Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, Fifth Revised and Enlarged Edition / Edition 5

by Sigfried Giedion

Overview

"This new edition ensures that the book will continue to be internationally acknowledged as the standard work on the development of modern architecture." -Walter Gropius

"A remarkable accomplishment. . . one of the most valuable reference books for students and professionals concerned with the reshaping of our environment. " -José Luis Sert

A milestone in modern thought, Space, Time and Architecture has been reissued many times since its first publication in 1941 and translated into half a dozen languages. In this revised edition of Sigfried Giedion’s classic work, major sections have been added and there are 81 new illustrations.

The chapters on leading contemporary architects have been greatly expanded. There is new material on the later development of Frank Lloyd Wright and the more recent buildings of Walter Gropius, particularly his American Embassy in Athens. In his discussion of Le Corbusier, Mr. Giedion provides detailed analyses of the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, Le Corbusier’s only building in the United States, and his Priory of La Tourette near Lyons. There is a section on his relations with his clients and an assessment of his influence on contemporary architecture, including a description of the Le Corbusier Center in Zurich (designed just before his death), which houses his works of art. The chapters on Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto have been brought up to date with examples of their buildings in the sixties. There is an entirely new chapter on the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, whose work, as exemplified in his design for the Sydney Opera House, Mr. Giedion considers representative of post–World War II architectural concepts.

A new essay, “Changing Notions of the City,” traces the evolution of the structure of the city throughout history and examines current attempts to deal with urban growth, as shown in the work of such architects as José Luis Sert, Kenzo Tange, and Fumihiko Maki. Mr. Sert’s Peabody Terrace is discussed as an example of the interlocking of the collective and individual spheres. Finally, the conclusion has been enlarged to include a survey of the limits of the organic in architecture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674030473
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2009
Series:	The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures , #27
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	960
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Sigfried Giedion was the first secretary-general of the International Congress of Modern Architecture. He taught at the University of Zurich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University, where he became chairman of the Graduate School of Design.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Architecture of the 1960’s: Hopes and Fears

Part I: History A Part Of Life

• Introduction


• The Historian’s Relation to His Age


• The Demand for Continuity


• Contemporary History


• The Identity of Methods


• Transitory and Constituent Facts


• Architecture as an Organism


• Procedure

Part II: Our Architectural Inheritance
The New Space Conception: Perspective
Perspective and Urbanism

• Prerequisites for the Growth of Cities


• The Star-Shaped City

Perspective and the Constituent Elements of the City

• The Wall, the Square, and the Street


• Bramante and the Open Stairway


• Michelangelo and the Modeling of Outer Space


• What Is the Real Significance of the Area Capitolina?

Leonardo da Vinci and the Dawn of Regional Planning
Sixtus V (1585-1590) and the Planning of Baroque Rome

• The Medieval and the Renaissance City


• Sixtus V and His Pontificate


• The Master Plan


• The Social Aspect

The Late Baroque
The Undulating Wall and the Flexible Ground Plan

• Francesco Borromini, 1599-1667


• Guarino Guarini, 1624-1683


• South Germany: Vierzehnheiligen

The Organization of Outer Space

• The Residential Group and Nature


• Single Squares


• Series of Interrelated Squares

Part III: The Evolution OEngland

• The Sunderland Bridge


• Early Iron Construction on the Continent

From the Iron Column to the Steel Frame

• The Cast-Iron Column

Toward the Steel Frame

• James Bogardus


• The St. Louis River Front


• Early Skeleton Buildings


• Elevators

The Schism Between Architecture and Technology

• Discussions


• École Polytechnique: the Connection between Science and Life


• The Demand for a New Architecture


• The Interrelations of Architecture and Engineering

Henri Labrouste, Architect Constructor, 1801-1875
New Building Problems—New Solutions

• Market Halls


• Department Stores

The Great Exhibitions

• The Great Exhibition, London, 1851


• The Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1855


• Paris Exhibition of 1867


• Paris Exhibition of 1878


• Paris Exhibition of 1889


• Chicago, 1893

Gustave Eiffel and His Tower
Part IV: The Demand For Morality In Architecture
The Nineties: Precursors of Contemporary Architecture

