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Mucking around in the messy terrain of American trash, Jani Scandura tells the story of the United States during the Great Depression through evocative and photo-rich portraits of four different locales: Reno, Harlem, Key West, and Hollywood. In investigating these depression-era �dumps,� places that she claims contained and reclaimed the cultural, ideological, and(...)
Down in the dumps: place, modernity, american depression
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Mucking around in the messy terrain of American trash, Jani Scandura tells the story of the United States during the Great Depression through evocative and photo-rich portraits of four different locales: Reno, Harlem, Key West, and Hollywood. In investigating these depression-era �dumps,� places that she claims contained and reclaimed the cultural, ideological, and material refuse of modern America, Scandura introduces the concept of �depressive modernity,� an enduring affective component of American culture that exposes itself at those moments when the foundational myths of America and progressive modernity�capitalism, democracy, individualism, secularism, utopian aspiration�are thrown into question. Depressive modernity is modernity at a standstill. Such a modernity is not stagnant or fixed, nor immobile, but is constituted by an instantaneous unstaging of desire, territory, language, and memory that reveals itself in the shimmering of place. An interpretive bricolage that draws on an unlikely archive of 1930s detritus�office memos, scribbled manuscripts, scrapbooks, ruined photographs, newspaper clippings, glass eyes, incinerated stage sets, pulp novels, and junk washed ashore�Down in the Dumps escorts its readers through Reno�s 1930s divorce factory, where couples from across the United States came to quickly dissolve matrimonial bonds; Key West�s multilingual salvage economy and the island that became the center of an ideological tug-of-war between the American New Deal government and a politically fraught Caribbean; post-Renaissance Harlem, in the process of memorializing, remembering, grieving and rewriting a modernity that had already passed; and Studio-era Hollywood, Nathanael West�s �dump of dreams,� in which the introduction of sound film and shifts in art direction began to transform how Americans understood place-making and even being itself. A coda on Alcatraz and the Pentagon brings the book into the present, exploring how American Depression comes to bear on post-9/11 America.
Urban Theory
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In this long-awaited work, Dalibor Vesely proposes an alternative to the narrow vision of contemporary architecture as a discipline that can be treated as an instrument or commodity. In doing so, he offers an account of the ontological and cultural foundations of modern architecture and, consequently, of the nature and cultural role of architecture through history.(...)
Architectural Theory
October 2006, Cambridge (MA), London
Architecture in the age of divided representation : the question of creativity in the shadow of production
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In this long-awaited work, Dalibor Vesely proposes an alternative to the narrow vision of contemporary architecture as a discipline that can be treated as an instrument or commodity. In doing so, he offers an account of the ontological and cultural foundations of modern architecture and, consequently, of the nature and cultural role of architecture through history. Vesely's argument, structured as a critical dialogue, discovers the first plausible anticipation of modernity in the formation of Renaissance perspective. Understanding this notion of perspective against the background of the medieval philosophy of light, he argues, leads to an understanding of architectural space as formed by typical human situations and by light before it is structured geometrically. The central part of the book addresses the question of divided representation - the tension between the instrumental and the communicative roles of architecture - in the period of the baroque, when architectural thinking was seriously challenged by the emergence of modern science. Vesely argues that to resolve the dilemma of modernity - reconciling the inventions and achievements of modern technology with the human condition and the natural world - we can turn to architecture and its latent capacity to reconcile different levels of reality, its ability to relate abstract ideas and conceptual structures to the concrete situations of everyday life. Vesely sees the restoration of this communicative role of architecture as the key to the restoration of architecture as the topological and corporeal foundation of culture; what the book is to our literacy, he argues, architecture is to culture as a whole. He concludes by proposing a new poetics of architecture that will serve as a framework for the restoration of the humanistic role of architecture in the age of technology.
Architectural Theory
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Whether from military necessity or unbridled curiosity, mapmakers since early antiquity have attempted to represent the configuration of the land about them. The Greeks paid homage to the landscape and struck its image on their coins. Medieval scholars viewed the (...)
