Session Seven: Evelyn Waugh

This novel, set in the roaring twenties in Britain, is a parody of England's class ridden society. The architect, Professor Silenus, is (of course) and emigre from Eastern Europe where things are far more progressive. You are asked to read Part Two of the story, but Silenus reappears at the end, almost enjoying the last laugh. Given the progressive, perhaps utopian, nature of modernism it is illuminating to read Waugh's witty scorn that implies that here really things will ever be the same, and to understand his view of modernism written for laughs. 

Notes for Dissertation Seven:

At first it looked a tough call to see this piece of satire as a vehicle for a dissertation, except when I realised that writing askance at the world of architects is exactly what I do myself on a regular basis for Reputations in the Architectural Review. 
There are generally two ways to assess any piece of architectural production, one considering it's significance within the canon of the subject, and one a view from outside. For instance, from inside the canon, Peter Eisenman's embrace of deconstruction as a philosophy is simply an event with certain consequences, but viewed in another way it is a demonstration of the need for the architect to mythologise themselves in the context of late capitalist development; having nothing to to do with provision for use at all. The insiders view suggests it gets discussed, the outsiders view suggests it might be damned.