Who is the West?The “Atlanticist” version

February 20, 2012

The “international

style” in architecture

- here: Mies van der Rohe and his Lake Shore Drive apartments

(built 1949-51)

Chicago’s Federal Plaza, also designed by Mies

(built 1960-74)

Mies in West Berlin:The New National Gallery, completed 1968

The “Chancellor’s Bungalow,” Bonn

(built 1963-66)

Danish modern furniture – a typical style in Europe and the US

Maria Callas (1923-1977)a trans-Atlantic diva

Leonard Bernstein(1918-1990)

New York’s answer to the European classical tradition

Pop art:

Robert Rauschenberg(1925-2008)

- example from 1963

Tom Wesselmann, Landscape No. 2 (1964)

A German collector of pop art, 1968

Pop art displayed at Berlin’s New National Gallery, 1969

The Frankfurt School of Social Research (closed 1933)…

Theodor Adorno(1903-1969)

… feeds into the New School for Social Research(Greenwich Village, NYC)

Other associated theorists:Max HorkheimerHannah ArendtClaude Lévi-Strauss

NATO in consultation: the North Atlantic Council(Athens, Greece, May 1962)

Polaris nuclear missile submarines

The launch of HMS Resolution,

Britain’s first Polaris

Cartoon lampooning the proposed “Multi-Lateral Force”

LBJ gives Chancellor Erhard a big Texas welcome

(Dec. 1963)

Tom Lehrer sings the“MLF Lullaby”

(written 1964/65)