• Journal of architectural history
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.45-54
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• 2015

This research aims at a critical discourse on the relation between the concepts of the uncanny and posthistoire, on the basis of descriptions in The Architectural Uncanny (1992) by Anthony Vidler. For the purpose, Histories of the Immediate Present (2008), another book by Vidler that discusses posthistoire philosophy to which he is not positive, is also investigated along with the former thesis; and various publications related to the themes by the influential writers such as Freud, Lyotard, Vattimo, and Habermas are referred to, too. Firstly, this paper will illustrate an essential understanding of the uncanny, an outgrowth of the sublime, and the history of posthistoire respectively; and then analyse contexts where the posthistoire was mentioned in The Architectural Uncanny. In the 'Introduction' and 'Losing Face' chapters of the book, this paper argues, the two concepts are connected by the notions of 'repetition' and 'losing the classical facade' as well as the uncanny as 'a metaphor for a fundamentally unlivable modern condition'. Though Vidler's recognition of posthistoire in the two chapters are differently interpreted, each as 'the emptiness of capitalism' and 'the decomposition of representation', both can be understood in terms of 'modernity' that is 'still open'. If modernity is 'an unfinished project' as maintained by Habermas, who Vidler relies on, we need to continue innovative experiments and internal investigations in architectural creation beyond the categories of modernism and postmodernism.