Perspecta 32 : The Yale Architectural Journal

by Ann Marie Brennan, Nahum Goodenow and Brendan D. Moran (Eds.)

• ISBN13: 9780262523097
• ISBN10: 0262523094
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-30
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

"Resurfacing Modernism" Founded in 1950, Perspectais the oldest and most distinguished of student-edited American architectural journals. Perspecta 32examines contemporary "resurfacings" represented by the return of many forms and values associated with mid-twentieth-century modernism. By 1950, a plethora of architectural practices were adapting earlier modernist experimentation to the changing times. Numerous buildings of this period employed sleek surfaces of glass, metal, and stone to provide primary stylistic unity. More generally, much architectural activity involved the quotation, manipulation, and modification of past appearances (surfaces) and discourses (spaces). Exceptional architecture of the last decade-not only built work, but also historical and theoretical research-has again been informed by such imagery and actions. For this reason, Perspecta 32explores the prospects of mid-century modernism in a postmodern age. The issue invokes three different meanings of "resurface": the reappearance of aspects of the past as well as the layering of new meanings and interpretations onto accepted conventions, and the peeling away of accrued patinas associated with modernism. While critical explorations of architectural modernism have frequently emphasized surface qualities, the recognition and analysis of surface as a subject with depth presents itself now more than ever. Contributors to Perspecta 32include, among others, George Baird, Peggy Deamer, Deborah Fausch, Michael Hays, Sandy Isenstadt, and Reinhold Martin.

Table of Contents

Resurfacing Modernism: An Editorial Overview	5	(8)
Resurfacing
Rococo Modernism: The Elegance of Style	8	(10)
Deborah Fausch
Pandora's Box: An Essay on Metropolitan Portraits	18	(10)
Demetri Porphyrios
OMA, ``Neo-Modern,'' and Modernity: George Baird in ``Conversation'' with the editors of Perspecta 32	28	(10)
George Baird
Making the Modified Modern	38	(17)
David Smiley
The Style of Education	55	(2)
Herbert Mclaughlin Jr.
Redefining the Box	57	(9)
Reading Surfaces
Atrocities. Or, Curtain Wall as Mass Medium	66	(10)
Reinhold Martin
Four Stops Along an Architecture of Postwar America	76	(14)
Richard M. Sommer
Structuring Surfaces: The Legacy of the Whites	90	(10)
Peggy Deamer
Prolegomenon for a Study Linking the Advanced Architecture of the Present to that of the 1970s through Ideologies of Media, the Experience of Cities in Transition, and the Ongoing Effects of Reification	100	(8)
K. Michael Hays
Recurring Surfaces: Architecture in the Experience Economy	108	(12)
Sandy Isenstadt
Contributors	120