NOTES ON SOURCES

 

 

This is not a scholarly work, so I have not burdened it with reference notes. However, I have relied on many books and articles, and for readers who wish to pursue a subject further I include these brief bibliographical notes. In the text, I follow convention and credit individual architects with the design of particular buildings, but the reader should be aware that architecture is a collaborative endeavor and in many cases—especially in today’s large practices that routinely involve scores if not hundreds of people working on many concurrent commissions—partners, associates, and consultants make significant contributions.

INTRODUCTION

Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s Experiencing Architecture, written in Danish and translated by Eve Wendt, first appeared in 1959 (MIT Press, 1964). Norbert Schoenauer is the author of several books, including his magnum opus, 6,000 Years of Housing, now in its third revised edition (W. W. Norton & Co., 2000). James Wood’s admirable How Fiction Works (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008) influenced my general approach.

1. IDEAS

John F. Harbeson’s classic 1926 guide to the teaching methods of the École des Beaux-Arts, The Study of Architectural Design, was recently republished with a new introduction by John Blatteau and Sandra L. Tatman (W. W. Norton & Co., 2008). Another good source of information about the École is Joan Draper’s “The École des Beaux-Arts and the Architectural Profession in the United States: The Case of John Galen Howard,” in The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession, Spiro Kostof, ed. (University of California Press, 1977). Philip Johnson: Writings (Oxford University Press, 1979) collects many of his essays and lectures. Franz Schulze’s Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (University of Chicago Press, 1985) is the standard biography; the story of Mies’s visit to Johnson’s house is recounted in The Philip Johnson Tapes: Interviews by Robert A. M. Stern, Kazys Vernelis, ed. (Monacelli Press, 2008). Peter Blake makes cogent observations on the Johnson house in his gossipy memoir, No Place Like Utopia: Modern Architecture and the Company We Kept (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993). The best way to experience Fallingwater is to visit the house, which I did one memorable evening for dinner; the second-best way is to leaf through Fallingwater, Lynda Waggoner, ed. (Rizzoli, 2011). Neil Levine’s The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (Princeton University Press, 1996) is an illustrated overview of the architect’s work. Cees de Jong and Erik Mattie’s two useful volumes, Architectural Competitions: 1792–1919 and Architectural Competitions, 1950–Today (Benedikt Taschen, 1994), document the subject. John Peter’s interesting The Oral History of Modern Architecture: Interviews with the Greatest Architects of the Twentieth Century (Harry N. Abrams, 1994) includes interviews with virtually all the major figures of early modernism. Background on the African American museum competition is based on press releases, minutes of meetings of the Commission of Fine Arts, and the author’s conversation with Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch, director of the museum, and Don Stastny, professional adviser to the competition. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France is discussed in an unpublished paper by Shannon Mattern, “A Square for Paris, a National Symbol, and a Learning Factory: Dominique Perrault’s Bibliothèque Nationale de France” (see WordsInSpace.net). Patricia Cummings Loud’s excellent The Art Museums of Louis I. Kahn (Duke University Press, 1989) describes the construction of the Yale Center for British Art as well as the Kimbell Art Museum. Carter Wiseman’s Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Style (W. W. Norton & Co., 2007) is a good general introduction to the architect’s life and work.

2. THE SETTING

I have told the full story of Moshe Safdie’s National Gallery of Canada in A Place for Art: The Architecture of the National Gallery of Canada (National Gallery of Canada, 1993). Jack Diamond’s work is documented in Insight and On Site: The Architecture of Diamond and Schmitt (Douglas & McIntyre, 2008), while the saga of Mariinsky II is recounted by Don Gillmor in “Red Tape,” The Walrus (May 2010). The acoustician Leo Baranek’s classic is Concert and Opera Halls: How They Sound (Acoustical Society of America, 1996). I wrote about Seiji Ozawa Hall in “Sounds as Good as It Looks,” The Atlantic Monthly (June 1996). Edwin Lutyens: Country Houses (Monacelli Press, 2001) contains archival photographs of the great architect’s work. Colin Amery’s A Celebration of Art & Architecture (National Gallery, 1991) recounts the story of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing. Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (Museum of Modern Art, 1966) remains a classic; the reader is also directed to Architecture as Signs and Symbols: For a Mannerist Time (Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2004) by Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

