Egypt: From Prehistory to the Romans - Softcover

Wildung, Dietrich

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3822812218 ISBN 13: 9783822812211

Publisher: Taschen America Llc, 2001

Synopsis

Egypt
From prehistory to the Romans

The architecture of the pharaohs represents some of the most impressive creative work ever produced in Egyptian art and yet it has never been completely assessed. This volume is a singularly complete record of the architecture of the pharaohs ranging from 3000 BC to the Egyptian style of today, from the Sudan to the Mediterranean, and from simple clay brick buildings to monumental pyramids. Recent research and evocative pictures blend to create a new view on the oldest architecture in the world - a very special kind of journey through Egypt.

The author:
Dietrich Wildung is Curator of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin and professor of Egyptology at the Freie Universität in Berlin. He directs excavations in the Nile Delta and organises international exhibitions about Egypt. He specializes in art in the Kingdom of the Pharaoh.

The editor:
Henri Stierlin was born in Alexandria in 1928. In 1948 he published his first articles on art history and made numerous radio and television programmes on the history of civilisation.

About this title

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

From Library Journal

These two volumes address topics in the earliest and latest periods covered in the publisher's ambitious and almost global (Africa is regrettably not included) 40-volume "World Architecture" series. While Wildung's volume is a fundamental analysis of the ancient Egyptian building arts, Jodidio's book is more of a journalistic review of contemporary trends. After an introductory chapter that presents an architectural vocabulary, Wildung, curator of the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, surveys his topic chronologically from the early dynastic through the Roman periods. Serviceably translated from the German, his prose eschews academic language. Perhaps of the greatest value are the color photographs and the numerous plans and sections. Two indexes cover personal names and monuments, arranged by locality. By contrast, American Jodidio (Richard Meier, Taschen, 1995) arranges his book by building type and offers an innovative chapter on the intersection of art and architecture. Jodidio's introduction provides an overview of the period and useful definitions of postmodernism and deconstructivism. The selection criteria are unclear, however, with practitioners such as Josef Paul Kleihues and Michael Graves curiously absent. The text is a general discussion of design trends rather than an analysis of building form and content. Unfortunately, the index includes personal names only, though the biographies are helpful. In neither volume does the text refer to the illustrations. Nevertheless, the high quality of the graphic material makes these very sound investments for all architecture collections.?Paul Glassman, Pratt Inst. Lib., New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Taschen America Llc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 3822812218
• ISBN 13: 9783822812211
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 237
• Editor: Stierlin Henri