From the summer Bauhaus on, the Cape's modern designers enjoyed a lifestyle based on communion with nature, solitary creativity and shared festivity
In the summer of 1937, Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus and a professor at Harvard's new Graduate School of Design, rented a house on Planting Island, near the base of Cape Cod. There, he and his wife, Ise, hosted a festive reunion of Bauhaus masters and students who had recently emigrated from Europe: Marcel Breuer, Herbert Bayer, László Moholy-Nagy, Xanti Schawinsky and others. Together they feasted, swam and planned their futures on a new continent, all sensing they were on the cusp of a momentous new phase in their lives. Yet even as they moved on, the group never lost its connection to the Cape Cod coast. Several members returned, when they had the means, to travel farther up the peninsula, rent cabins, buy land and design their ideal summer homes. Thus began a chapter in the history of modern architecture that has never been told--until now. The flow of talent onto the Outer Cape continued and, within a few years, the area was a hotbed of intellectual currents from New York, Boston, Cambridge and the country's top schools of architecture and design. Avant-garde homes began to appear in the woods and on the dunes; by the 1970s, there were about 100 modern houses of interest here. In this story, we meet, among others, the Boston Brahmins Jack Phillips and Nathaniel Saltonstall; the self-taught architect, carpenter and painter Jack Hall; the Finn Olav Hammarström, who had worked for Alvar Aalto; and the prolific Charlie Zehnder, who brought the lessons of both Frank Lloyd Wright and Brutalism to the Cape. Initially, these designers had no clients; they built for themselves and their families, or for friends sympathetic to their ideals. Their homes were laboratories, places to work through ideas without spending much money. The result of this ferment is a body of work unlike any other, a regional modernism fusing the building traditions of Cape Cod fishing towns with Bauhaus concepts and postwar experimentation.
Kenneth Frampton's highly acclaimed survey of modern architecture and its origins has been a classic since it first appeared in 1980. Starting with the cultural developments since 1750 that drove the modern movement, moving through the creation of modern architecture, and exploring the effects of globalization and the phenomenon of international celebrity architects, this book is the definitive history of modern architecture.
For this extensively revised and updated fifth edition of Modern Architecture, Frampton added new chapters exploring the ongoing modernist tradition in architecture while also examining the varied responses to the urgent need to build more sustainably and create structures that will withstand changing climates. This new edition features completely redesigned interiors and an updated and expanded bibliography, making this volume more indispensable than ever.
Le Corbusier is one of the most famous architects of the twentieth century. The richness and variety of his work combined with his passionately expressed philosophy of architecture have had an immense impact on the urban fabric and the way we live. Weaving through his long and prolific life are certain recurrent themes--his perennial drive toward new types of dwelling, such as the early white villas to the Unité d'Habitation at Marseilles; his evolving concepts of urban form, including the Plan Voisin of 1925 with its cruciform towers imposed on the city of Paris and his work at Chandigarh in India; and his belief in a new technocratic order.
The distinguished critic and architecture historian Kenneth Frampton reexamines all facets of the architect's artistic and philosophical worldview in light of recent thinking and presents us with a Le Corbusier whose work is still relevant for the twenty-first century. This second edition of Le Corbusier features a new introduction and color illustrations.
Crucial generative writings exposing the intellectual background of modern Swedish design
Although modern Swedish design has exercised an extraordinary influence on international architecture and interior furnishings since the early twentieth century, some of the crucial generative writings on the subject have not been widely translated, and the movement's intellectual background is not well known. Modern Swedish Design collects three of Swedish design's founding texts for the first time in English. In Beauty in the Home (1899), philosopher and critic Ellen Key (1849-1926) promotes simplicity and clarity of purpose with the goal of social reform. Art historian Gregor Paulsson (1889-1977) was instrumental in the spread of ideas such as Key's; in Better Things for Everyday Life (1919) he contends that design should be true to its time and available to all, and calls for a modern design language reflecting new materials and methods. Finally, acceptera (1931), cowritten by Paulsson and architects featured in the famous Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, engages in a debate between the proponents of handicraft and those of design idioms emerging from industrial mass production. Lively illustrations and near-facsimiles of the texts' original publications, scholarly introductions by the editors, and an essay by architectural historian Kenneth Frampton, accompany the translations.The firm of Patkau Architects, founded in 1978 and based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has achieved international renown for work that draws on the principles of modern architecture and is simultaneously inspired by the traditions and often spectacular landscape of the Pacific Northwest.
