Form Follows Fiasco; Why Modern Architecture Hasn't Worked

Blake, Peter

ISBN 10: 0316099406 / ISBN 13: 9780316099400

Published by Little Brown & Co., Boston, 1977

About this Item

Black cloth and boards in very good condition. Owner name and address to glued down front end paper. Damp stain to bottom corner of ffep. Author shoots down many of the accepted theories and 'rules' of modern architecture. Dust jacket has flap creases, edgewear, scuffs and three short tears. 168 pp. Architecture, Criticism. Seller Inventory # 004934

Bibliographic Details

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

Publisher: Little Brown & Co., Boston

Publication Date: 1977

Binding: Half Cloth

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Good

Edition: First Edition

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.