Architectural Drawing
October 1999, New York
Infinite perspectives : two thousand years of three-dimensional mapmaking
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Whether from military necessity or unbridled curiosity, mapmakers since early antiquity have attempted to represent the configuration of the land about them. The Greeks paid homage to the landscape and struck its image on their coins. Medieval scholars viewed the highest elevations as a boundary between the physical and the spiritual; the images they created of their sacred shrines and historic sites were drawn atop simple caricatures of mountains. Leonardo da Vinci's maps of Tuscany and other more realistic representations of landforms appeared during the Renaissance, thanks to a wealth of scientific study and new artistic methods. In the modern era, new techniques were invented as attempts to portray the three-dimensional world on a flat surface became more sophisticated. Hachuring, a system that involves shading with fine parallel or crossed lines, was developed with the use of copper plates; contour lines slowly replaced this technique in the nineteenth century. Lithography allowed for the introduction of color to the printing process, and multi-color tints were used to impart a sense of elevation. Aerial and satellite photography and the dawn of the digital era have yielded maps of unprecedented realism; today's computer technology allows planetary surfaces to be portrayed in three dimensions with a precision unimaginable to previous generations of mapmakers. "Infinite Perspectives" traces the artistic and scientific evolution of topographic representation from its origins to the present. Over 80 colour plates of some of the most significant maps ever made detail important advances in the portrayal of three dimensions in map form. The final section of the book contains 20 plates presenting a revolutionary cartographic technique that allows viewers wearing ordinary 3D glasses to view planetary surfaces without distortion. This invention, developed by the authors with Dr. Russell Ambroziak and named Infinite Perspective Projection, is currently in use by NASA and the Department of Defense. Included are maps of Mars, the Grand Canyon, and Mount McKinley, as well as one large fold-out map, suitable for framing; two pairs of the necessary 3D viewing glasses are also provided.
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October 1999, New York
Architectural Drawing
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German culture in the twentieth century moved quickly and intensely, bound up with the politics of the country. Paul Renner (1878—1956) lived and worked through constituent episodes of this history, both embodying the patterns of his times and providing a critical commentary on them. In this book(...)
Graphic Designers, Monographs
January 1999, New York
Paul Renner : the art of typography
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German culture in the twentieth century moved quickly and intensely, bound up with the politics of the country. Paul Renner (1878—1956) lived and worked through constituent episodes of this history, both embodying the patterns of his times and providing a critical commentary on them. In this book Christopher Burke provides the first extended account of an essential and still underrated figure. Beginning his career in the thick of the Munich cultural renaissance, Paul Renner worked as a ‘book artist’, applying values he had learnt as a painter to this everyday item of multiple production. An early and prominent member of the Deutscher Werkbund, he was committed to the values of quality in design, always tempered by a certain sobriety of attitude and style. In the 1920s Renner engaged with the radical modernism of that time, briefly in Frankfurt, and then in a more extended phase at the printing school at Munich. Under Renner’s leadership, and with teachers such as Georg Trump and Jan Tschichold, the school produced work of quiet significance. In those years Renner undertook the design of the now ubiquitous typeface Futura. Christopher Burke’s analysis of the design process reveals the characteristic Renner approach: he took up with current tendencies, but through an extended process of finely judged development, helped to deliver a product that has long-lasting quality. In the Nazi seizure of power of 1933, Renner was dismissed from his teaching post — in days recounted here in dramatic detail — and entered a state of ‘inner emigration’. Burke’s account of the Nazi years shows Renner negotiating events with dignity. After 1945, Renner lived in retirement, but entered public discussion of design issues as a voice of experience and sanity. "Paul Renner" is a work of discovery. As part of its fresh narrative and analysis, it includes much new illustrative material and the first full bibliography of Renner’s writings.
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January 1999, New York
Graphic Designers, Monographs
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The rivalry between the brilliant seventeenth-century Italian architects Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini is the stuff of legend. Possessed of enormous talent and ambition, these two artists -- one trained as a sculptor, the other as a stonecutter -- met as contemporaries in the building yards of St. Peter's in Rome and ended their lives as bitter enemies. Over(...)