The office is known for a straightforward, multifaceted expression of material and detail as well as a focus on the sculpture that is inherent in architecture. This comprehensive monograph includes cultural and institutional projects, such as the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, the National Library of Quebec in Montreal, and a major addition to the Winnipeg Centennial Library; schools, notably the Seabird Island School and the Strawberry Vale School; and a series of residences, including the Shaw house, with a dramatic elevated lap pool, and the inventive Petite Maison du Weekend (Small Weekend House), a prototype for a self-sufficient holiday house for two.
Kenneth Frampton is the Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. Among his numerous influential books is Modern Architecture: A Critical History.
This book brings together Kenneth Frampton's essays from the 1960s to today which epitomize his reflections on the historical-theoretical entanglements of architecture with place, the public realm, cultural identity, urban landscape and environment, and the political question of the predicament of architecture in the new Millennium.
The essays explore Frampton's contention that architecture's imperative is to assume a significant responsibility for the edification and stewardship of the Arendtian 'public world.' One of the most theoretically sophisticated and politically committed architectural thinkers, Frampton's work breaks emphatically with the limits and norms of much contemporary practice and restores a sense of richness and social consequence of architecture's 'unfinished project, ' while offering abiding lessons not only for architecture but for social, cultural, and design criticism alike.
This book brings together Kenneth Frampton's essays from the 1960s to today which epitomize his reflections on the historical-theoretical entanglements of architecture with place, the public realm, cultural identity, urban landscape and environment, and the political question of the predicament of architecture in the new Millennium.
The essays explore Frampton's contention that architecture's imperative is to assume a significant responsibility for the edification and stewardship of the Arendtian 'public world.' One of the most theoretically sophisticated and politically committed architectural thinkers, Frampton's work breaks emphatically with the limits and norms of much contemporary practice and restores a sense of richness and social consequence of architecture's 'unfinished project, ' while offering abiding lessons not only for architecture but for social, cultural, and design criticism alike.
Making Architecture provides an up-to-date account of the work of John McAslan + Partners, one of Britain's most respected architectural practices, and analyzes the culture of a studio that has made a remarkable contribution to architecture, place-making, and the lives of individuals for four decades.
A series of thematic chapters includes fully illustrated descriptionsof many recent and ongoing international projects, from Central and Waterloo stations in Sydney and ten new stations for Delhi Metro to the transformation of King's Cross station in London; from the sensitive restoration of the Modern Movement De La Warr Pavilion in the UK tothe new Doha Mosque and Msheireb Museums in Qatar. It also includes the pioneering initiatives for which the McAslan studio has become well known and that underline the practice's humanity: the urgent restoration of the Iron Market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the devastating earthquake in 2010; the Hidden Homelessness initiative, begun in 2017; the N17 project that provided a pop-up design studio in Tottenham, London, with the aim of inspiring young people to become engaged in the regeneration of their community; and many others.
Edited by Chris Foges, with a foreword by Kenneth Frampton andan introduction by Alan Powers, and with contributions by architectural specialists, this beautifully designed book offers the key to understanding the development and philosophy of one of the world's most socially engaged architectural practices.
This anthology of writings by the architectural critic Kenneth Frampton brings together his most influential essays from the last 35 years. The essays focus on twentieth-century architecture, dealing with diverse themes and movements, built works and the architects responsible for these buildings.
The writings are presented in clear chronological order within three sections - Theory, History, and Criticism - which together serve to identify modern architecture in its broader cultural and historical context. The compilation assimilates early critical reviews from the 1960s and 70s analysing contemporary buildings, as well as lengthier pieces covering architecture and the ideological circumstances in which buildings are produced.