• Brussels the Center of Contemporary Art, 1880-1890


• Victor Horta’s Contribution


• Berlage’s Stock Exchange and the Demand for Morality


• Otto Wagner and the Viennese School

Ferroconcrete and its Influence upon Architecture

• A. C. Perret


• Tony Gamier

Part V: American Development

• Europe Observes American Production< the Building-up of the West


• The Invention of the Balloon Frame


• George Washington Snow, 1797-1870


• The Balloon Frame and the Windsor Chair

Plane Surfaces in American Architecture

• The Flexible and Informal Ground Plan

The Chicago School

• The Apartment House

Toward Pure Forms

• The Leiter Building, 1889


• The Reliance Building, 1894


• Sullivan: The Carson, Pirie, Scott Store, 1889-1906


• The Influence of the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893

Frank Lloyd Wright

• Wright and the American Development


• The Cruciform and the Elongated Plan


• Plane Surfaces and Structure


• The Urge toward the Organic


• Office Buildings


• Influence of Frank Lloyd Wright


• Frank Lloyd Wright’s Late Period

Part VI: Space-Time In Art, Architecture, And Construction
The New Space Conception: Space-Time

• Do We Need Artists?

The Research Into Space: Cubism

• The Artistic Means

The Resarch Into Movement: Futurism
Painting Today
Construction and Aesthetics: Slab and Plane

• The Bridges of Robert Maillart


• Afterword

Walter Gropius and the German Development

• Germany in the Nineteenth Century


• Walter Gropius


• Germany after the First World War and the Bauhaus


• The Bauhaus Buildings at Dessau, 1926


• Architectural Aims

Walter Gropius in America
Scene

• Architectural Activity


• Gropius as Educator


• Later Development


• American Embassy in Athens, 1956-1961

Le Corbusier and the Means of Architectonic Expression

• The Villa Savoie, 1928-1930


• The League of Nations Competition, 1927: Contemporary Architecture Comes to the Front


• Large Constructions and Architectural Aims


• Social Imagination


• The Unité d’Habitation, 1947-1952


• Chandigarh


• Later Work


• The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1963


• Le Corbusier and His Clients


• The Priory of Ste. Marie de la Tourette, 1960


• The Legacy of Le Corbusier

Mies van der Rohe and the Integrity of Form

• The Elements of Mies van der Rohe’s Architecture


• Country Houses, 1923


• The Weissenhof Housing Settlement, Stuttgart, 1927


• The Illinois Institute of Technology, 1939-


• High-rise Apartments


• Office Buildings


• On the Integrity of Form

Alvar Aalto: Irrationality and Standardization

• Union between Life and Architecture


• The Complementarity of the Differentiated and the Primitive


• Finnish Architecture before 1930


• Aalto’s First Buildings


• Paimio: The Sanatorium, 1929-1933


• The Undulating Wall


• Sunila: Factory and Landscape, 1937-1939


• Mairea, 1938-1939


• Organic Town Architect


• The Human Side

Jørn Utzon and the Third Generation

• Relations to the Past


• Jørn Utzon


• The Horizontal Plane as a Constituent Element


• The Right of Expression: The Vaults of the Sydney Opera House


• Empathy with the Situation: The Zurich Theater, 1964


• Sympathy with the Anonymous Client


• Imagination and Implementation

The International Congresses for Modern Architecture (CIAM) and the Formation of Contemporary Architecture
Part VII: City Planning In The Nineteenth Century

• Early Nineteenth Century


• The Rue de Rivoli of Napoleon I

The Dominance of Greenery: The London Squares
The Garden Squares of Bloomsbury
Large-Scale Housing Development: Regent’s Park
The Street Becomes Dominant: The Transformation of Paris, 1853-1868

• Paris in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century


• The “Trois Réseaux” of Eugène Haussmann


• Squares, Boulevards, Gardens, and Plants


• The City as a Technical Problem


• Use of Modern Methods of Finance


• The Basic Unit of the Street


• The Scale of the Street


• Haussmann’s Foresight: His Influence

Part VIII: City Planning As A Human Problem

• The Late Nineteenth Century


• Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City


• Patrick Geddes and Arturo Soria y Mata


• Tony Gamier’s Cité Industrielle, 1901-1904

South

• The General Extension Plan of Amsterdam, 1934


• Interrelations of Housing and Activities of Private Life

Part IX: Space-Time In City Planning

• Contemporary Attitude toward Town Planning

Destruction or Transformation?
The New Scale in City Planning

• The American Parkway in the Thirties


• High-rise Buildings in Open Space


• Freedom for the Pedestrian


• The Civic Center: Rockefeller Center, 1931-1939

Changing Notions of the City

• City and State


• The City: No Longer an Enclosed Organism


• Continuity and Change


• The Individual and Collective Spheres


• Signs of Change and of Constancy

Part X: In Conclusion

• On the Limits of the Organic in Architecture


• Politics and Architecture

• Index

What People are Saying About This

Dr. Sigfried Giedion is today recognized as one of the world's most eminent architectural critics and historians. The unusual success of his Space, Time and Architecture, first published in 1941 and now greatly revised and expanded, is due to his deep investigation into the whole philosophical and technical background of our modern civilization. This new edition ensures that the book will continue to be internationally acknowledged as the standard work on the development of modern architecture.

Walter Gropius

Dr. Sigfried Giedion is today recognized as one of the world's most eminent architectural critics and historians. The unusual success of his Space, Time and Architecture, first published in 1941 and now greatly revised and expanded, is due to his deep investigation into the whole philosophical and technical background of our modern civilization. This new edition ensures that the book will continue to be internationally acknowledged as the standard work on the development of modern architecture.

Jose Luis Sert

Space, Time and Architecture is a remarkable accomplishment in that it explores and throws new light on buildings and plans that were underestimated or unknown before this book appeared. It has also proved to be one of the most valuable reference books for students and professionals concerned with the reshaping of our environment. It not only reviews the varied fields of architecture and city planning in relation to an emerging industrial technology, but also shows their parallel development in the visual arts. Sigfried Giedion's accomplishment remains unmatched.

Editorial Reviews

This book is an important collection of historical and critical surveys and a brilliant study of the trends and developments of the modern scene with its historical background and true significance. For the general reader interested in the past and its relation to our present, and the specialist in architecture preoccupied with its facets of change, the author has succeeded in presenting a consistently developing process and a clear, concise picture.

Edward Larocque Tinker

Space, Time and Architecture is a remarkable accomplishment in that it explores and throws new light on buildings and plans that were underestimated or unknown before this book appeared. It has also proved to be one of the most valuable reference books for students and professionals concerned with the reshaping of our environment. It not only reviews the varied fields of architecture and city planning in relation to an emerging industrial technology, but also shows their parallel development in the visual arts. Sigfried Giedion’s accomplishment remains unmatched.

José Luis Sert

[Giedion’s] survey of our architectural inheritance, beginning with the ‘organization of space’ in the early Renaissance, is masterly, selective, and instructive. In his treatment of individual architects he calls a famous roll, and leaves us with a clear impression of the significance of each man’s work… This is a big book, and one that no reader will exhaust quickly.

Saturday Review

Dr. Sigfried Giedion is today recognized as one of the world’s most eminent architectural critics and historians. The unusual success of his Space, Time and Architecture, first published in 1941 and now greatly revised and expanded, is due to his deep investigation into the whole philosophical and technical background of our modern civilization. This new edition ensures that the book will continue to be internationally acknowledged as the standard work on the development of modern architecture.

Walter Gropius

Space, Time and Architecture is a remarkable accomplishment in that it explores and throws new light on buildings and plans that were underestimated or unknown before this book appeared. It has also proved to be one of the most valuable reference books for students and professionals concerned with the reshaping of our environment. It not only reviews the varied fields of architecture and city planning in relation to an emerging industrial technology, but also shows their parallel development in the visual arts. Sigfried Giedion's accomplishment remains unmatched.

Jose Luis Sert

This book is an important collection of historical and critical surveys and a brilliant study of the trends and developments of the modern scene with its historical background and true significance. For the general reader interested in the past and its relation to our present, and the specialist in architecture preoccupied with its facets of change, the author has succeeded in presenting a consistently developing process and a clear, concise picture.

— Edward Larocque Tinker

New York Times Book Review