Julien-David Leroy and the Making of Architectural History


Book Description

This book examines the career and publications of the French architect Julien-David Leroy (1724–1803) and his impact on architectural theory and pedagogy. Despite not leaving any built work, Leroy is a major international figure of eighteenth-century architectural theory and culture. Considering the place that Leroy occupied in various intellectual circles of the Enlightenment and Revolutionary period, this book examines the sources for his ideas about architectural history and theory and defines his impact on subsequent architectural thought. This book will be of key interest to graduate students and scholars of Enlightenment-era architectural history.




Julien-David Leroy and the Making of Architectural History


Book Description

This book examines the career and publications of the French architect Julien-David Leroy (1724–1803) and his impact on architectural theory and pedagogy. Despite not leaving any built work, Leroy is a major international figure of eighteenth-century architectural theory and culture. Considering the place that Leroy occupied in various intellectual circles of the Enlightenment and Revolutionary period, this book examines the sources for his ideas about architectural history and theory and defines his impact on subsequent architectural thought. This book will be of key interest to graduate students and scholars of Enlightenment-era architectural history.




Hut Pavilion Shrine: Architectural Archetypes in Mid-Century Modernism


Book Description

The phase of American architectural history we call 'mid-century modernism,' 1940-1980, saw the spread of Modern Movement tenets of functionalism, social service and anonymity into mainstream practice. It also saw the spread of their seeming opposites. Temples, arcades, domes, and other traditional types occur in both modernist and traditionalist forms from the 1950s to the 1970s. Hut Pavilion Shrine examines this crossroads of modernism and the archetypal, and critiques its buildings and theory. The book centers on one particularly important and omnipresent type, the pavilion - a type which was the basis of major work by Louis I. Kahn, Paul Rudolph, Philip Johnson, Minoru Yamasaki, and other eminent architects. While focusing primarily on the architecture culture of the United States, it also includes the work of British, European Team X, and Scandinavian designers and writers. Making connections between formal analysis, historical context, and theory, the book continues lines of inquiry which have been pursued by Neil Levine and Anthony Vidler on representation, and by Sarah Goldhagen and Alice Friedman on modernism’s 'forbidden' elements of the honorific and the visually pleasurable. It highlights the significance of 'pavilionizing' mid-century designers such as Victor Lundy, John Johansen, Eero Saarinen, and Edward Durell Stone, and shows how frequently essentialist and traditionalist types appeared in the roadside vernacular of drive-in restaurants, gas stations, furniture and car showrooms, branch banks, and motels. The book ties together the threads in mid-century architectural theory that addressed aspects of type, 'essential' structure, and primal 'humanistic' aspects of environment-making and discusses how these concerns outlived the mid-century moment, and in the designs and writings of Aldo Rossi and others they paved the way for Post-Modernism.




The Papers of Benjamin Franklin


Book Description

The forty-second volume of the collected writings and correspondences of the American statesman, ambassador, and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin In the spring of 1784, Franklin, John Jay, and British negotiator David Hartley exchanged ratifications of the definitive British-American peace treaty. Hoping for permission from Congress to return home, Franklin settled his accounts, negotiated a French consular convention, headed a royal commission to investigate animal magnetism, wrote several scientific theories, and published his well-known satire about rising with the sun. As the volume ends, Thomas Jefferson brings news of a diplomatic assignment that would keep Franklin in France for another year.




Autopsy in Athens


Book Description

This is an exciting time to study in Athens. The “rescue” excavations of recent years, conducted during construction of the Metro system and in preparation for the 2004 Olympics Games, combined with major restoration projects and a new enthusiasm for fresh examination of old material, using new techniques and applications, brings new perspectives and answers on many aspects of the ancient city of Athens and life, politics and religion in Attica. The 15 papers presented here contribute new findings that result from intensive, firsthand examinations of the archaeological and epigraphical evidence. They illustrate how much may be gained by reexamining material from older excavations, and from the methodological shift from documenting information to closer analysis and larger historical reflection. They offer a variety of perspectives on a range of issues: the ambiance of the ancient city for passersby, filled with roadside shrines; techniques of architectural construction and sculpting; religious expression in Athens including cults of Asklepios and Serapis; the precise procedures for Greek sacrifice; how the borders of Attica were defined over time, and details of its road-system. In presenting this volume the contributors are continuing in a long tradition of autopsy – in the sense of 'personal observation' – in Athens, that began even in the Hellenistic period and has continued through the writings of centuries of travelers and academics to the present day.