As a collection, Labour, Work and Architecture is an essential document in the historiography of twentieth-century architecture, composed by a highly respected and readable scholar committed to the nuanced understanding and real improvement of our built environment.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, founded in 1936, is one of the largest and most influential architecture firms in the world
SOM has long been known for innovation, experimentation, design excellence, and technical mastery, for an abiding interest in the contributions that buildings can make to the life of cities, and for a collaborative approach that extends to all aspects of the design and construction processes. This volume presents work from the late 1990s and 2000s. In an era of true globalization in design and commerce, SOM has come to occupy a unique place in American and international architecture.
Recognized for the exceptional quality of its architectural design and urban planning, the firm is also renowned for its clients, an eminent group of businesses and institutions. In the years 1997-2008, the period represented in this monograph, SOM's steadfast dedication to a modern expression has produced an important series of works at all scales, in a variety of typologies, in countries around the world.
From the diminutive Skyscraper Museum in New York City to the radiant Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California, to the master plan and two buildings for the University of California Merced, the newest U.C. campus, the works shown here illustrate the remarkable range of SOM's current practice.
Perhaps no work exemplifies the firm's creative, multifaceted approach as much as 7 World Trade Center, the first structure built at the World Trade Center after September 11, 2001. On a site claimed by commerce but also subject to the demands of memory, SOM created an elegant stainless-steel and glass tower that restores the New York City street grid and begins the process of remaking this part of the city. A suggestive combination of artistic and structural expertise, dedication to finding sustainable design solutions, collaborations with preeminent artists and designers, and commitment to urbanism characterize not only 7 World Trade Center but SOM's recent body of work.
Among the projects shown is the massive U.S. Census Bureau Headquarters in Suitland, Maryland, the first federal office building to receive a LEED rating. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing elegantly responds to the local culture and site. An abundance of airport projects - in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Israel, and Singapore - shows SOM's mastery of this complex project type. The firm's commitment to urbanism and its ability to work at a large scale on sites of great visibility are evident in the designs for the Time Warner Center in New York and Tokyo Midtown, as well as in a series of grand master plans: Chongming Island in Shanghai, the redevelopment of the waterfront in Alexandria, Egypt, and Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay. At the same time, the firm often works at a fine scale, as in the Burr Street School in Connecticut, the retail prototype for Charles Schwab, and the Condé Nast Cafeteria in New York.
Kenneth Frampton brings a historian's perspective to SOM's recent work, tracing its evolution back to the Miesian modernism dominant at the time of the firm's founding and forward to the cutting-edge technical advances to which the firm has devoted itself. Large-span structures, high-rise towers, low-rise topographic forms, compositions that incorporate media, and constructivist essays: all contribute to the development of contemporary architecture and contemporary urbanism alike. Well into its eighth decade of practice, SOM continues on a course of twenty-first century modernism, a modernism that is diverse and inclusive, contextual, urbane, and populist.
Five North American Architects - An Anthology brings together five architectural practices which, while all distinct, share a particularly sensitive feeling for the impact of craftsmanship and climate on the generation of form, as well as an equally shared concern for the expressive tactility of material and the articulation of structure under the impact of light. The book is an in depth survey of recent work by Steven Holl (New York), Rick Joy (Tucson), John and Patricia Patkau (Vancouver), Stanley Saitowitz (San Francisco), and Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe (Toronto). The regional specificity of the work is considered against a larger North American context, allowing one to assess the practice of architecture across the continent today.
An essential reference work on modern architecture from 1924 to 2000
A Genealogy of Modern Architecture is a reference work on modern architecture by Kenneth Frampton, one of today's leading architectural theorists. Conceived as a genealogy of 20th-century architecture from 1924 to 2000, it compiles some 16 comparative analyses of canonical modern buildings ranging from exhibition pavilions and private houses to office buildings and various kinds of public institutions. The buildings are compared in terms of their hierarchical spatial order, circulation structure and referential details. The analyses are organized so as to show what is similar and different between two paired types, thus revealing how modern tradition has been diversely inflected. Richly illustrated, A Genealogy of Modern Architecture is a new standard work in architectural education.