Modern Design, Walter Gropius & Pan Am Building

Pioneers of Modern Design

One of the most widely read books on modern design, Nikolaus Pevsner's landmark work today remains as stimulating as it was when first published in 1936. This expanded edition of Pioneers of Modern Design provides Nikolaus Pevsner's original text along with significant new and updated information, enhancing Nikolaus Pevsner's illuminating account of the roots of Modernism. The book now offers many beautiful color illustrations; biographies and bibliographies of all major figures; illustrated short essays on key themes, movements, and individuals; a critique of Nikolaus Pevsner's analysis from today's perspective; examples of works after 1914 (where the original study ended); a biography detailing Nikolaus Pevsner's life and achievements; and much more.
Nikolaus Pevsner saw Modernism as a synthesis of three main sources: William Morris and his followers, the work of nineteenth-century engineers, and Art Nouveau. The author considers the role of these sources in the work of early Modernists and looks at such masters of the movement as C.F.A. Voysey and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Britain, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright in America, and Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner in Vienna. The account concludes with a discussion of the radical break with the past represented by the design work of Walter Gropius and his future Bauhaus colleagues.
Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius by Nikolaus Pevsner
ISBN: 0300105711

Walter Gropius Auerbach House

Haus Auerbach tells the story of an almost forgotten building: the private residence designed for Jewish scientist Felix Auerbach and his wife Anna. Built in 1924, the Auerbach House is one of only six private homes that Walter Gropius ever constructed. Here Gropius realized for the first time his famous Baukastenprinzip, which combines the highest level standardization with the greatest possibilities for variation. The Auerbach House is thus one of the most important examples of early era Neues Bauen.
Furthermore, it is the only Walter Gropius building with an original colored interior: all of the inside walls and windows were colored based on the ideas of Alfred Arndt, also a member of the Bauhaus. The house, which has always been well conserved, was recently restored to better match its original appearance.
ISBN: 380300635X
Bauhaus and America

Pan Am Building

The Pan Am Building and the reaction to it signaled the end of an era. Begun when the modernist aesthetic and the architectural star system ruled architectural theory and practice, the completed building became a symbol of modernism's fall from grace.
In The Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream, Meredith Clausen tells the story as both history and cautionary tale - a case study of how not to plan and execute a large-scale urban project that seems especially relevant in light of the World Trade Center and the ongoing discussions over what should be built in its place.
Pan Am Building and the Shattering of the Modernist Dream by Meredith L. Clausen
ISBN: 0262033240

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