$56.50
(available to order)
Summary:
In this illustrated volume, Bernard Herman provides a history of urban dwellings and the people who built and lived in them in early America. In the eighteenth century, cities were constant objects of idealization, often viewed as the outward manifestations of an organized, civil society. As the physical objects that composed the largest portion of urban settings, town(...)
History until 1900, North America
November 2005, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Town house : architecture and material life in the early american city, 1780-1830
Actions:
Price:
$56.50
(available to order)
Summary:
In this illustrated volume, Bernard Herman provides a history of urban dwellings and the people who built and lived in them in early America. In the eighteenth century, cities were constant objects of idealization, often viewed as the outward manifestations of an organized, civil society. As the physical objects that composed the largest portion of urban settings, town houses contained and signified different aspects of city life, argues Herman. Taking a material culture approach, Herman examines urban domestic buildings from Charleston, South Carolina, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as those in English cities and towns, to better understand why people built the houses they did and how their homes informed everyday city life. Working with buildings and documentary sources as diverse as court cases and recipes, Herman interprets town houses as lived experience. Chapters consider an array of domestic spaces, including the merchant family's house, the servant's quarter, and the widow's dower. Herman demonstrates that city houses served as sites of power as well as complex and often conflicted artifacts mapping the everyday negotiations of social identity and the display of sociability.
History until 1900, North America
The education of the eye : painting, landscape, and architecture in eighteenth-century Britain
$30.95
(available to order)
Summary:
"The Education of the Eye" examines the origins of visual culture in eighteenth-century Britain. It claims that at the moment when works of visual art were first displayed and contemplated as aesthetic objects, two competing descriptions of the viewer or spectator promoted two very different accounts of culture. The first was constructed on knowledge, on what one(...)
The education of the eye : painting, landscape, and architecture in eighteenth-century Britain
Actions:
Price:
$30.95
(available to order)
Summary:
"The Education of the Eye" examines the origins of visual culture in eighteenth-century Britain. It claims that at the moment when works of visual art were first displayed and contemplated as aesthetic objects, two competing descriptions of the viewer or spectator promoted two very different accounts of culture. The first was constructed on knowledge, on what one already knew, while the second was grounded in the eye itself. Whereas the first was most likely to lead to a socially and politically elite form of visual cutlure, the second, it was held, would almost certainly end up in the chaos of the mob. But there was another route through these conflicting accounts of the visual that preserved the education of the eye while at the same time allowing the eye freedom to enter into the realm of culture. This third route, that of sentimental look, is explored in a series of contexts: the gallery, the pleasure garden, the landscape park, and the country house. This book sets out to reclaim visual culture for the democracy of the eye and to explain how aesthetic contemplation may, once more, be open to all who have eyes to look.
Landscape Theory
The rational factory : architecture, technology, and work in America's age of mass production
$31.50
(available to order)
Summary:
Searching for a "rational" workplace, turn-of-the-century engineers and industrial architects recast the factory itself in the image of the machine. Indeed, they considered the factory building the "master machine," containing and coordinating all of the machinery within. Such rational factory planning improved production speed and the management of workers. Once(...)
The rational factory : architecture, technology, and work in America's age of mass production
Actions:
Price:
$31.50
(available to order)
Summary:
Searching for a "rational" workplace, turn-of-the-century engineers and industrial architects recast the factory itself in the image of the machine. Indeed, they considered the factory building the "master machine," containing and coordinating all of the machinery within. Such rational factory planning improved production speed and the management of workers. Once created, the rational factory transformed the nature of work, both human and mechanical. In "The rational factory", Lindy Biggs contends that factory design played a crucial role in the development of American mass production. Her interdisciplinary study draws from the fields of business history, engineering, technology, architecture, and theories of modernity. Why did some people want to rationalize the factory, she asks, and how did the system impact those who worked under it?
Engineering Structures
Pevsner: The complete broadcast talks: architecture and art on radio and television, 1945-1977
$76.90
(available to order)
Summary:
This book brings together the surviving texts of the 113 talks on art and architecture that we know of, given by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner on radio and television between 1945--1977. It includes the seven texts of the 1955 Reith Lectures in their original broadcast form, as well as lectures that Pevsner gave in German (for the BBC in London and RIAS in(...)
