Download or read book Simone Swan written by Dennis Dollens and published by Lumen Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecological adobe vault and dome construction methods based on Egyptian forms introduced into the American Southwest.
Download or read book Saving Abstraction written by Ryan Dohoney and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-25 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saving Abstraction: Morton Feldman, the de Menils, and the Rothko Chapel tells the story of the 1972 premier of Morton Feldman's music for the Rothko Chapel in Houston. Built in 1971 for "people of all faiths or none," the chapel houses 14 monumental paintings by famed abstract expressionist Mark Rothko, who had committed suicide only one year earlier. Upon its opening, visitors' responses to the chapel ranged from spiritual succor to abject tragedy--the latter being closest to Rothko's intentions. However the chapel's founders--art collectors and philanthropists Dominique and John de Menil--opened the space to provide an ecumenically and spiritually affirming environment that spoke to their avant-garde approach to Catholicism. A year after the chapel opened, Morton Feldman's musical work Rothko Chapel proved essential to correcting the unintentionally grave atmosphere of the de Menil's chapel, translating Rothko's existential dread into sacred ecumenism for visitors. Author Ryan Dohoney reconstructs the network of artists, musicians, and patrons who collaborated on the premier of Feldman's music for the space, and documents the ways collaborators struggled over fundamental questions about the emotional efficacy of art and its potential translation into religious feeling. Rather than frame the debate as a conflict of art versus religion, Dohoney argues that the popular claim of modernism's autonomy from religion has been overstated and that the two have been continually intertwined in an agonistic tension that animates many 20th-century artistic collaborations.
Download or read book Living Homes written by Suzi Moore and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2008-02-06 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiles more than twenty residences and other structures built in "natural design" style with adobe, rammed earth, straw bale, and reinvented materials, presenting color photos and the stories of their architects and owners.
Download or read book Double Vision written by William Middleton and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **NAMED ONE OF THE BEST ART BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY ARTNEWS** The first and definitive biography of the celebrated collectors Dominique and John de Menil, who became one of the greatest cultural forces of the twentieth century through groundbreaking exhibits of art, artistic scholarship, the creation of innovative galleries and museums, and work with civil rights. Dominique and John de Menil created an oasis of culture in their Philip Johnson-designed house with everyone from Marlene Dietrich and René Magritte to Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. In Houston, they built the Menil Collection, the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, the Cy Twombly Gallery, and underwrote the Contemporary Arts Museum. Now, with unprecedented access to family archives, William Middleton has written a sweeping biography of this unique couple. From their ancestors in Normandy and Alsace, to their own early years in France, and their travels in South America before settling in Houston. We see them introduced to the artists in Europe and America whose works they would collect, and we see how, by the 1960s, their collection had grown to include 17,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, rare books, and decorative objects. And here is, as well, a vivid behind-the-scenes look at the art world of the twentieth century and the enormous influence the de Menils wielded through what they collected and built and through the causes they believed in.
Download or read book Solar Adobe written by Albert Narath and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How a centuries-old architectural tradition reemerged as a potential solution to the political and environmental crises of the 1970s Against the backdrop of a global energy crisis, a widespread movement embracing the use of raw earth materials for building construction emerged in the 1970s. Solar Adobe examines this new wave of architectural experimentation taking place in the United States, detailing how an ancient tradition became a point of convergence for issues of environmentalism, architecture, technology, and Indigenous resistance. Utilized for centuries by the Pueblo people of the American Southwest and by Spanish colonialists, adobe construction found renewed interest as various groups contended with the troubled legacies of modern architecture and an increasingly urgent need for sustainable design practices. In this period of critical experimentation, design networks that included architects, historians, counterculture communities, government weapons labs, and Indigenous activists all looked to adobe as a means to address pressing environmental and political issues. Albert Narath charts the unique capacities of adobe construction across a wide range of contexts, consistently troubling simple distinctions between traditional and modern technologies, high design and vernacular architecture. Drawing insightful parallels between architecture, environmentalism, and movements for Indigenous sovereignty, Solar Adobe stresses the importance of considering the history of the built environment in conjunction with architecture’s larger impact on the natural world.
