What started as me celebrating and clowning in chat how many little embellishments in architecture and interior design are simulations of prior building materials or luxuries in order to trick the eye into not seeing imperfections in form or attainment, which modernists (and ultimately postmodernists) foolishly thought they could outrun turned into a wiser actual practicing architect sending me stuff to read and it was very good and I’m jealous of future me having finished reading both.

So, check out:

1. Habermas, Jürgen. “Modernity versus Postmodernity.” Translated by Seyla Ben-Habib. New German Critique, no. 22, Special Issue on Modernism (Winter 1981): 3–14. https://newdoc.nccu.edu.tw/teasyllabus/104001041100/Habermas_modernity%20versus%20postmodernity.pdf.

2. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn, 217–51. New York: Schocken Books, 1969. Originally written in 1935. https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf.