Triangle Modern Architecture

by Victoria Bell

Overview

Triangle Modern Architecture documents the rich history and unique cultural significance of a region that is one of the most important on the national map of modern design. Over the last 75 years, the architecture in this area has grown to creatively combine innovation and technology with the area’s history, culture, unique landscape, and built context. While the Triangle has seen a great increase in interest in Modern architecture, the understanding of this design and the reasons and history behind it, have not been shared in a clear and meaningful way. There has been an information gap between what is appreciated by architects and by the general public—until now.

• The Triangle region of North Carolina is a little-known hotbed of outstanding modern architecture with roots that trace back to the Bauhaus and has helped to shape the history of American modern architecture.
• With the famous Bauhaus School, one of the birthplaces of Modernism, celebrating 100 years since its founding, and the NC State School of Architecture nearing 75 years, this is a benchmark moment to analyze and appreciate the resulting body of exceptional architecture, which are a local and national cultural treasure.
• This is the only book that documents the outstanding architecture of the Triangle Region including Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill within the period of 1948 to the present.
• Presenting sixteen architects from the mi-century and sixteen from those currently practicing, the reader is able to understand what the architects of these periods had in common, and how the design has evolved over 75 years. Elemental design principles are defined as one means to bridge this information gap.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781943532889
Publisher:	ORO Editions
Publication date:	10/20/2020
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Victoria Ballard Bell is a licensed architect and published architectural writer. She grew up in a mid-century Modern house and developed her passion for Modern design at the University of Virginia where she received two masters’ degrees in architecture and urban planning. Her appreciation for excellent regionally-based modern design has developed further in the Triangle region of North Carolina where she has lived for twenty years.

Editorial Reviews

"Victoria Bell’s new book, Triangle Modern Architecture, is an important one, both for its intense research and insightful writing. Her presentation of modern architecture in central North Carolina not only illuminates and connects important modern work, it does so through the lens of a much wider history connecting Nazi Germany, the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and the visionary establishment of the School of Design at North Carolina State Universityin Raleigh. It is a wonderful collection of design work representing the energy of a school, its founders, and principles." —W. G. CLARK

"Triangle Modern Architecture provides us a timely insight into the rich history and bold future of modern architecture in North Carolina, reminding us that the modernist project here is alive and well and most vital in its interpretations and adaptations to local places and typologies. The great work being done today is affirming of the talent and virtuosity of the region’s contemporary practitioners. Because of this, the path forward for next generations of North Carolina architects is much brighter and filled with possibility. Triangle Modern Architecture affirms that the best architecture is always a continuum of a material culture." —Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, principal of Marlon Blackwell Architects and recipient of the 2020 AIA Gold Medal

"In Triangle Modern Architecture, Victoria Ballard Bell tells the story of modernism’s radical emergence in mid-20th-century central North Carolina, resulting in an unlikely hub of progressive architecture. Bell traces the origins of the NC State UniversitySchool (now College) of Design and the school’s lasting influence on the region’s remarkable architectural culture. The book links several generations of architects—most of whom were born outside of the Triangle region—to an overarching set of material, compositional, and place-based design principles. Beautifully written and elaborately illustrated, Triangle Modern Architecture provides compelling evidence that a new generation of architects is building on the Triangle’s rich design legacy." —David Hill, FAIA, head of the School of Architecture, NC State University

"In Triangle Modern Architecture, Victoria Ballard Bell tells the story of modernism’s radical emergence in mid-20th-century central North Carolina, resulting in an unlikely hub of progressive architecture. Bell traces the origins of the NC State UniversitySchool (now College) of Design and the school’s lasting influence on the region’s remarkable architectural culture. The book links several generations of architects—most of whom were born outside of the Triangle region—to an overarching set of material, compositional, and place-based design principles. Beautifully written and elaborately illustrated, Triangle Modern Architecture provides compelling evidence that a new generation of architects is building on the Triangle’s rich design legacy." —David Hill, FAIA, Head of the School of Architecture, NC State University

"Drive down the main streets of cities and towns across America, and works by modernist architects can appear unexpectedly, melded and layered into the multiple styles that have preceded and followed. Too many have been altered beyond recognition or lost to the playing fields of commerce and chance. How refreshing that Victoria Ballard Bell has claimed the high ground for modernism in North Carolina. In this significant book that meticulously describes a rich treasury of architectural design, she highlights works—some known, others unknown—made for a quadrant of the United States pivoting toward the future. Triangle Modern Architecture tells the stories of projects that wove into the fabric of a place that refused to rest on its past and a people stepping into a new century with confidence and hope. " —Robert Ivy, FAIA, executive vice president/chief executive officer, the American Institute of Architects

"Certainly, Bell is right that, for a while, some amazing architects taught and worked in the Research Triangle. They included acclaimed designers such as Harwell Hamilton Harris, who moved there from California, as well as unsung masters such as George Matsumoto, whose restrained and elegant forms are a marvel to behold, and Eduardo Catalano, who enjoyed making his roofs twist, cantilever, and soar. You can imagine how this work could have scaled up and transformed the region." —Aaron Betsky, The Architect, The journal of the American Institute of Architect

From the Publisher