Scenes in America Deserta - Softcover
In Scenes in America Deserta, Reyner Banham steps aside from his familiar role as an architectural historian and confesses himself a delighted, intrigued, but puzzled visitor to the arid lands of the American Southwest.
What delights Banham most is visual pleasure, and this book is first and foremost a celebration of the pure visual response of a four-wheeled voyeur. What intrigues him is the works of man - the ancient pueblos and the modern observatories, the fantasies of Las Vegas and the Spanish missions, Frank Lloyd Wright and Paolo Soleri.
What puzzles him is his response as the archetypal British tourist - the discovery that the desert is beautiful in his eyes in a way that no other landscape has ever been. This unsettling discovery sends Banham on a search for the roots of this response. He seeks explanations in the works of writers is various as Gaston Bachelard, Joan Didion, Ray Bradbury early historians and explorers, the American solitary and aesthete John van Dyke (author of the classic The Desert, and Charles Doughty the English Arabist (author of Travels in Arabia Deserta).
What delights Banham most is visual pleasure, and this book is first and foremost a celebration of the pure visual response of a four-wheeled voyeur. What intrigues him is the works of man - the ancient pueblos and the modern observatories, the fantasies of Las Vegas and the Spanish missions, Frank Lloyd Wright and Paolo Soleri.
What puzzles him is his response as the archetypal British tourist - the discovery that the desert is beautiful in his eyes in a way that no other landscape has ever been. This unsettling discovery sends Banham on a search for the roots of this response. He seeks explanations in the works of writers is various as Gaston Bachelard, Joan Didion, Ray Bradbury early historians and explorers, the American solitary and aesthete John van Dyke (author of the classic The Desert, and Charles Doughty the English Arabist (author of Travels in Arabia Deserta).
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- PublisherThames & Hudson Ltd
- Publication date1984
- ISBN 10 0500272786
- ISBN 13 9780500272787
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages228
- Rating
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SCENES IN AMERICA DESERTA.
Published by
Thames & Hudson Ltd, London,
(1982)
ISBN 10: 0500272786
ISBN 13: 9780500272787
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Paperback
First Edition
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. First Edition. Hardback. Dust Jacket. 8vo. pp vii, 228. Original publishers red cloth over grey boards, lettered black on spine. Illustrations. Bookplate of the author's brother, Paul Banham on the front pastedown. Possible signature of the author on the verso half title page, "P. R. Banham." ISBN: 0500272786 Very good indeed in slightly used, near very good dust jacket. Seller Inventory # C89338
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Stock Image
Scenes in America Deserta
Published by
Thames & Hudson Ltd
(1984)
ISBN 10: 0500272786
ISBN 13: 9780500272787
Used
paperback
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description paperback. Condition: Good. Good. book. Seller Inventory # D8S0-3-M-0500272786-3
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