THEORY AND DESIGN IN THE FIRST MACHINE AGE

Description

First published in 1960, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age has become required reading in numerous courses on the history of modern architecture and is widely regarded as one of the definitive books on the modern movement. It has influenced a generation of students and critics interested in the formation of attitudes, themes, and forms which were characteristic of artists and architects working primarily in Europe between 1900 and 1930 under the compulsion of new technological developments in the first machine age.

CONTENTS

PREDISPOSING CAUSES: ACADEMIC AND RATIONALIST WRITERS, 1900-1914

• The Academic tradition and the concept of elementary composition
• Choisy: Rationalism and technique
• The Academic succession: Garnier and Perret
• England: Lethaby and Scott
• Germany: Industry and the Werkbund
• The Factory aesthetic
• Adolf Loos and the problem of ornament

ITALY: FUTURIST MANIFESTOS AND PROJECTS, 1909-1914

• Futurism: the Foundation Manifesto
• Futurism: theory and development
• Sant’Elia and Futurist architecture

HOLLAND: THE LEGACY OF BERLAGE: DE STIJL, 1917-1925

• Holland: Berlage and attitudes to Wright
• De Stijl: the Dutch phase
• Expressionism: Amsterdam and Berlin
• De Stijl: the international phase

PARIS: THE WORLD OF ART AND LE CORBUSIER

• Architecture and the Cubist tradition
• Progressive building in Paris: 1918-1928
• Vers une Architecture
• Le Corbusier: town planning and aesthetics

GERMANY: BERLIN, THE BAUHAUS, THE VICTORY OF THE NEW STYLE

• The Berlin School
• The Bauhaus
• Germany: the encyclopaedics
• Conclusion: Functionalism and technology

340 pp., 137 illus. / 14 x 21 cm