Download or read book Impossible Heights written by Adnan Morshed and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-01-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The advent of the airplane and skyscraper in 1920s and ‘30s America offered the population an entirely new way to look at the world: from above. The captivating image of an airplane flying over the rising metropolis led many Americans to believe a new civilization had dawned. In Impossible Heights, Adnan Morshed examines the aesthetics that emerged from this valorization of heights and their impact on the built environment. The lofty vantage point from the sky ushered in a modernist impulse to cleanse crowded twentieth-century cities in anticipation of an ideal world of tomorrow. Inspired by great new heights, American architects became central to this endeavor and were regarded as heroic aviators. Combining close readings of a broad range of archival sources, Morshed offers new interpretations of works such as Hugh Ferriss’s Metropolis drawings, Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion houses, and Norman Bel Geddes’s Futurama exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Transformed by the populist imagination into “master builders,” these designers helped produce a new form of visuality: the aesthetics of ascension. By demonstrating how aerial movement and height intersect with popular “superman” discourses of the time, Morshed reveals the relationship between architecture, art, science, and interwar pop culture. Featuring a marvelous array of never before published illustrations, this richly textured study of utopian imaginings illustrates America’s propulsion into a new cultural consciousness.
Download or read book Master Builders written by National Trust for Historic Preservation and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1985-10-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Architect Builds Visible History." Vincent Scully Which architect designed the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty? Who put a Chippendale pediment atop a skyscraper and quickly created a landmark of contemporary architecture? Who was the only American architect to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery during the Civil War? Which architect designed a castle in California for William Randolph Hearst? Master Builders answers these and scores of other questions about more than 100 architects and builders who have left indelible marks on American architecture. This unique guide puts faces with America's most well-known and loved buildings--from the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument through the first skyscrapers and landmarks of the Post-Modern movement. "Why should you want to know more about these architects?" asks Roger K. Lewis in his introduction. "The reason is simple. You are undeniably connected to the built environment that you inhabit, use, see and respond to. You affect building design, and building design affects you." Can you pair these master builders with their works? Frank Lloyd Wright U.S. Capitol Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Central Park Adler and Sullivan University of Virginia Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Glass House William Thornton Home Insurance Building Orson Squire Fowler Fallingwater H. H. Richardson CBS Building Frederick Law Olmsted San Simeon James Renwick Seagram Building Robert Mills Trinity Church, Boston I. M. Pei Salk Institute Julia Morgan Sears Tower Eero Saarinen Smithsonian "Castle" Cass Gilbert John E. Kennedy Library McKim, Mead and White U.S. Supreme Court Louis I. Kahn Chicago Stock Exchange Thomas Jefferson Octagonal Houses Philip Johnson Pennsylvania Station William Le Baron Jenney Washington Monument
Download or read book Rise of the New York Skyscraper 1865 1913 written by Sarah Bradford Landau and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The invention of the New York skyscraper is one of the most fascinating developments in the history of architecture. This authoritative book chronicles the history of New York's first skyscrapers, challenging conventional wisdom that it was in Chicago and not New York that the skyscraper was born. 206 illustrations.
Download or read book Skyscrapers and the Men who Build Them written by William Aiken Starrett and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Master Builders written by Diane Maddex and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Skyscraper and the City written by Gail Fenske and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-08 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Woolworth Building is noted for its striking but incongruous synthesis of Beaux-Arts architecture, fanciful Gothic ornamentation, and audacious steel-framed engineering. Here, in the first history of this great urban landmark, Gail Fenske argues that its design serves as a compelling lens through which to view the distinctive urban culture of Progressive-era New York. Fenske shows here that the building’s multiplicity of meanings reflected the cultural contradictions that defined New York City’s modernity. For Frank Woolworth—founder of the famous five-and-dime store chain—the building served as a towering trademark, for advocates of the City Beautiful movement it suggested a majestic hotel de ville, for technological enthusiasts it represented the boldest of experiments in vertical construction, and for tenants it provided an evocative setting for high-style consumption. Tourists, meanwhile, experienced a spectacular sightseeing destination and avant-garde artists discovered a twentieth-century future. In emphasizing this faceted significance, Fenske illuminates the process of conceiving, financing, and constructing skyscrapers as well as the mass phenomena of consumerism, marketing, news media, and urban spectatorship that surround them. As the representative example of the skyscraper as a “cathedral of commerce,” the Woolworth Building remains a commanding presence in the skyline of lower Manhattan, and the generously illustrated Skyscraper and the City is a worthy testament to its importance in American culture.