Download or read book Making Houston Modern written by Barrie Scardino Bradley and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complex, controversial, and prolific, Howard Barnstone was a central figure in the world of twentieth-century modern architecture. Recognized as Houston’s foremost modern architect in the 1950s, Barnstone came to prominence for his designs with partner Preston M. Bolton, which transposed the rigorous and austere architectural practices of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to the hot, steamy coastal plain of Texas. Barnstone was a man of contradictions—charming and witty but also self-centered, caustic, and abusive—who shaped new settings that were imbued, at once, with spatial calm and emotional intensity. Making Houston Modern explores the provocative architect’s life and work, not only through the lens of his architectural practice but also by delving into his personal life, class identity, and connections to the artists, critics, collectors, and museum directors who forged Houston’s distinctive culture in the postwar era. Edited by three renowned voices in the architecture world, this volume situates Barnstone within the contexts of American architecture, modernism, and Jewish culture to unravel the legacy of a charismatic personality whose imaginative work as an architect, author, teacher, and civic commentator helped redefine architecture in Texas.
Download or read book Marfa and Presidio County Texas written by Louise O'Connor and Cecilia Thompson and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their quest to complete their study and to share a better knowledge and understanding of a part of Texas that is still somewhat a frontier, authors Louise S. O'Connor and Cecilia Thompson reveal the first volume of their book Marfa and Presidio County, Texas: A Social, Economic, and Cultural Study 1937 to 2008 Volume One, 1937-1989. In a book that offers a closer look at the past and the present, readers will see how a place known as a tourist area and a center of contemporary art came to be. It returns to the pre-historic era of Far West Texas and bring readers up to the present with yearly reports on the region as well as extensive formal research and personal interviews with present day people who live in Presidio County. A case study worth reading, this book is an eye-opener for a better understanding of how this small yet historically rich land is what it is now. Packed with the economic, social, and cultural history of Presidio County; this book gives readers, both lay and the historians, a clear and complete picture of the events that lead to the preservation, industrialization, and the improvement of one of the frontiers of the United States of America.
Download or read book The Art Museums of Louis I Kahn written by Patricia Cummings Loud and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Descendants written by Abdel-moniem El-Shorbagy and published by BookRix. This book was released on 2020-06-26 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hassan Fathy's (1900-1989) ideas and philosophy opened opportunities and became a source of inspiration for architects to recognize and appreciate their traditional architecture. The response to Fathy’s approach from architects in the Developing World differed from that of Western architects. When Fathy’s architecture began to be widely known from the 1970s onward, these architects were influenced by his works, not only because of their links to the vernacular, but also because of their associations with Islamic architecture. The common response of these architects to Fathy’s architecture was that they regarded his buildings as prototypes for the contemporary Islamic architecture of the Middle East as his traditional forms and techniques epitomize their national and regional features. On the other hand, the response of Western architects to Fathy’s architecture and ideas varied. While some architects admired the new possibilities of building domes and vaults with a primitive material such as mud, others were inspired by Fathy’s philosophy and his humanistic approach.
Download or read book A Memoir of Creativity written by Piri Halasz and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2009 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Memoir of Creativity chronicles one woman's life journey as she derives a theory, revealing meaning in abstract painting, from varied personal and professional experiences, and tells how she locates this theory within a broader social context. In 1966, Piri Halasz became the first woman within living memory to write a cover story for Time (and not just any cover story, either: the notorious one on "Swinging London"). With wit and wisdom, she provides a glimpse into her "red-diaper" childhood, as well as reporting on her climb at Time from research to the writing staff. Vividly, she describes her controversial career as a female journalist during the sixties, offering an inside view of newsweekly rivalries during that tempestuous decade. Halasz then moves on to her initiation into the art world, her lively interaction with some of its most distinguished denizens and her immersion in graduate school. She concludes with what she has learned about art, art history, and history itself since the early eighties, applying that knowledge to better understand the twenty-first century. Through sharing her life story, Halasz encourages others to remain open to new experiences, to try different ways of seeing, and to use creativity to tackle hurdles.
Download or read book Undermining written by Lucy R. Lippard and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning author, curator, and activist Lucy R. Lippard is one of America’s most influential writers on contemporary art, a pioneer in the fields of cultural geography, conceptualism, and feminist art. Hailed for "the breadth of her reading and the comprehensiveness with which she considers the things that define place" (The New York Times), Lippard now turns her keen eye to the politics of land use and art in an evolving New West. Working from her own lived experience in a New Mexico village and inspired by gravel pits in the landscape, Lippard weaves a number of fascinating themes—among them fracking, mining, land art, adobe buildings, ruins, Indian land rights, the Old West, tourism, photography, and water—into a tapestry that illuminates the relationship between culture and the land. From threatened Native American sacred sites to the history of uranium mining, she offers a skeptical examination of the "subterranean economy." Featuring more than two hundred gorgeous color images, Undermining is a must-read for anyone eager to explore a new way of understanding the relationship between art and place in a rapidly shifting society.
