An invaluable guide to lives and work of Frank Gehry, Atoni Gaudí,
Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Maya Lin, and other important figures of
20th and 21st century architecture.
Martin Filler's contribution to both architecture criticism and general
readers' understanding is invaluable, according to Publishers Weekly.
This latest installment in his acclaimed Makers of Modern Architecture
series again demonstrates his unparalleled skill in explaining the
revolutionary changes that have reshaped the built environment over the
past century and a half. These studies of more than two dozen master
builders--women and men, celebrated and obscure, idealists and
opportunists--range from the environmental pioneer Frederick Law Olmsted
and the mystical eccentric Antoni Gaudí to the present-day visionaries
Frank Gehry and Maya Lin.
Filler's broad knowledge embraces everything from the glittering
Viennese luxury of Josef Hoffmann to the heavy-duty construction of the
New Brutalists, from the low-cost postwar suburbs of the Levitt Brothers
to today's super-tall condo towers on Manhattan's Billionaire's Row.
Sometimes the interplay of social and political forces leads to dark
results, as with Hitler's favorite architect, Albert Speer, and interior
designer, Gerdy Troost. More often, though, heroic figures including
Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, and Lina Bo Bardi offer uplifting
inspiration for the future of the one art form we all live with--and
in--every day.