Download or read book The American Skyscraper 1850 1940 written by Joseph J. Korom and published by Branden Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The skyscraper is an American invention that has captured the public's imagination for over a century. The tall building is wholly manmade and borne in the minds of those with both slide rules and computers. This is the story of the skyscraper's rise and the recognition of those individuals who contributed to its development. This volume is unique; its approach, information, and images are fresh and telling. The text examines America's first tall buildings -- the result of twelve years of in-depth research by an accomplished and published architect and architectural historian. Over 300 compelling photographs, charts, and notes make this the ultimate tool of reference for this subject. Biographies woven throughout with period norms, politics and lifestyles help to place featured skyscrapers in context. Quite simply, there is no book like this. The text, carefully and insightfully written, is clear, concise, and easily digestible, the text being the product of well-documented original research written in an informative tone. The American Skyscraper 1850-1940: A Celebration of Height is a richly documented journey of a fascinating topic, and it promises to be a superb addition to libraries, schools of architecture, students of architecture, and lovers of art.
Download or read book Higher written by Neal Bascomb and published by Crown. This book was released on 2003-10-21 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roaring Twenties in New York was a time of exuberant ambition, free-flowing optimism, an explosion of artistic expression in the age of Prohibition. New York was the city that embodied the spirit and strength of a newly powerful America. In 1924, in the vibrant heart of Manhattan, a fierce rivalry was born. Two architects, William Van Alen and Craig Severance (former friends and successful partners, but now bitter adversaries), set out to imprint their individual marks on the greatest canvas in the world--the rapidly evolving skyline of New York City. Each man desired to build the city’s tallest building, or ‘skyscraper.’ Each would stop at nothing to outdo his rival. Van Alen was a creative genius who envisioned a bold, contemporary building that would move beyond the tired architecture of the previous century. By a stroke of good fortune he found a larger-than-life patron in automobile magnate Walter Chrysler, and they set out to build the legendary Chrysler building. Severance, by comparison, was a brilliant businessman, and he tapped his circle of downtown, old-money investors to begin construction on the Manhattan Company Building at 40 Wall Street. From ground-breaking to bricklaying, Van Alen and Severance fought a cunning duel of wills. Each man was forced to revamp his architectural design in an attempt to push higher, to overcome his rival in mid-construction, as the structures rose, floor by floor, in record time. Yet just as the battle was underway, a third party entered the arena and announced plans to build an even larger building. This project would be overseen by one of Chrysler’s principal rivals--a representative of the General Motors group--and the building ultimately became known as The Empire State Building. Infused with narrative thrills and perfectly rendered historical and engineering detail, Higher brings to life a sensational episode in American history. Author Neal Bascomb interweaves characters such as Al Smith and Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, leading up to an astonishing climax that illustrates one of the most ingenious (and secret) architectural achievements of all time.