Download or read book Modern Earth Buildings written by Matthew R Hall and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-07-11 with total page 809 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The construction of earth buildings has been taking place worldwide for centuries. With the improved energy efficiency, high level of structural integrity and aesthetically pleasing finishes achieved in modern earth construction, it is now one of the leading choices for sustainable, low-energy building. Modern earth buildings provides an essential exploration of the materials and techniques key to the design, development and construction of such buildings. Beginning with an overview of modern earth building, part one provides an introduction to design and construction issues including insulation, occupant comfort and building codes. Part two goes on to investigate materials for earth buildings, before building technologies are explored in part three including construction techniques for earth buildings. Modern earth structural engineering is the focus of part four, including the creation of earth masonry structures, use of structural steel elements and design of natural disaster-resistant earth buildings. Finally, part five of Modern earth buildings explores the application of modern earth construction through international case studies. With its distinguished editors and international team of expert contributors, Modern earth buildings is a key reference work for all low-impact building engineers, architects and designers, along with academics in this field. Provides an essential exploration of the materials and techniques key to the design, development and construction of modern earth buildings Comprehensively discusses design and construction issues, materials for earth buildings, construction techniques and modern earth structural engineering, among other topics Examines the application of modern earth construction through international case studies
Download or read book 1971 written by Darby English and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art historian Darby English is celebrated for working against the grain and plumbing gaps in historical narratives. In this book, he explores the year 1971, when two exhibitions opened that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the burning heart of black cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in America, shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The DeLuxe Show, an integrated abstract art exhibition presented in a renovated movie theater in a Houston ghetto.1971 takes an insightful look at many black artists' desire to gain freedom from overt racial representation, as well as their and their advocates' efforts to further that aim through public exhibitions. Amid calls to define a "black aesthetic" or otherwise settle the race question, these experiments with modernist art favored cultural interaction and instability. Contemporary Black Artists in America highlighted abstraction as a stance against normative approaches, while The DeLuxe Show positioned abstraction in a center of urban blight. The power and social importance of these experiments, English argues, came partly from color's special status as a racial metaphor and partly from investigations of color that were underway in formalist American art and criticism.
Download or read book Sussex Archaeological Collections Relating to the History and Antiquities of the County written by Sussex Archaeological Society and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Guru written by Abdel-moniem El-Shorbagy and published by BookRix. This book was released on 2019-02-23 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hassan Fathy returned from Athens to live in Cairo in 1962. He was thoroughly depressed at the thought of having to live among the noisy, crowded streets of modern Cairo. However, he lived in a flat in the Aly Labib house, a Mamluk house built in the 18th century and was known as Beit Al-Fan (home of the art). Not surprisingly, Fathy’s belief in the value of tradition was still strong. His primary concern was to develop his mud-brick style and the self-help building approach, which he had been experimenting with since the mid-1940s. In the period between 1962 and 1967, Fathy experienced misfortune in realizing many projects. However, since 1967 until his death in 1989, Fathy’ traditional approach began to be appreciated and he was able to design and build many different residential projects as well as commercial ones. In the 1980, Fathy’s effort was acknowledged by many awards including, the United Nations Peace Medal, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and the first Gold Medal of the Union Internationale des Architects. In 1989, Fathy died in his 18th century Mamluk house, Cairo.
Download or read book Traditional Islamic Principles of Built Environment written by Hisham Mortada and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written with the non-Muslim reader in mind, this book analyses the principles and values established by Islamic tradition to govern the social and physical environments of Muslims. The picture of Islam that emerges from this work is of a way of life with social ideals. Relying on the Qur'an and Sunna, the basic sources of Islamic law, and using examples of the built environment of early Muslims in North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia, the author explains how following these ideals can create an urban environment that responds to social and environmental variables.Islamic views on the controversial issue of modernisation are also examined. This book will be of interest to people in the fields of urban planning, architecture, sociology, anthropology, housing and built environment, as well as Islamic studies.
Download or read book Carlos Jimenez Buildings written by Carlos Jimenez and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 1996-11 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first monograph published in the United States on Carlos Jimenez, whose work has been linked to the new wave of Spanish architects as well as to Latin American architects such as Luis Barragan. Jimenez's buildings are known for their purity of form, use of bold color, and sophisticated ordering of spaces. His simple geometries allow light to define and animate his otherwise tranquil interiors. This monograph presents eight of the architect's most stunning projects, including the headquarters for the Houston Fine Arts Press, the new Spencer Studio Art Building at Williams College in Massachusetts, the Central Administration Building of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Jimenez's own house and studio complex. Richly illustrated throughout with photographs, plans, and drawings, the book includes an introduction by Rafael Moneo, an essay by historian Stephen Fox, and a postscript by Lars Lerup, as well as complete project documentation.