3. SITE

Frank Lloyd Wright wrote many books, most of which make for a hard slog today, but for the layman, and especially for the prospective home-builder, The Natural House (Horizon Press, 1954) remains an excellent source of wise advice. Christopher Alexander et al.’s classic A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Oxford University Press, 1977) is an invaluable reference. Esther’s McCoy’s Five California Architects (Reinhold Publishing Corp., 1960) is an important history of early modernism in that state (the five architects are Bernard Maybeck, the Greene brothers, Irving Gill, and Rudolf Schindler). Brendan Gill’s lively biography is Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987). My parents’ North Hero summer cottage is documented in Robert W. Knight’s A House on the Water (Taunton Press, 2003). Jeremiah Eck’s The Distinctive Home: A Vision of Timeless Design (Taunton, 2003) is a useful source of information on domestic design. John W. Cook and Heinrich Klotz, Conversations with Architects (Lund Humphries, 1973), includes spirited interviews with Philip Johnson, Kevin Roche, Paul Rudolph, Charles Moore, Louis Kahn, and the Venturis. The Smithsons’ building at St. Hilda’s College is discussed by Robin Middleton in “The Pursuit of Ordinariness,” Architectural Design (February 1971).

4. PLAN

The best English translation of Palladio’s The Four Books on Architecture is by Robert Tavernor and Richard Schofield (MIT Press, 1997). Leon Battista Alberti’s On the Art of Building in Ten Books has been ably translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (MIT Press, 1991). I describe my encounter with the Villa Saraceno in detail in The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio (Scribner, 2002). Marcus de Sautoy’s interesting book is Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature (HarperCollins, 2008). The Frank Gehry conversation with Tom Pritzker took place at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2009 and is available on YouTube. The Stern quotation is in his introduction to Robert A. M. Stern: Buildings and Projects, 1999–2003, Peter Morris Dixon, ed. (Monacelli Press, 2003).

5. STRUCTURE

John Summerson’s The Classical Language of Architecture (Thames & Hudson, 1980) is an excellent overview of the subject. The best contemporary handbook on classical architecture is Robert Adam’s Classical Architecture: A Comprehensive Handbook to the Tradition of Classical Style (Harry N. Abrams, 1990). Mary Beard’s The Parthenon (Harvard University Press, 2003) is an interesting history of the building. For an informed discussion of the practical origins of classicism, one cannot do better than J. J. Coulton’s Ancient Greek Architects at Work: Problems of Structure and Design (Cornell University Press, 1977). Edward R. Ford’s exhaustive The Details of Modern Architecture (MIT Press, 1990) and The Details of Modern Architecture: Volume 2, 1928–1988 (MIT Press, 1996) have provided much of the technical information in this chapter. Frank Lloyd Wright’s essays on materials are contained in The Essential Frank Lloyd Wright: Critical Writings on Architecture, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, ed. (Princeton University Press, 2008). Lewis Mumford’s observations on the Unité d’Habitation and the Guggenheim Museum are in his interesting collection of essay and reviews, The Highway and the City (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963). Lisa Jardine’s On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren (HarperCollins, 2002) is an informative biography.

6. SKIN

Le Corbusier’s 1923 classic, Vers une architecture, was recently republished in a new English translation by John Goodman, Towards a New Architecture (Getty Research Institute, 2007). Mies van der Rohe spoke about the Lake Shore Drive apartments in a rare interview in Architectural Forum (November 1952). Canadian Centre for Architecture: Building and Gardens, Larry Richards, ed. (Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1989), documents the genesis of the CCA Building. James Stirling was quoted by Norman Foster on the occasion of Stirling receiving the RIBA Gold Medal for Architecture in Architectural Design Profile: James Stirling (Academy Editions, 1982).

7. DETAILS

Roger Scruton’s The Aesthetics of Architecture (Princeton University Press, 1979) includes a provocative discussion of the use of architectural details. Several houses discussed in this chapter are described in Robert A. M. Stern: Houses and Gardens, Peter Morris Dixon, ed. (Monacelli Press, 2005), for which I wrote the introduction. Koolhaas is quoted by Edward R. Ford in The Architectural Detail (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011). I wrote about the Harold T. Washington Library in “A Good Public Building,” The Atlantic Monthly (August 1992).

