Postmodernism is back, it seems, and the architectural establishment has mixed feelings about it. This revival has been brewing for a while. In 2014, Metropolis Magazine created a “watchlist” of the best postmodernist buildings in New York that had been overlooked by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, and were therefore at risk of being altered or destroyed. Last year, the listing of James Stirling’s One Poultry in the City of London kicked off a discussion about the value of Britain’s postmodernist buildings from the 1980s, as they reach an age when they are eligible for listing for preservation by Historic England. More recently Sean Griffiths, co-founder of the former architectural practice FAT, warned against a postmodernist revival, arguing that a style that thrived on irony could be dangerous in an era of Donald Trump, when satire seems to no longer be an effective political tool. The debate looks set to continue as, next year, London’s John Soane museum is planning an exhibition devoted to postmodernism.

What exactly does “revival” mean? Certainly, there are signs that the postmodernist aesthetic is having a resurgence in popularity as people grow weary of the quiet Scandi-modernism and the technology-driven iconic architecture that had dominated design and architecture in recent years. But a historical reference or colorful flourish is no more a symptom of the return of the postmodernist ethos than a Hans Wegner chair in a corporate office lobby is a sign that we’re embracing the social democratic values of mid-century Denmark. The more interesting question is whether we are, or whether we should be, seeing a return to the philosophy out of which the postmodernist movement emerged? And, if so, what exactly is this philosophy?

ing on his experiences while growing up (“appalled by the introduction of mass high-rise housing in Newcastle”), the eclecticism he came to appreciate as a student and through his friendship with pioneering postmodernists Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and his career as the architect of such notable postmodernist structures at the MI6 building in London. In the second half of the book, designer and architect Furman looks at the postmodernist era as a scholar of and enthusiast for the style, but one too young to have lived through it.