New Vernacular Architecture - Softcover

Richardson, Vicky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1856692213 ISBN 13: 9781856692212

Publisher: Laurence King Pub, 2001

Synopsis

Considering the synthesis of modernity and tradition in contemporary architecture, this book focuses on 37 buildings completed in the 1990s. It examines a broad range of examples of international architecture that reinterprets rather than revives traditional forms, materials and construction techniques. The projects covered in this study range from better-known works by renowned architects such as Michael Graves, Renzo Piano and David Chipperfield, to less familiar buildings in Hungary, Nepal, Latvia and elsewhere. The fragmentation of nation-states and increasing plurality of political and cultural identities have led to a growing reaction in architecture against "global blanding" - the world-wide homogenization of images and designs. As a result, local context, materials and culture have become increasingly important concerns for architects, whose designs are now seen by the public as lending form to evolving regional identity.

About this title

About the Author

Vicky Richardson is deputy editor of the RIBA Journal. Co-author of In Defence of the Dome (1998) and former editor of Public Service and Local Government. She is a regular contributor to a number of publications, including Bauwelt, World Architecture and LM Magazine. In 1999 she was shortlisted for the Architectural Writer of the Year award by International Building Press.

From Library Journal

This book proves that good, old-fashioned modern architecture is alive and well, living in our new millennium and featuring splintered sections, complex elevations, slanted walls, angular roofs, imaginative lighting, indigenous materials, etc. Modern architecture has survived the onslaught of postmodernism in several forms. Cubism is the paramount style here, aided and abetted by Sustainability, 1950s Retro, High Tech, and even a new pragmatism. Primarily a picture book, this volume catalogs and documents the distribution of the modern Cubist industrial architecture throughout the globe in terms of six themes: tradition, technology, landscape, regionalism, civics, and identity. Richardson is a prize-winning writer, the deputy editor of the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the coauthor of In Defense of Domes. Very focused in its purview, this book is aimed at the professional design community. Recommended for architecture libraries only. Peter Kaufman, Boston Architectural Ctr.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Laurence King Pub
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1856692213
• ISBN 13: 9781856692212
• Binding: Paperback