8. STYLE

Lester Walker’s American Shelter: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Home (Overlook Press, 1981) is a charmingly illustrated guide. James Ackerman’s views on style are contained in Distance Points: Essays in Theory and Renaissance Art and Architecture (MIT Press, 1991). The story of the Jefferson Memorial is recounted by Nicolaus Mills in Their Last Battle: The Fight for the National World War II Memorial (Basic Books, 2004). John Summerson’s Heavenly Mansions: And Other Essays on Architecture (W. W. Norton & Co., 1963) contains his observations on the origins of Gothic, and much else besides. His essay “Classical Architecture” is in New Classicism, Andreas Papadakis and Harriet Wilson, eds. (Academy Editions, 1990). The best single source for Paul Cret’s writings is Paul Philippe Cret: Architect and Teacher, Theo B. White, ed. (The Art Alliance Press, 1973). Robert A. M. Stern’s quote on architectural language is from the WTTW documentary Architect Robert A.M. Stern: Presence of the Past. Stern's description of the Cranbrook library is from Pride of Place: Building the American Dream (Houghton Mifflin, 1986), based on his PBS television series of the same name. David Adjaye’s interview with Belinda Luscombe of Time (September 11, 2012) can be viewed on www.style.time.com. Moshe Safdie’s quote about the particular and the general is from a public conversation with the author that took place at the University of Pennsylvania, April 3, 2012. George Howe’s remark about historical styles was made during a 1953 lecture to the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and is quoted by Helen Howe West in George Howe: Architect, 1886–1955, Recollections of My Beloved Father (W. Nunn Co., 1973). Renzo Piano talks about the perils of style in a BBC Radio 3 interview with John Tusa.

9. THE PAST

Cret’s article on High Hollow is “A Hillside House,” Architectural Record (August 1920). Banister Fletcher is quoted from the fifth edition of A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905). Robert Adam’s important essay “The Radiance of the Past” is in The New Classicism. William Mitchell’s comment on Whitman College is contained in Fred Bernstein, “Dorm Style: Gothic Castle vs. Futuristic Sponge,” The New York Times (November 20, 2002). The Penn directive on architectural style is part of “Design Guidelines and Review of Campus Projects” (University of Pennsylvania, undated). Robert Bringhurst, the distinguished Canadian typographer, is the author of The Elements of Typographic Style (Hartley & Marks, 1992). Jan Tschichold’s essays on typography are gathered together in The Form of the Book (Hartley & Marks, 1991). The best source of information on the Cenotaph remains Allan Greenberg’s “Lutyens’s Cenotaph” in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (March 1989). The Lincoln Memorial is discussed by Kirk Savage in Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (University of California Press, 2005), which also analyzes the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Elizabeth Greenwell Grossman writes about the Château-Thierry Monument in “Architecture for a Public Client: The Monuments and Chapels of the American Battle Monuments Commission,” in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (May 1984). She is also the author of The Civic Architecture of Paul Cret (Cambridge University Press, 1996), a valuable reference to the architect’s work. The Gateway Arch is discussed by Jayne Merkel in Eero Saarinen (Phaidon Press, 2005); the March 1948 issue of Architectural Forum describes the St. Louis competition. Maya Lin’s description of her design is from her 1982 retrospective essay “Making the Memorial,” published in The New York Review of Books (November 2, 2000).

10. TASTE

An excellent recent illustrated history of The Mount is Richard Guy Wilson’s Edith Wharton at Home: Life at The Mount (Monacelli Press, 2012), with photographs by John Arthur. Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr.’s The Decoration of Houses (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897) remains an erudite history of interior decoration. Elsie de Wolfe’s The House in Good Taste (The Century Co., 1913), ghostwritten by Ruby Ross Wood, is less scholarly, but is full of useful advice and is still worth reading. An architect who wrote at length about taste was the always stimulating Geoffrey Scott in The Architecture of Humanism: A Study in the History of Taste (Peter Smith, 1965; orig. pub. 1914). Andrés Duany describes the Beaux-Arts atelier in “The Beaux Arts Model,” in Windsor Forum on Design Education, Stephanie E. Bothwell et al., eds. (New Urban Press, 2004). The Bauhaus is discussed in detail in Bauhaus: Workshops for Modernity, 1919–1933, Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerson, eds. (Museum of Modern Art, 2009), and in Nicholas Fox Weber’s The Bauhaus Group: Six Masters of Modernism (Knopf, 2009). Richard Rogers is quoted on taste in Bryan Appleyard’s Richard Rogers: A Biography (Faber and Faber, 1986). Marc Appleton’s work is described in New Classicists: Appleton & Associates, Architects (Images, 2007), for which I wrote an introduction. Graves Residence: Michael Graves (Phaidon, 1995) describes the Warehouse in detail. The Graves quote on Rome is contained in a charming short film by Gary Nadeau, made for Dwell. Peter Bohlin describes his home in the preface to 12 Houses (Byggförlaget, 2005). Frank Gehry is quoted from The Architecture of Frank Gehry (Walker Art Center, 1986). Stephen Bayley’s Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things (Pantheon, 1991) remains a rare if uneven examination of the subject. The student interview with Graves is in VIA IV: Culture and Social Vision (MIT Press, 1980). Paul Goldberger’s article on Michael Graves is “Architecture of a Different Color,” The New York Times Magazine (October 10, 1982).