Mansions in the Clouds: The Skyscraper Palazzi of Emery Roth

Book by Ruttenbaum, Steven

Roth's ornate, eclectic apartment buildings in New York City harked back to Renaissance palaces at a time when architectural fashion was embracing Wright and Le Corbusier. Despising the "baldness" of so much modern architecture, he wedded limestone, brick and terra-cotta in functional yet richly detailed commercial buildings with Old World charm. Arriving in New York in 1884 as a penniless Hungarian immigrant, he rose to become a well-connected architect, weathering changes of taste and economics as he switched from '20s Art Deco to '30s Moderne to a hybrid of the classical and the new. Hotel St. Moritz, the Ritz Tower, the Normandy Apartments on Riverside Drive and some 250 other Manhattan buildings attest to his staying power. When the era of grand-scale living shrank, Roth made the typical 12 17 living/sleeping room both efficient and elegant. This, the first book on a neglected architect, is long overdue.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When architect Emery Roth died in 1948, he left a remarkable legacy of over 250 apartment buildings in New York City aloneexecuted not in the modern mode, but in a wonderful eclectic mix of Italian, French, and Spanish Renaissance styles. Many of these grand old buildingsthe San Remo, the Beresford, the Ritz Towerhave survived, adding an ineffable sense of style, sophistication, and romance to the urban fabricand relief from the ubiquitous glass and steel box. Historian Ruttenbaum has researched his subject meticulously, tracing Roth's career from his arrival in the United States from Hungary in 1884 up until he passed control of his firm over to his equally prolific sons in the 1940s. Long overdue, this volume with its 220 photographs and renderings makes an important contribution to our understanding and appreciation of Roth's architecture. H. Ward Jandl, National Park Svces., Washington D.C.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.