Download or read book The Builder written by and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 1370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Skyscraper Gothic written by Kevin D. Murphy estate and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all building types, the skyscraper strikes observers as the most modern, in terms not only of height but also of boldness, scale, ingenuity, and daring. As a phenomenon born in late nineteenth-century America, it quickly became emblematic of New York, Chicago, and other major cities. Previous studies of these structures have tended to foreground examples of more evincing modernist approaches, while those with styles reminiscent of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe were initially disparaged as being antimodernist or were simply unacknowledged. Skyscraper Gothic brings together a group of renowned scholars to address the medievalist skyscraper—from flying buttresses to dizzying spires; from the Chicago Tribune Tower to the Woolworth Building in Manhattan. Drawing on archival evidence and period texts to uncover the ways in which patrons and architects came to understand the Gothic as a historic style, the authors explore what the appearance of Gothic forms on radically new buildings meant urbanistically, architecturally, and socially, not only for those who were involved in the actual conceptualization and execution of the projects but also for the critics and the general public who saw the buildings take shape. Contributors: Lisa Reilly on the Gothic skyscraper ● Kevin Murphy on the Trinity and U.S. Realty Buildings ● Gail Fenske on the Woolworth Building ● Joanna Merwood-Salisbury on the Chicago School ● Katherine M. Solomonson on the Tribune Tower ● Carrie Albee on Atlanta City Hall ● Anke Koeth on the Cathedral of Learning ● Christine G. O'Malley on the American Radiator Building
Download or read book Greater Gotham written by Mike Wallace and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-04 with total page 1195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this utterly immersive volume, Mike Wallace captures the swings of prosperity and downturn, from the 1898 skyscraper-driven boom to the Bankers' Panic of 1907, the labor upheaval, and violent repression during and after the First World War. Here is New York on a whole new scale, moving from national to global prominence -- an urban dynamo driven by restless ambition, boundless energy, immigrant dreams, and Wall Street greed. Within the first two decades of the twentieth century, a newly consolidated New York grew exponentially. The city exploded into the air, with skyscrapers jostling for prominence, and dove deep into the bedrock where massive underground networks of subways, water pipes, and electrical conduits sprawled beneath the city to serve a surging population of New Yorkers from all walks of life. New York was transformed in these two decades as the world's second-largest city and now its financial capital, thriving and sustained by the city's seemingly unlimited potential. Wallace's new book matches its predecessor in pure page-turning appeal and takes America's greatest city to new heights.
Download or read book Master Builders written by Peter Blake and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1996-09-03 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of modern architecture is told here through the lives and works of three men who changed the face of the cities we live in. Le Corbusier gave to modern design a sure and brilliant sense of form; Mies brought an almost Gothic discipline of structure; and Wright heralded a new and dramatic concept of space and freedom. Through this triple focus, Peter Blake provides a perspective on the entire range of twentieth-century architecture.
Download or read book One World Trade Center written by Judith Dupré and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Skyscrapers, the behind-the-scenes story of the most extraordinary building in the world: One World Trade Center. The new World Trade Center represents one of the most complex collaborations in human history. Nearly every state in the nation, a dozen countries around the world, and more than 25,000 workers helped raise the tower, which consumed ninety million pounds of steel, one million square feet of glass, and enough concrete to pave a sidewalk from New York to Chicago. With more than seventy interviews with the people most intimately involved, and unprecedented access to the building site, suppliers, and archives, Duprè unfurls the definitive story of fourteen years of conflict and controversy-and its triumphant resolution. This fascinating, oversize book delivers new insight into the 1,776-foot-tall engineering marvel, from design and excavation through the final placement of its spire. It offers: Access to the minds of world-class architects, engineers, ironworkers, and other tradespeople Panoramas of New York from One World Observatory-1,268 feet above the earth Dramatic cutaways that show the building's advanced structural technologies A time-lapse montage showing the evolution of the sixteen-acre site Chronologies tracking design, construction, and financial milestones, with rare historic photographs It also features extensive tour of the entire Trade Center, including in-depth chapters on Two, Three, Four, and Seven World Trade Center; the National September 11 Memorial & Museum; Liberty Park; St. Nicholas National Shrine; and the soaring Transportation Hub. One World Trade Center is the only book authorized by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, and the one book necessary to understand the new World Trade Center in its totality. This is a must-have celebration of American resilience and ingenuity for all who are invested in the rebuilding of Ground Zero.
Download or read book Skyscraper written by Benjamin Flowers and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2009-10-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Skyscraper, Benjamin Flowers explores the role of culture and ideology in shaping the construction of skyscrapers and the way wealth and power have operated to reshape the urban landscape.
Download or read book Building Age written by and published by . This book was released on 1903 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reflections on Stalinism written by J. Arch Getty and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-15 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reflections on Stalinism distills decades of historical thought and research, bringing together twelve senior scholars of Soviet history who began their careers during the Cold War to examine their views of Stalinism. They present insights into the role of personality in statecraft, the social underpinnings of dictatorship and state terrorism, historians' attachments to their subjects, historical causality, the applicability of Marxist categories to Soviet history, the relationship of Soviet history to post-Soviet Russia, and more. Essays address the transformation of a peasant country into a superpower and the causes and scale of domestic bloodshed. Reflections on Stalinism ultimately tackles an age-old question: Do powerful people make history or are they the product of it?
Download or read book Terror and Wonder written by Blair Kamin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-11 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collects the best of Kamin's writings for the Chicago Tribune from the past decade.
