Alvar Aalto : Between Humanism and Materialism

by Aalto, Alvar; Reed, Peter; Frampton, Kenneth

• ISBN13: 9780870701085
• ISBN10: 0870701088
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-06-01
• Publisher: Distributed Art Pub Inc

Summary

Of the indisputably great figures in 20th-century architecture, Alvar Aalto is in many ways the most humane, the least rigid, the most relevant to our contemporary sensibility and the emerging future. This sumptuous book offers a thorough study of an innovative and prolific master, whom Frank Lloyd Wright termed a genius. This fresh, penetrating examination of Aalto's work and influence includes essays by five notable critics and historians. Some 50 of Aalto's projects--houses, town halls, cultural institutions, factories, furniture and glass designs, and regional plans--from all periods of his extraordinarily productive career are illustrated and described, using much previously unpublished and newly photographic material. This book was published to accompany a 1998 retrospective exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 7
Preface	p. 9
Appreciation	p. 11
Introduction	p. 13
Acknowledgments	p. 15
Alvar Aalto: Toward a Synthetic Functionalism	p. 20
Aalto's Nature	p. 46
Aalto and Finnish Industry	p. 70
Alvar Aalto and the New Humanism of the Postwar Era	p. 94
The Legacy of Alvar Aalto: Evolution and Influence	p. 118
Plates	p. 141
A Note on Aalto as a Competitor	p. 304
Chronology	p. 308
Selected Bibliography	p. 314
Photograph Credits	p. 316
Index	p. 318
Trustees	p. 320
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.