Bernard Rudofsky, critical disobedience to Modernity

Abstract

Bernard Rudofsky (Moravia, 1905 – New York, 1988) was an architect, critic, exhibition curator, publisher, clothes and furniture designer, photographer, researcher, and university professor in different countries (Yale, MIT, Waseda). A multifaceted creator and irreverent critic, his figure is seen now more than ever as that of a tremendously up-to-date creator, not only because of his critical attitude towards the progress of the consumer society, but also because of his pioneering claims for the economy, intelligence and sustainability of the anonymous architectures of the world, which he documented and studied on his travels and in his publications. He was an outstanding design theoretician, specifically in the field of comparative socio-cultural design, as shown in such works as The Kimono Mind, The Unfashionable Human Body or Now I Lay Me Down to Eat. To all of this we can add the profound impact of his activity as curator of provocative exhibitions and his work as editor and art director of important architectural and design journals such as Domus, Pencil Points and Interiors.

One of his most influential projects was the Architecture without Architects exhibition presented by the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1964. Bernard Rudofsky: Critical Disobedience of Modernity celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of Architecture without Architects, whose catalogue is perhaps one of the best known on vernacular architecture. However, despite his international reputation, during his life Rudofsky’s ideas were silenced by the preponderance of modern theories, closer to academic institutions and the discourse of the great masters. His production is therefore not well known even within his spheres of reference – design, art and architecture – nor by the public at large. Critical Disobedience to Modernity is the catalog of an homonymous exhibition which took place in 2014 at the Centro José Guerrero, Granada, Spain.