The Groundbreakers: Architects in American History - Their Places and Times

by Charles E. Dagit

Overview

If there is anything to be learned from the history of American architecture it is that it reflects the American adventure in creativity and inventiveness, and the desire to be unique and expressive. In The Groundbreakers, Charles E. Dagit, Jr. examines pioneering American architects and the historical events and trends that gave rise to their achievements. These architects, the caliber of Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry, created their own distinct, personal styles, and represented the rich heritages of their specific geographical regions.

The American pioneer spirit of individualism is alive and well in the architectural world, and like other American innovations, architecture as practiced in the United States is constantly renewing itself and finding new ways to capture the imagination. This book will be of interest to historians, architects, and students in American studies. Illustrations add dimension to the author's observations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032923826
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/14/2024
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Foreword by Peter Q. Bohlin

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The American Dream
/2. Beginnings of American Architecture
/3. Early History: Two Colonies, Two Capitals
/4. William Buckland: The First American Architect
/5. The Search for an American Architecture, Thomas Jefferson, a Romantic Rationalist, North and South
/6. Boston, the Cradle of Invention, Henry Hobson Richardson
/7. Philadelphia, the Generator of Institutions, Frank Furness
/8. Chicago, the Prairie Innovations, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright
/9. Pasadena and the Railroad Hotel, the Western Legacy of Greene and Greene
/10. San Francisco, Berkeley and the Gold Rush, Bernard Maybeck
/11. Tulsa, Oil and Cattle, Bruce Goff
/12. Detroit, the Economic Engine, the Automobile, Eero Sarrinen
/13. Los Angeles and the Birth of the Film Industry, Rudolph Schindler, the Beginnings of Abstract Modernism,
/ Mies van der Rohe
/14. Philadelphia, the Philadelphia School, the Emergence of the Intellectual Revolution, Louis I. Kahn, Romaldo
/ Giurgola, Robert Venturi
/15. The International Style, The Americans: Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo, I. M. Pei, Philip Johnson
/16. The New York Five, "the Whites," The Ultramodernists and Their Conversion, Richard Meier, Michael Graves
/17. Architects Out of Context, Charles Moore, Robert A. M. Stern, Peter Bohlin, James Polshek, Antoine Predock,
/ Cesar Pelli
/18. Global Architecture and the Architecture of the Bizarre, The Tech-Fantasticism Movement, Eric Owen Moss,
/ Frank Gehry, Los Angeles and the Culture of Fantasy
/19. On the Brink, Kieran Timberlake, Steven Holl, Tod Williams Billie Tsien
/20. Observations on History and the Future, The American Spirit

Illustration Credits

Illustrations Index

Index