The more I think about Modernism the less I like it, so I was going to refrain from saying anything, but since it's been totally quiet I guess controversy might at least serve as a good catalyst. But I will try to keep it concise.

First I should state that my typographic specialty is type design. Not that I'm an expert at it but in the realm of composition I really suck - please take that into account.

To me Modernism is a facet of what's most wrong in the West: the naive and arrogant lust for Control. The Romans started it, monotheism helped, the Enlightenment cemented it and now we're at a point where Analysis has overpowered humanity, formalism has trumped communication; the unmeasurable is treated as a weed that needs to be ignored, controlled.

In the realm of type it's telling that you can't make a good text font based on the grid, or even modules; but you can make a great display face; and that dichotomy is a great clue: Modernism is concerned with superficial conscious appreciation; it ignores the hidden, nebulous half of human reality, the one that makes life worth living. Modernism causes all kinds of bad design, like encouraging people to make the vertical proportions in multi-ligual type families the same, or keeping the otherwise genial Legato firmly trapped in the realm of constructivism. All this does not make the PoMo hooliganism of the 90s OK. But it does mean that Modernism is totally inadequate of itself for creating things that truly satisfy humans. The most it can be is an expression of transitory cultural values.

So please don't revive it.

hhp

1. Do you feel that this revival is happening in other areas of design e.g. graphic design and typography? If so, what do you think this revival consists of and why is it happening?

Graphic Design styles tend to make pendulum-like swings. After the democratic, deconstrutionist early 1990s, "modernism" stormed back into the foreground during the late 1990s, and into the present day. Jeffery Keedy has written interesting essays about this in virtually each of all of the recent Emigre issues (since it switched to the Princeton Architectural Press paperback format).

2. Do you think there is a social, economical, political, functional or aesthetical need for the revival of the modernist, functionalist or internationalist ideology in the world today? Why and/or why not? Do we need another fresh start?

I think that it is caused by social, political, and economical factors. The world economy is not in as good shape as it was in the late 1990s, or at least, large groups of people seem to be pessimistic about it rather than optimistic. I think that some of the return to Swiss/Internation Style graphics might be a longing for some sort of economic normalness, i.e., not a bad one where people (including graphic designers) loose their jobs or can't find new work. Lastly, not just the United States but also some European countries are becoming more politically conservative (although conservative has a different definition in almost every country), and that might be a factor. I don't know how conservative politicians and business leaders feel about expressive typography, but my gut tells me that they probably prefer the "cleanliness" of the modern style

Obviously -- and as has been noted by numerous people including Robin Kinross, who wrote the book, literally, on modern typography --, Hrant uses the term Modernism an a way that is both idiosyncratic and makes an answer to Ragnar's question impossible. If Modernism constitutes the whole of western civilisation from the Romans onwards, what sense is there in talking about a revival? If modernism is understood, as it usually is, as a movement -- or collection of related movements -- in 20th century art, architecture, design and music, with some earlier philosophical origins and precursors in the late Renaissance and Enlightnment, then the question makes more sense.

Personally, I don't think there is a revival of modernism in the sense of a revival of the ideas/ideals/ideology of modernism. There are, however, revivals of modernism as a style in a generally expansive and largely unideological post-post-modernism in which anything goes. This is most evident in architecture that employs modernist materials and construction techniques, but does so as part of a more varied cityscape, in which this 'soft modernism' takes its place among other styles. In this context, elements of modernist design or construction may even be repurposed as decoration. Of course, 'modernism as style' is itself contrary to the critical spirit of the best of modernism, and could be seen as the final triumph