Conservative Modernity

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the role of functionalism on living space in East and West Germany. Implementation of modernization in everyday life happened gradually in the postwar German countries and there were a host of reasons for this. Thee analysis in this chapter suggests that functionalist discourse diffused German society, yet not with the consistency that the disciples of modernism would have liked. It was a conservative modernity that showed widespread awareness of the right materials, the wrong embellishments, and the need for the emotional comfort of traditions and social relations. The population accepted the practicality of functionalism's clear lines and rectangular shapes for small apartments. However, it did not accept the emotional emptiness of the functionalist extreme.