ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that Fredric Jameson's theory on North American architectural culture could reactivate a political discourse in architecture. It suggests that Jameson's work had two kinds of effect on architectural culture. The first is linked to his theory of postmodernism, in which architecture became emblematic of the spatialization of culture in late-capitalism. With his commentaries on Tafuri, Jameson was perceived as a formidable analyst of architectural literature by the architectural community. The second effect is found in his direct impact on architectural criticism, notably on K. Michael Hays and more recently on Reinhold Louis Martin's revision of postmodernism. Ultimately, postmodernism was not only nostalgic and formally regressive: it also appeared to relate in some fashion to the conservative turn of contemporary American politics. Like the postmodernists, the organizers were critical of the urbanism and the nave utopianism of the modern movement, but they rejected the conservative ideology underlying American postmodernism.