Pevsner: The complete broadcast talks: architecture and art on radio and television, 1945-1977
Actions:
Price:
$76.90
(available to order)
Summary:
This book brings together the surviving texts of the 113 talks on art and architecture that we know of, given by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner on radio and television between 1945--1977. It includes the seven texts of the 1955 Reith Lectures in their original broadcast form, as well as lectures that Pevsner gave in German (for the BBC in London and RIAS in Berlin) and on the radio in New Zealand. These talks are important as an example of the attempt by the BBC in particular to provide intellectual programming for the mass population. The talks are important for what they reveal about changing tastes in the treatment of the arts as a broadcast topic, as well as offering a case study of the development of one particular historian's approach to a subject that was gaining ground in universities as a direct result of his popularisation of it.
Epistemology
Discovering architecture: how the world's great buildings were designed and built. 2nd edition.
$19.98
(available to order)
Summary:
Including such works as the Tower of London, Notre-Dame de Paris, and the Taj Mahal in India, the book is organized chronologically and presents buildings from all genres, covering more than two millennia of architectural history. In addition to the clever die-cut captions, each building is featured in an essay filled with essential information on the construction, as(...)
Discovering architecture: how the world's great buildings were designed and built. 2nd edition.
Actions:
Price:
$19.98
(available to order)
Summary:
Including such works as the Tower of London, Notre-Dame de Paris, and the Taj Mahal in India, the book is organized chronologically and presents buildings from all genres, covering more than two millennia of architectural history. In addition to the clever die-cut captions, each building is featured in an essay filled with essential information on the construction, as well as the social, political, cultural, and geographical considerations of the architect. Photographs allow the reader to appreciate the technical feats and aesthetic brilliance of both the buildings and architects past and present.
Dictionaries
$40.95
(available in store)
Summary:
Volume 1 : the challenge of tradition, 1750-1900 explores the dynamic balancing the forces demanded by a reverence for Italy's unparalleled architectural patrimony and a desire for new means of expression and technological innovation. From the neoclassical fantasies of Giovanni Battista Piranesi to the spectaculor steel-and-glass galleries of Milan, 'The challenge of(...)
The architecture of modern Italy volume I: the challenge of tradition, 1750-1900
Actions:
Price:
$40.95
(available in store)
Summary:
Volume 1 : the challenge of tradition, 1750-1900 explores the dynamic balancing the forces demanded by a reverence for Italy's unparalleled architectural patrimony and a desire for new means of expression and technological innovation. From the neoclassical fantasies of Giovanni Battista Piranesi to the spectaculor steel-and-glass galleries of Milan, 'The challenge of tradition' reveals an underappreciated history of richness and complexity.
History until 1900, Italy
$45.00
(available to order)
Summary:
From the summer of 1933 to the fall of 1934, more than 38 million fairgoers visited a 3-mile stretch along Lake Michigan, home to Chicago’s second World’s Fair. Millions more experienced the Century of Progress International Exposition through newspaper and magazine articles, newsreels, and souvenirs. Together, all marveled at the industrial, scientific, consumer, and(...)
Museums and Universal Exhibitions
August 2007, Minneapolis, London
Building a century of progress : the architecture of Chicago's 1933-34 World's Fair
Actions:
Price:
$45.00
(available to order)
Summary:
From the summer of 1933 to the fall of 1934, more than 38 million fairgoers visited a 3-mile stretch along Lake Michigan, home to Chicago’s second World’s Fair. Millions more experienced the Century of Progress International Exposition through newspaper and magazine articles, newsreels, and souvenirs. Together, all marveled at the industrial, scientific, consumer, and cultural displays, many of which were housed in fifty massive and colorful exhibition halls, the largest architectural project realized in the United States during the Great Depression. In the richly illustrated "Building a century of progress", Lisa D. Schrenk explores the pivotal role of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair in modern American architecture. She recounts how the exposition’s architectural commission promoted a broad definition of modern architecture, not relying on purely aesthetic characteristics but instead focusing on new design solutions. The fair’s pavilions incorporated recently introduced building materials such as masonite and gypsum board; structural innovations (for example, the first thin-shell concrete roof and the first suspended roof structures built in the United States); and new construction processes, most notably the use of prefabrication. They also featured curiosities like the giant, constantly operating mayonnaise maker and the glass-walled House of Tomorrow, which had no operable windows. Schrenk shows how the halls’ designs reflected cultural and political developments of the period, including the expanding relationships between science, industry, and government; the rise of a corporate consumer culture; and the impact of the Great Depression. Many of the designs provoked intense responses from critics and other prominent architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Ralph Adams Cram, fueling heated debates over the appropriate direction for architecture in the United States. Demonstrating the rich diversity of progressive American building design seen at the fair, this book captures a crucial moment in American modernism.
