Juhani Pallasmaa

Marc Treib

Kenneth Frampton

Pekka Korvenmaa

Peter Reed

Between Humanism and Materialism

Alvar Aalto

Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)

Published to accompany exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 19/2 19/5 1998.

An authoritative study of the interrelationship between modern architecture, landscape, and site strategy as viewed through the work of five prominent architects Modern architects are often condemned for a seeming disregard of site considerations such as climate, topography, and existing vegetation. Noted landscape and architectural historian Marc Treib counters this prevailing view in an authoritative and unprecedented survey of 20th-century buildings and their landscapes. Exploring a range of architectural, philosophical, and theoretical approaches, Treib investigates the site strategies of five prominent modern-period architects: Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), Richard Neutra (1892-1970), Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), and Luis Barragán (1902-1988). The character of the sites on which these architects worked dramatically affected their architecture and gardens, a fact illustrated by Wright's "organic" regard of the desert; Mies's evolving divorce of building from terrain; Neutra's transformation of the "realities" of the site; Aalto's use of the forest metaphor and interior landscapes; and Barragán's architectonic conversion of the land. Fully illustrated with rarely published archival drawings and plans, accompanied by the author's own exceptional photographs, this book presents the spectrum of architectural responses to the constraints of site, climate, client, program, building material, region, and nation. Taken as a group, the work of these five architects sheds important light on the consideration and influence of the site and landscape on the practice of architecture during the 20th century.

Wright, Mies, Neutra, Aalto, Barragán

Landscapes of Modern Architecture

Therese O'Malley

Increased mobility, uprootedness, and the pace of change in an increasingly technological society have contributed to interest in regionalism, which places value on cultural continuity in local areas. These essays lay the foundation for examining regionalism in American garden design.

Regional Garden Design in the United States

Some Sour Notes on Recent Trends in Graphic Design

Blips, Slits, Zits and Dots

Susan Herrington

Claude Cormier et Associés

For almost thirty years Claude Cormier et Associés has designed landscapes daring in scope while earnest in execution, courting controversy while inviting public accord. Produced under the leadership of Claude Cormier, the range of these projects has spanned the creation of parks and squares, the renovation of historical landscapes, and the conversion of industrial sites. While always serious in the address of function, their designs often display a touch of humor in both method and form--in all, these are works marked by "serious fun." It is a practice unique in Canada, arguably in the world. That people use, and may even love, these urban landscapes testifies to the pleasure afforded by their designs and the humanistic dimensions of the practice. This, the first book exclusively dedicated to the landscapes of Claude Cormier and his team, provides a broad overview of their ideas and methods with insightful discussions of selected projects and the thinking behind them.

The Landscapes of Claude Cormier

Serious Fun

Cynthia Burlingham

Allegra Pesenti

Victoria Steele

Claudine Dixon

For nearly thirty years, starting in the 1960s, Franklin D. Murphy was a dominant figure in the cultural development of Los Angeles. As chancellor of UCLA and later as chief executive of the "Times Mirror "company, Murphy channeled more than a billion dollars into the city's universities, museums, concert halls, and libraries. The Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, one of his landmark projects, is also one of the UCLA campus's great treasures. Standing as a model for sculpture gardens internationally since its dedication in 1967, the Murphy Garden features seventy-two important modern and contemporary sculptures in a five-acre site designed by landscape architect Ralph Cornell. This fully-illustrated catalog documents the entire Murphy Garden collection and provides a scholarly entry for each artist--a sampling of which includes Deborah Butterfield, Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, Auguste Rodin, and David Smith. Three essays--by Victoria Steele, Cynthia Burlingham, and Marc Treib-- focus respectively on the role of Franklin Murphy in the garden's planning and execution, the acquisition of the sculptures, and the garden's significance within the history of sculpture garden design.

The Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden at UCLA

The Houses of William Wurster

An Everyday Modernism

The first large-scale examination of William Wurster's work.

Vladimir Ossipoff

At the forefront of the postwar phenomenon known as tropical modernism, Vladimir Ossipoff (1907-1998) won recognition as the "master of Hawaiian architecture.” Although he practiced at a time of rapid growth and social change in Hawaii, Ossipoff criticized large-scale development and advocated environmentally sensitive designs, developing a distinctive form of architecture appropriate to the lush topography, light, and microclimates of the Hawaiian islands. This book is the first to focus on Ossipoff’s career, presenting significant new material on the architect and situating him within the tropical modernist movement and the cultural context of the Pacific region. The authors discuss how Ossipoff synthesized Eastern and Western influences, including Japanese building techniques and modern architectural principles. In particular, they demonstrate that he drew inspiration from the interplay of indoor and outdoor space as advocated by such architects as Frank Lloyd Wright, applying these to the concerns and vernacular traditions of the tropics. The result was a vibrant and glamorous architectural style, captured vividly in archival images and new photography. As the corporate projects and private residences that Ossipoff created for such clients as IBM, Punahou School, Linus Pauling, Jr., and Clare Boothe Luce surpass their fiftieth anniversaries, critical assessment of these structures, offered here by distinguished scholars in the field, will illuminate Ossipoff’s contribution to the universal challenge of making architecture that is delightfully particular to its place and durable over time.

The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff

Hawaiian Modern

Reuben M. Rainey

Includes The work of Dan Kiley: a dialogue on design theory, a transcript of a symposium held 1982 at the University of Virginia School of Architecture.

