
The Secret Life of Buildings
An American Mythology for Modern Architecture
Gavin Macrae-Gibson(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 1. January 1988
Book
Paperback/Softback
234 pages
978-0-262-63118-1 (ISBN)
Description
American architecture is undergoing fundamental changes. Gavin Macrae-Gibson interprets this new architecture in critiques of Frank Gehry's house in Santa Monica (the representation of perception); Peter Eisenman's House El Even Odd (millenial anxiety); Cesar Pelli's Four Leaf Towers (a sensibility of silence); Michael Graves's Portland Building (a concern for the sublime); Robert Stern's Bozzi House (a discussion of scenography); Alan Greenberg's Manchester Superior Court Building (the continuity of the classical); and Robert Venturi's Gordon Wu Hall Princeton (an irony of the difficult whole). The author rejects modernist explanations of these recent architectural achievements in favor of a new poetic logic that he combines with a formal analysis to reveal the layers of meaning present in each building, including the deepest layer its secret life.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass.
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 279 mm
Width: 203 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
694 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-63118-1 (9780262631181)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Gavin Macrae-Gibson is a practicing architect. He has been Visiting Lecturer in Architectural Theory at Yale University since 1982, and has taught and lectured widely throughout the United States and Canada.