Museums and Universal Exhibitions
books
$31.95
(available to order)
Summary:
The ugly buildings that characterize the modern landscape are inferior not only to the great cathedrals of medieval Europe and the temples of ancient Egypt and Greece, but even to lesser buildings of the more recent past. The great masterworks of our ancestors spoke to humanity’s higher nature. Architect Herbert Bangs reveals how today’s dysfunctional buildings bring out(...)
Commercial interiors, Building types
January 2007, Rochester
The return of sacred architecture : the golden ratio and the end of modernism
Actions:
Price:
$31.95
(available to order)
Summary:
The ugly buildings that characterize the modern landscape are inferior not only to the great cathedrals of medieval Europe and the temples of ancient Egypt and Greece, but even to lesser buildings of the more recent past. The great masterworks of our ancestors spoke to humanity’s higher nature. Architect Herbert Bangs reveals how today’s dysfunctional buildings bring out the worst in humanity, reinforcing that which is most base within us. He shows how, through the ancient laws of proportion and number, architecture once expressed the harmonious relationship between man and the cosmos. In early times, the architect worked within a sacred and esoteric tradition of creating structures through which human beings could gain insight into the nature of the divine reality. Today, that tradition has been abandoned in favor of narrowly defined utilitarian principles of efficiency and economy. In The Return of Sacred Architecture, Bangs provides the key to freeing architecture from the crude functionality of the twentieth century: the architects of the modern human landscape must find the deep-felt connection to the cosmos that guided the inner lives of those who built the temples of the past. The form of their buildings will then reflect the sacred patterns of geometry and proportion and bring forth greater harmony in the world.
books
January 2007, Rochester
Commercial interiors, Building types
Performing architecture : opera houses, theatres and concert halls for the twenty-first century
$49.95
(available to order)
Summary:
Even in this age of varied home entertainment and fast-paced mass media, creative energy is being directed towards new spaces for live performance. Illustrated with photographs, computer renderings and architectural drawings, "Performing Architecture" explores fifty of contemporary performance spaces, as well as recently refurbished, restored and transformed buildings. A(...)
Commercial interiors, Building types
November 2006, London
Performing architecture : opera houses, theatres and concert halls for the twenty-first century
Actions:
Price:
$49.95
(available to order)
Summary:
Even in this age of varied home entertainment and fast-paced mass media, creative energy is being directed towards new spaces for live performance. Illustrated with photographs, computer renderings and architectural drawings, "Performing Architecture" explores fifty of contemporary performance spaces, as well as recently refurbished, restored and transformed buildings. A brief introduction traces the post-war development of theatre and concert hall design, and sets out the circumstances today that have led to such a rich provision for performance. Buildings featured range from Frank Gehry’s Disney Opera House in Los Angeles to the Unicorn Theatre for Children in London; and from the Tenerife Opera House by Santiago Calatrava to the Guangzhou Opera House, China, by Zaha Hadid.
Commercial interiors, Building types
Supersurfaces : folding as a method of generating forms for architecture, products and fashion
$21.00
(available to order)
Summary:
Reprint Folding is a valid design method that can be successfully applied, not only in architecture, but also in disciplines such as industrial design, product design and fashion design. The diversity of forms that can be achieved are limited only by the designers' imaginations. From donuts to concertinas, wraps and hinges, the exciting, innovative new ideas and(...)
Supersurfaces : folding as a method of generating forms for architecture, products and fashion
Actions:
Price:
$21.00
(available to order)
Summary:
Reprint Folding is a valid design method that can be successfully applied, not only in architecture, but also in disciplines such as industrial design, product design and fashion design. The diversity of forms that can be achieved are limited only by the designers' imaginations. From donuts to concertinas, wraps and hinges, the exciting, innovative new ideas and concepts presented in "Supersurfaces" will expand the perspective of any curious creator.
small format