The Poetry of Space

Dan Kiley Landscapes

Joseph Esherick

Joseph Esherick was arguably the foremost San Francisco architect from the 1960s until his death in the late 1990s, following in the wake of William Wurster. Esherick established his own practice in the late 1940s and the firm produced a continuous stream of laudable buildings, among them houses appropriate to their site and times. Affected less by national and international fashion than by the exigencies of local climate, social demands, and suitable technology, Esherick produced a large number of truly classic residences.

The Houses of Joseph Esherick

Appropriate

Austere Gardens suggests another way to look at the landscape, the garden, and perhaps the entire world around us. It suggests that being open to other ways of observing and sensing can yield new insights and rewards, and that interest is found in places unassuming and overlooked as well as those complex and assertive. Perceiving is only one half the story, however. Realizing places using simple acts and reduced means is the other half. The history of garden-making reveals continued attempts to create an Eden, to surpass our given environment in abundance and delight, and by selected instruments transcend the constraints of site, topography, and climate. The alternative to this garden of inclusion lies in the landscapes of reduction and compression, for example the dry gardens of Japan. These might be termed austere gardens. The word "austere," as used in this essay, does not imply asceticism, but merely modesty and restraint. Austere landscapes may first appear devoid of interest if noticed at all. To those who do not look beyond their surfaces, these sites, and the world outside them, usually appear plain and uninteresting, or even lacking of the very properties by which we define a garden. But there are sensual, aesthetic, and even philosophical, pleasures to be gained from these seemingly dull fields should we attempt to appreciate them. These qualities, normally associated with abundance and complexity, may be found in a different way, and at a different level, in austere terrain. Although the subject of the small book is gardens, or more broadly taken, landscapes that may be read as gardens, many of the examples are nonetheless drawn from art and architecture, from history as well as contemporary times. The images that accompany the text tell their own stories, illustrating what can be accomplished using frugal means or through basic acts like digging, piling, planting, cutting, and clearing. In an era where resources appear to be dwindling and populations growing, attitudes that value simplicity and reduction also gain a moral dimension.

Thoughts on Landscape, Restraint, & Attending

Austere Gardens

Description and history of the early churches and missions in New Mexico.

Sanctuaries of Spanish New Mexico

The Architecture of Landscape, 1940-1960 provides a groundbreaking collection of worldwide perspectives on a vital and underappreciated era of landscape architecture. It is also the first critical assessment of this period, with information and insight previously unavailable to English-language readers.

The Architecture of Landscape, 1940-1960

Dorothée Imbert

A beautifully illustrated consideration of the life and career of modernist landscape architect Garrett Eckbo.

Modern Landscapes for Living

Garrett Eckbo

The pavilion designed by Le Corbusier for the Philips Company at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair showcased a spectacle that remains a landmark in multimedia production. The pavilion's nearly two million visitors encountered no typical display of consumer products; instead they witnessed a dazzling demonstration of cutting-edge technology in the service of the arts. This totally automated bombardment of color, voice, sound, and images was broadcast within a space of warped concrete shells, orchestrated by Le Corbusier and his colleagues into a cohesive 480-second program. The talents and efforts that went into this project, and the interaction of the personalities behind it, make for a fascinating tale that bridges architecture, music, and marketing--one that has never been told, perhaps because the building was dismantled after the fair. In this book, Marc Treib looks at both this remarkable collaboration and the significance of the Philips project, which can be viewed as a pioneering quest into the production of postmodern art or even as a prototype of virtual reality. Achieving for the first time his goal to use electronic media for a synthesis of the arts, Le Corbusier collaborated with the composer/architect Iannis Xenakis, the filmmaker Philippe Agostini, the graphic designer and editor Jean Petit, and the composer Edgard Varese, whose distinguished piece "Poeme electronique" was composed for this project. Treib explains in vivid detail the idea and development of the building design--based on the geometry of the hyperbolic paraboloid--and how this ambitious vision materialized through an innovative system of precast concrete panels, engineered by H. C. Duyster. Treib also describes the working methods of the collaborators, depicting, for example, Xenakis's frustration with designing under Le Corbusier's shadow and the tensions suffered by the Philips artistic director coordinating his company's business interests with Le Corbusier's and Varese's artistic aspirations. This wide-ranging investigation into the Philips project also examines the role of rhythm, cinematic montage, spatialized sound, and the composition of Varese's music. The result is an engaging exploration of artistic collaboration in the 1950s, set against the political and cultural context of a world exposition, and of the realization of ambitious architectural ideas.

The Philips Pavilion, Le Corbusier, Edgard Varese

Space Calculated in Seconds

Architecture and designed landscapes serve as grand mnemonic devices that record and transmit vital aspects of culture and history. Spatial Recall casts a broad net over the concept of memory and gives a variety of perspectives from twelve internationally noted scholars, practicing designers, and artists such as Juhani Pallasmaa, Adriaan Geuze, Susan Schwartzenberg, Georges Descombes and Esther da Costa Meyer. Essays range from broad topics of message and audience to specific ones of landscape production. Beautifully illustrated, Spatial Recall is a comprehensive view of memory in the built environment, how we have read it in the past, and how we can create it in the future. Please note this is book is now printed digitally.

Memory in Architecture and Landscape

Spatial Recall

Bringing together authors from the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and art, this book addresses the question ‘Why draw?’ by examining the various dynamic relationships between media, process, thought and environment.

Marc Treib

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