The Grand Tour
Travelling the World with an Architect's Eye. Excerpt from the book 'The Grand Tour' by Harry Seidler. Edited by Peter Gössel.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
The arrival of European émigré architects in the 1930's who could no longer teach or build under the rise of the totalitarian Nazi regime, Walter Gropius who founded the influential Bauhaus with former teachers Marcel Breuer the pioneer of steel furniture, renowned teacher and designer Mies van der Rohe, its last director, were all invited to teach at Harvard and I.I.T. in Chicago and obtained increasingly important commissions to build. This had immeasurable influence on the young generation and large competing firms of architects such as Skidmore Owings & Merrill. The 1950's-1970's architecture of high quality reached its zenith.
Under the pressure toward commercial and advertising newness, "a new architecture every Monday morning", brought fads of styles into existence, fed by the media who published and listened to influential, articulate but opportunistic practitioners.
The cultural base which brought European Modern Architecture into existence was missing and was soon replaced with fashions of historistic decorative modes in the '70's and 80's, ie. postmodernism, deconstructivism, etc, all meaningless labels coined by non-practising academics and journalists. As all fads, these soon cloyed the appetite for "newness" and disappeared.
Nevertheless, important progressive buildings, skyscrapers for successful corporation, museums, fine houses and interiors mostly for the wealthy, came into existence, by Breuer, Neutra, Mies van der Rohe, Pei, Saarinen, Meier, and the most brilliant, Frank Lloyd Wright. Le Corbusier designed his only U.S. building at Harvard University. By the end of the 20th Century and the death of pioneering architects, a hiatus of aesthetic development gave way to aimlessness, fake historicism and a search for elusive convincing directions. Driven mainly by market forces, in contrast to most European countries, no large scale town planning or high quality social housing have come into existence in the USA.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
The arrival of European émigré architects in the 1930's who could no longer teach or build under the rise of the totalitarian Nazi regime, Walter Gropius who founded the influential Bauhaus with former teachers Marcel Breuer the pioneer of steel furniture, renowned teacher and designer Mies van der Rohe, its last director, were all invited to teach at Harvard and I.I.T. in Chicago and obtained increasingly important commissions to build. This had immeasurable influence on the young generation and large competing firms of architects such as Skidmore Owings & Merrill. The 1950's-1970's architecture of high quality reached its zenith.
Under the pressure toward commercial and advertising newness, "a new architecture every Monday morning", brought fads of styles into existence, fed by the media who published and listened to influential, articulate but opportunistic practitioners.
The cultural base which brought European Modern Architecture into existence was missing and was soon replaced with fashions of historistic decorative modes in the '70's and 80's, ie. postmodernism, deconstructivism, etc, all meaningless labels coined by non-practising academics and journalists. As all fads, these soon cloyed the appetite for "newness" and disappeared.
Nevertheless, important progressive buildings, skyscrapers for successful corporation, museums, fine houses and interiors mostly for the wealthy, came into existence, by Breuer, Neutra, Mies van der Rohe, Pei, Saarinen, Meier, and the most brilliant, Frank Lloyd Wright. Le Corbusier designed his only U.S. building at Harvard University. By the end of the 20th Century and the death of pioneering architects, a hiatus of aesthetic development gave way to aimlessness, fake historicism and a search for elusive convincing directions. Driven mainly by market forces, in contrast to most European countries, no large scale town planning or high quality social housing have come into existence in the USA.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
The Grand Tour, Travelling the World with an Architect's Eye
Flexicover, 14 x 19.5 cm (5.5 x 7.7 in.), 704 pages
$ 29.99
$ 29.99
Harry Seidler’s photo journal of world architecture
New York, Rockefeller Center, 1929-40