The Details of Modern Architecture Volume 2: 1928 to 1988

About this book

This second volume of The Details of Modern Architecture continues the study of the relationships of the ideals of design and the realities of construction in modern architecture beginning in the late 1920s and extending to the present day. It contains a wealth of new information on the construction of modern architecture at a variety of scales from minute details to general principles. There are over 500 illustrations including 130 original photographs and 230 original axonometric drawings arranged to explain the technical aesthetic and historical aspects of the building form. Most of the modern movements in architecture have identified some paradigm of good construction arguing that buildings should be built like Gothic cathedrals like airplanes like automobiles like ships or like primitive dwellings. Ford examines the degree to which these models were followed either in spirit or in form and reveals much about both the theories and techniques of modern architecture including the extent to which the current constructional theories of High Tech and Deconstruction are dependent on the traditional modernist paradigms as well as the ways in which all of these theories differ from the realities of modern building. Individual chapters treat the work of Eliel and Eero Saarinen Eric Gunnar Asplund Richard Neutra Alvar Aalto Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn as well as the Case Study High Tech Postmodern and Deconstructivist architects. Among the individual buildings documented are Eliel Saarinens Cranbrook School Asplunds Woodland Cemetery Fullers Dymaxion house the Venturi house the Eames and other Case Study houses the concrete buildings of Le Corbusier Aaltos Saynatsalo Town Hall and Kahns Exeter Library and Salk Institutewith many details published for the first time.