Shadow-Makers


Book Description

The making of shadows is an act as old as architecture itself. From the gloom of the medieval hearth through to the masterworks of modernism, shadows have been an essential yet neglected presence in architectural history. Shadow-Makers tells for the first time the history of shadows in architecture. It weaves together a rich narrative – combining close readings of significant buildings both ancient and modern with architectural theory and art history – to reveal the key places and moments where shadows shaped architecture in distinctive and dynamic ways. It shows how shadows are used as an architectural instrument of form, composition, and visual effect, while also exploring the deeper cultural context – tracing differing conceptions of their meaning and symbolism, whether as places of refuge, devotion, terror, occult practice, sublime experience or as metaphors of the unconscious. Within a chronological framework encompassing medieval, baroque, enlightenment, sublime, picturesque, and modernist movements, a wide range of topics are explored, from Hawksmoor's London churches, Japanese temple complexes and the shade-patterns of Islamic cities, to Ruskin in Venice and Aldo Rossi and Louis Kahn in the 20th century. This beautifully-illustrated study seeks to understand the work of these shadow-makers through their drawings, their writings, and through the masterpieces they built.




Architecture and ekphrasis


Book Description

Architecture and ekphrasis examines how eighteenth-century prints and drawings of antique architecture operated as representations of thought. Using original archival material, it considers the idea of the past in the period, specifically how it was discovered and described, and investigates how space and time inform visual ekphrasis or descriptions of architecture. The idea of embodiment is used to explore the various methods of describing architecture – including graphic techniques, measurement and perspective – all of which demonstrate choices about different modes of ekphrasis. This well-illustrated, accessibly written study will be of interest to academics and students working in a broad range of subject areas. It will also be an essential teaching tool for increasingly popular cross-disciplinary courses.




A Companion to Greek Architecture


Book Description

A Companion to Greek Architecture provides an expansive overview of the topic, including design, engineering, and construction as well as theory, reception, and lasting impact. Covers both sacred and secular structures and complexes, with particular attention to architectural decoration, such as sculpture, interior design, floor mosaics, and wall painting Makes use of new research from computer-driven technologies, the study of inscriptions and archaeological evidence, and recently excavated buildings Brings together original scholarship from an esteemed group of archaeologists and art historians Presents the most up-to-date English language coverage of Greek architecture in several decades while also sketching out important areas and structures in need of further research




The Architecture of Percier and Fontaine and the Struggle for Sovereignty in Revolutionary France


Book Description

As the official architects of Napoleon, Charles Percier (1764–1838) and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (1762–1853) designed interiors that responded to the radical ideologies and collective forms of destruction that took place during the French Revolution. The architects visualized new forms of imperial sovereignty by inverting the symbols of monarchy and revolution, constructing meeting rooms resembling military encampments and gilded thrones that replaced the Bourbon lily with Napoleonic bees. Yet in the wake of political struggle, each foundation stone that the architects laid for the new imperial regime was accompanied by an awareness of the contingent nature of sovereign power. Contributing fresh perspectives on the architecture, decorative arts, and visual culture of revolutionary France, this book explores how Percier and Fontaine’s desire to build structures of permanence and their inadvertent reliance upon temporary architectural forms shaped a new awareness of time, memory, and modern political identity in France.




The City and the Process of Transition from Early Modern Times to the Present


Book Description

In 2017, during a conference held at the Historical Institute of the University of Wrocław, Poland, an international group of early career researchers and PhD students had the opportunity to discuss the process of transition in cities from early modern times to the present day. This book, arising from the discussions of that meeting, focuses on the social, economic, political and structural transformations of some cities in Europe, the Near East and Asia from the seventeenth century up to the contemporary era. The first part of the text, entitled “Facing the Other: Perception, Relations, (Co)existence” explores the attitudes of the locals towards newcomers to a city, as well as the coexistence of different social, ethnic, religious and cultural groups, and their adaptation, assimilation, integration, and rejection. The second part “The Evolution of the Urban Space” concentrates on municipal and central authorities’ policies that, together with structural transformations in the urban tissue, had a direct impact on public space and the everyday life of the city dwellers. The volume will serve to contribute to the international discussion on the complexity of progressive urbanisation and its consequences from the early modern period onwards.




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