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Summary
Summary
Not since the 1920s has American architecture undergone such fundamental changes as those which are revitalizing the profession today. But in this period of great artistic fertility and unrest, there has yet to emerge a critical theory capable of analyzing the conditions and examining the attitudes by which our architecture is being redefined. Gavin Macrae-Gibson is the first of a generation of architects educated in the 1970s to construct a method of criticism powerful enough to interpret this new architecture. The theory is built upon a close reading of seven works, all completed in the 1980s: Frank Gehry's Gehry House in Santa Monica, Peter Eisenman's House El Even Odd, Cesar Pelli's Four Leaf Towers in Houston, Michael Graves' Portland Public Service building, Robert Stern's Bozzi residence in East Hampton, Allan Greenberg's Manchester Superior Courthouse in Connecticut, and Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown's Gordon Wu Hall at Princeton. The author uses urban plans, and architectural drawings and photographs to reveal the layers of meaning present in each building, including the deepest layer-its secret life. At this level the buildings have in common the fact that their meaning is derived from the realities of an imperfect present and no longer from the anticipation of a utopian future. Gavin Macrae-Gibson is a practicing architect. He has been Visiting Lecturer in Architectural Theory at Yale University since 1982, and has taught and lectured widely throughout the United States and Canada. A Graham Foundation Book. The Graham Foundation Architecture Series Two decades ago, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in the Fine Arts published Robert Venturi's epoch-making Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture in association with the Museum of Modern Art. Now the foundation is renewing its commitment to architectural literature by announcing the first two titles of a new series it is launching with The MIT Press. The aim is to publish books that are of crucial importance to the theory and practice of architecture, and that will enhance the understanding of architecture as a humanist discipline. The series will feature original texts by contemporary architects, historians, theorists, and critics.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
This is an extended discussion of seven recent buildings designed between 1978 and 1983 by American architects Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Cesar Pelli, Michael Graves, Robert Stern, Allan Greenberg, and Robert Venturi. The buildings include examples of period revival, modern, and postmodern design. The author's purpose is to demonstrate the existence of an alternative to orthodox architectural modernism, which he labels ``lyric modernism.'' Physically, this book meets the usual high standards of the MIT Press. Macrae-Gibson's book is a very personal interpretation rather than a scholarly, historical study of the subject. There are some serious problems with this study: the author, for example, admits that his analysis omits important aspects of architecture such as function, physical structure, and political considerations. Everything about this book is idiosyncratic-from the criteria for selection, to the author's definition of orthodox modernism, and the bibliography. The audience for this book is limited to those seriously involved with contemporary architectural criticism.-D.P. Doordan, Tulane University
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. ix |
| Preface | p. x |
| Introduction | p. xii |
| A Method of Criticism for Modern Architecture | |
| The Secret Life of Buildings | |
| 1 The Representation of Perception | p. 2 |
| Gehry House, Frank O. Gehry and Associates | |
| 2 The Anxiety of the Second Fall | p. 30 |
| House El Even Odd, Peter Eisenman | |
| 3 The Sensibility of Silence | p. 52 |
| Four Leaf Towers, Cesar Pelli and Associates | |
| 4 The Nature of the New Sublime | p. 74 |
| Portland Public Service Building, Michael Graves | |
| 5 Scenography and the Picturesque | p. 98 |
| Bozzi House, Robert A. M. Stern | |
| 6 The Continuity of the Classical | p. 118 |
| Manchester Superior, Court Building, Allan Greenberg | |
| 7 The Ironies of the Difficult Whole | p. 142 |
| Gordon Wu Hall, Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown | |
| Epilogue | p. 170 |
| The City: A Machine for Thinking In | |
| Notes | p. 182 |
| Bibliography | p. 192 |
| Illustration Credits | p. 200 |
| Index | p. 208 |
