Form Follows Fiasco: Why Modern Architecture Hasn't Worked

Blake, Peter

ISBN 10: 0316099406 / ISBN 13: 9780316099400

Published by Little Brown and Company / An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, Boston/Toronto, 1977

About this Item

grey cloth boards w/ black cloth quarter spine. 169 pgs w/ 133 bw illustrations. glossy, grey & white illustrated dustjacket. Skillfully blending documentation and illustrations, and gradually sharpening polemic and humor, Blake calmly explodes the fantasies of modern dogma that most architects once accepted. Such truisms as 'form follows function', 'the open plan,' and 'purity of design' are exposed as volatile ideas. The intricately planned, artistically designed components of the Ideal City have divided urban areas into tidy ghettos of culture, education, business, residence.even pornography.alienating individuals and threatening not only the economic futures of our cities, but civilized aspects of life in the West as well.--dustjacket. VG-/G+ (shelf-wear to cover edges. foxing to textblock edges, cover pastedowns & endpapers. pgs clean & bright, though may have instances of foxing. tight binding. dustjacket scuffed, smudged & scratched; edge-wear; tears to spine & edges; foxing to edges & interior; flap creased & clipped). Seller Inventory # 183172

Bibliographic Details

Title: Form Follows Fiasco: Why Modern Architecture...

Publisher: Little Brown and Company / An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, Boston/Toronto

Publication Date: 1977

Binding: Hardcover

About this title

Synopsis:

Skillfully blending documentation and illustrations, and gradually sharpening polemic and humor, Blake calmly explodes the fantasies of modern dogma that most architects once accepted. Such truisms as 'form follows function', 'the open plan,' and 'purity of design' are exposed as volatile ideas. The intricately planned, artistically designed components of the Ideal City have divided urban areas into tidy ghettos of culture, education, business, residence...even pornography...alienating individuals and threatening not only the economic futures of our cities, but civilized aspects of life in the West as well.

This book calls for the slaughtering of the sacred cows of the Modern Movement, for a moratorium on the destruction of existing buildings and historic landmarks, and for an end to the construction of skyscrapers, new highways in developed nations, and single-use zoning. Blake demands legislation to hold building industries responsible for performance of their products, and a restructuring for performance of their products, and a restructuring of architectural education into something more basic and more human.