Modern House
Editorial Reviews Amazon.com The latter part of the 20th century was a fertile time for residential architecture, with a great variety of approaches in operation and no real sign of a ruling orthodoxy or a canonical style. As an editor at three British architectural magazines, John Welsh has had a good vantage point to observe this pluralistic parade, and he gathers a rich and provocative assortment of examples between the covers of Modern House. Welsh first provides a historic overview of residential modernism and then groups his more recent main examples into four types: model villas, structural essays, organic houses, and urban buildings. Big names such as Meier, Gehry, Botta, Koolhaas, and Ando rub elbows with lesser known but worthy practitioners. The houses themselves run a gamut from Allies and Morrison's seemingly ordinary Oakyard in London to Shinichi Ogawa's breathtakingly purist (and nearly unlivable) glass cube in Yamaguchi, Japan.
Welsh's text is solid and helpful, and the visual presentation is exemplary. Copious plans and photos (mostly in color) fill the 240 large-format pages, but we've come to expect that in big architectural books today. What distinguishes this one visually is a deft layout that does not call attention to itself, yet presents the material intelligibly and with grace. If only all book designers were as capable and attuned to their subject matter as the uncredited graphic designer of this volume. Highly recommended for both content and presentation. --John Pastier Phaidon The twentieth century has produced some of the most innovative and memorable designs for private houses, which have become architectural icons worldwide.
In the 1920s and 1930s, houses were the means by which architects established the early modern movement as more than an intellectual pursuit--private clients looked more favourably on commissioning the avant garde than, with few exceptions, large corporations or the state. Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, for example, created houses in that period which made clear statements on how the new architecture could be expressed.
Private houses today have once more entered the architectural mainstream. After a sustained period of economic boom, private clients have returned to architects to express their new-found wealth and status. The result is a decade of houses that reveal some of the real concerns of world-famous architects better known for their celebrated museums, and the talents of younger architects keen to establish their reputations.
This book examines in detail 30 contemporary houses from around the world, choosing those designed by an original and wide-ranging selection of architects which includes Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry, Glenn Murcutt, John Pawson and Claudio Silvestrin. Modern House
Modern House,John Welsh,Phaidon Press,0714838373,Architecture,Decorating - General,Domestic,History - Specific Styles,Architecture / General
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