Kirjahaku

This comprehensive examination of eighteenth and nineteenth-century architecture explores its extreme diversity within the context of tremendous social, economic and political upheaval. Bergdolls offers a penetrating analysis of the very ways issues of style functioned to make architecture one of the most vitally experimental of art forms in a period of sweeping political, social, and economic change. Never before had the functional requirements and expressive capacities of architecture been tested so thoroughly and with such diversity of invention. Bergdoll traces this experimentation in a broad range of contexts, focusing in particular on the relation of architectural design to new theories of history, new categories of scientific inquiry, and the broadening audience for architecture in this period of transformation. Unlike traditional surveys with long lists of buildings and architects, the themes are elucidated by in-depth coverage of key buildings which in turn are situated in both their local and European context.

Famously labelled the father, poet, and prophet of green architecture and a vocal proponent of the idea that any project in architecture or design must present new or better ways of living or be deemed immoral, Emilio Ambasz is an award-winning architect, industrial designer, and protean maker of forms. He has invented highly efficient engines, modular furniture, streetlamps, flexible pens, expandable suitcases, ergonomic door handles, wrist-computers, dental hygiene systems, and 3D posters. He created the Vertebra chair, the first ever automatic, ergonomic chair in the world, now part of the permanent collections at MoMA and The Met in New York. In architecture he has long been a pioneer, and has retained a belief in the environment, or rather the larger ecology, as fundamental in viewing the world: as Professor Bergdoll notes of Ambasz in his introduction, his philosophy of green over gray may often have fallen on deaf ears at the height of Postmodernism, but it today seems profoundly relevant. And it is in the context of today that the book considers the work of Emilio Ambasz and its three main areas of concentration architecture, industrial design, curating with an aim of shining a light on the interdisciplinary nature of the work as a whole. Featuring built and manufactured designs that have achieved iconic fame and challenged others to approach new ways of reconciling architecture and nature notably the Prefectural Hall at Fukuoka, Japan, and the conservatory buildings of the San Antonio Botanical Garden, in addition to his own unique house outside Seville in Spain the book also considers Ambasz s work as curator at MoMA and his ongoing influence and legacy.

"… a selection of the practice’s nearly 400 projects, tracing how three generations of Madalenos successively responded to their respective era’s challenges while maintaining a consistent, and uniquely Mexican, architectural identity." — Architectural Record In its 85th year of existence, the architectural practice founded in 1937 by a very young Juan Sordo Madaleno, has decided to publish this unconventional monograph which compiles the most ambitious projects built (and not built) within the context of the transformation, and which at the same time reflect and determine the evolution urban and rural landscapes of post-revolutionary Mexico. From the very first constructions, the firm has been a pioneer not only in the erection of modern buildings, but also in inherently urban architectural designs, fundamental components of overlapping urban scales. This book includes contributions from some of the leading thinkers in urban architecture today, highlighting the commitment that has guided a unique family of architects for three generations.