made it a catchword in Hungarian. In his contemporary opus, Kenneth Frampton also backed this concept in his latest comprehensive book titled The Other Modern Movement, Architecture 1920—1970. Rudolf Klein’s study analyses the concept of the Modern and the other Modern in the context of 20th century European history, with particular reference to the east-west division of the continent, i.e. as a development of the „Cold War death knell” over the unity of Central Europe, following the train of thought of Milan Kundera. The Iron Curtain downgraded the significance of Central European Modernism, its ideological roots and architectural theory, and its representatives, namely László Moholy Nagy, Sigfried Giedion and Nikolaus Pevsner. Their place in the literature of architecture and art history was taken by Anglo-Saxon authors Reyner Banham, Charles Jencks, Kenneth Frampton, Sir Colin St. John Wilson and many others.