20th C architecture : the structures that shaped the century / by Jonathan Glancey

Glancey, Jonathan

ISBN 10: 0879519126 / ISBN 13: 9780879519124

Published by Woodstock, N. Y. : Overlook Press, 1998

About this Item

Fine cloth copy in an equally fine dw, now mylar-sleeved. Particularly and surprisingly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and especially sharp-cornered.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 400 pages; Description: 400 p. : ill. ; 29 cm. Includes index. Subjects: Architecture, Modern --20th century --Architecture, Postmodern --Deconstructivism (Architecture). Summary: Twentieth-Century Architecture covers the entire spectrum of modern architecture. Every major movement of the craft is represented along with every major architect of the twentieth century, including Sir Edwin Lutyens, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Richard Rogers, Berthold Lubetikin, Eero Saarinen, Richard Meier, Frank Gehry, Alvar Aalto, Norman Foster, Antoni Gaudi and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Architecture illustrates the history of the twentieth century and the buildings and structures to be found in this book symbolize the diversity and scope of twentieth-century life, covering the political, industrial, environmental and traditional influences on modern building. Included within are landmarks as diverse as the Chrysler Building, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, Le Corbusier's Unite de Habitation, London's Lloyd's Building and the Sydney Opera House. 2 Kg. Seller Inventory # 155891

Bibliographic Details

Title: 20th C architecture : the structures that ...

Publisher: Woodstock, N. Y. : Overlook Press

Publication Date: 1998

Binding: Hardcover

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Edition: First Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Features every distinguished and ground-breaking structure of the twentieth century, from Sir Edwin Lutyens' Deanery Garden to Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, arranged by style. Newbridge Architects' & Designers' Book Club Main.

Review:

Human life in the 20th century has involved a fight for living space. To live in architecturally interesting housing has often meant either being very rich, or conversely very poor. Unfortunately, in this respect, vast swathes of the world have fallen between the two, resulting in buildings at best undistinguished and at worst uninhabitable. Pushing aside this ignoble architectural rubble, Jonathan Glancey has constructed a pantheon to memorable structures, 370 in total, which have shaped an extreme century. He proves an inspired choice for the job. Stripping his text of the dehumanising jargon beloved of designers, Glancey has arranged his selections in eight sections: Arts and Crafts, Classicism, Organic, Modernism, Postmodernism, Robotic, Futures and Cities, and what a city they collectively make. Within each chapter superbly reproduced photographs are each accompanied by an informative and suitably fulsome or pithy paragraph from Glancey, who is fiercely critical of laziness, yet always quick to applaud honesty and innovative vision. Instructive mistakes are included, as are buildings that no longer exist and a few that never will, and such scope contributes to a diversely rewarding compendium geared to a British audience that has, it must be said, too little of its own to cheer.

The big guns are well represented--Horta, Rennie Mackintosh, Lloyd Wright, Behrens, Lutyens, Gaudi, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Rogers and Foster--as are landmark structures, such as the Chrysler Building, the Guggenheim Museums, Sydney Opera House and the "bowellist" Lloyd's Building in London. It has been a century dominated by the moral quest of Modernism (the core of the book and its largest contingent, defying Mies van der Rohe's dictum "less is more"), but if God is in the detail, then the marvels of this collection are the lesser-known buildings that sit comfortably beside their more famous counterparts, and give perspective to the ambitious "big picture". This is an inspiring and consistently enjoyable read, like the very best of its contents, and an invaluably erudite introduction to a towering subject. --David Vincent