The genius in the design : Bernini, Borromini, and the rivalry that transformed Rome
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The rivalry between the brilliant seventeenth-century Italian architects Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini is the stuff of legend. Possessed of enormous talent and ambition, these two artists -- one trained as a sculptor, the other as a stonecutter -- met as contemporaries in the building yards of St. Peter's in Rome and ended their lives as bitter enemies. Over the course of their careers they became the most celebrated architects of their era, designing some of the most beautiful buildings in the world and transforming the city of Rome. “The Genius in the Design” is an extraordinary tale of how these two men plotted, schemed, and intrigued to get the better of each other. Full of dramatic tension and great insight into personalities, acclaimed writer Jake Morrissey's engrossing and impeccably researched account also shows that this legendary rivalry defined the Baroque style that immediately succeeded the Renaissance and created the spectacular Roman cityscape of today. Almost exactly the same age -- Bernini was born at the end of 1598, Borromini nine months later -- they were as alike and as different as any two men could be, each a potent combination of passion and enterprise, energy and imperfection. Bernini was a precocious talent who as a youth caught the attention of Pope Paul V and became Rome's most celebrated artist, whose patrons included the wealthiest families in Europe. The city's greatest sculptor -- the creator of such masterpieces as Apollo and Daphne and the Ecstasy of St. Teresa -- Bernini would also have been Rome's pre-eminent architect had it not been for Francesco Borromini, the one man whose talent and virtuosity rivalled his own. In contrast to Bernini's easy grace, Borromini was an introvert with a fiery temper who bristled when anyone interfered with his vision; his temperament alienated him from prospective patrons and precipitated his tragic end. Like Mozart and Salieri, these two masters were inextricably linked, their dazzling work prodding the other to greater achievement while taking merciless advantage of each other's missteps. “The Genius in the Design” is their story, a fascinating narrative of beauty and tragedy marked at turns by personal animosity and astonishing artistic achievement.
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March 2005, New York
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Villa de Rome
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Publié à Paris à partir de 1809, le recueil de plans et de vues des villas de la Renaissance et de l'âge baroque de Percier et Fontaine a été soigneusement élaboré à partir des dessins réalisés avant la Révolution, alors qu'ils étaient pensionnaires à l'Académie de France à Rome. Bien que ses auteurs avaient déjà connu le succès avec leurs précédents ouvrages consacrés(...)
History until 1900
July 2007, Wavre
Villa de Rome
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Publié à Paris à partir de 1809, le recueil de plans et de vues des villas de la Renaissance et de l'âge baroque de Percier et Fontaine a été soigneusement élaboré à partir des dessins réalisés avant la Révolution, alors qu'ils étaient pensionnaires à l'Académie de France à Rome. Bien que ses auteurs avaient déjà connu le succès avec leurs précédents ouvrages consacrés aux palais et aux maisons de Rome (1798) et aux décorations intérieures (1802), c'est dans cette nouvelle publication qu'ils plaçaient le plus d'ambitions. Car cette suite de gravures exécutées avec le plus grand soin ne vise pas seulement à garder la mémoire de l'émerveillement éprouvé dans les jardins romains, voire de la douceur du séjour ultramontain. L'information qu'elle propose, sur des édifices de tout premier plan, est là pour soutenir la position des deux architectes dans les débats contemporains et pour étayer leur dispositif théorique. II s'agit d'abord de répondre, par de nouvelles références, au développement dans les campagnes de l'empire d'un nouveau type de demeure aristocratique, tout en offrant un antidote au goût alors en plein essor pour les jardins anglais. C'est un choix esthétique et un engagement. Cette leçon d'Italie, cette alliance de vues et de plans, est là pour démontrer que les grandes ordonnances ne s'opposent pas, bien au contraire, au pittoresque, ce qui revient à soutenir les prétentions des architectes dans le domaine de l'art des jardins, face aux succès des jardiniers et des paysagistes. Après un premier livre, qui abordait l'échelle des édifices, puis un second qui traitait de celle du détail, le troisième grand recueil de Percier et Fontaine se focalise sur les grandes compositions, qui étaient alors une des bases du savoir-faire de l'architecte et le fondement du concours du Prix de Rome. Le Choix des plus célèbres maisons de plaisance de Rome et de ses environs, qui compte parmis les plus luxueux et les plus beaux livres d'architecture français, est depuis longtemps introuvable. Cette réédition intégrale de l'édition de 1809 est la première qui rende accessible cette référence majeure pour l'histoire de l'architecture du XIXe siècle, pour l'histoire de l'art des jardins et pour l'histoire de l'enseignement à l'École des beaux-Arts.
History until 1900