Sandfuture (Paperback)

Paperback. An account of the life and work of the architect Minoru Yamasaki that leads the author to consider how (and for whom) architectural history is written.Sandfuture is a book about the life of the architect Minoru Yamasaki (19121986), who remains on the margins of history despite the enormous influence of his work on American architecture and society. That Yamasakis most famous projectsthe Pruitt-Igoe apartments in St. Louis and the original World Trade Center in New Yorkwere both destroyed on national television, thirty years apart, makes his relative obscurity all the more remarkable. Sandfuture is also a book about an artist interrogating art and architectures role in culture as New York changes drastically after a decade bracketed by terrorism and natural disaster. From the central thread of Yamasakis life, Sandfuture spirals outward to include reflections on a wide range of subjects, from the figure of the architect in literature and film and transformations in the contemporary art market to the perils of sick buildings and the broader social and political implications of how, and for whom, cities are built. The result is at once sophisticated in its understanding of material culture and novelistic in its telling of a good story. "A work of literary non-fiction about the life of architect Minoru Yamasaki (architect of the Twin Towers), but also a parallel narrative about an artist (the author) interrogating art and architecture's role in culture in NYC"-- Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…