История архитектуры

After more than one year of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, thousands of civilians have been killed, and thousands of buildings, heritage sites, and entire cities have been damaged. Along with millions of other Ukrainian women and children, architectural historian Ievgeniia Gubkina had to leave the country, moving further away from the Russian threat in search of safety. Her hometown Kharkiv still remains a target for the Russian army. The war has dramatically changed the geographies of nearly all Ukrainians and returned the work of an archi­tec­tural critic to the traditional mainstream of journalism.

This shift has taken Gubkina’s thoughts from the academic context and made them more akin to war reporting. This book contains papers presented, printed, or published online by various media in different parts of the world during the first eight months of the all-out war. Most of the texts were written in late spring and summer 2022 after Ievgeniia and her teenage daughter had evacuated to Paris.

Beyond the West inspires a fresh understanding of global contemporary architecture in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

In the last decades Western architecture has largely dominated the discourse and the built environment worldwide. Recently architecture firms from non-Western countries have been establishing local and global recognition for themselves. Practices all over the world face challenges against a backdrop of rapidly growing cities, ecological demands, changing societies and climate, and emerging economies. Local architects often find strikingly different solutions to local requirements, including sustainability, transportation, migration, construction materials, and traditions.

In Mexico, architects work closely with indigenous communities to create modular social housing that can be assembled in one week. In Namibia, a lodge in a wildlife conservancy is designed to echo a local bird’s nest, while in Vietnam, a library and public space have created a micro-ecosystem to house fish and grow food.

Beyond the West journeys across Asia, Africa, and the Americas to understand how local architects respond to a changing world, and focuses its wide lens on inspiring and truly global architecture.

The Case Study House program (1945–1966) was a unique event in the history of American architecture. Sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, the program sought to respond to the postwar building boom with prototype modern homes that could be both easily replicated and readily affordable to the average American.

Concentrated on the Los Angeles area, the Case Study Houses included 36 model homes commissioned from such major architects of the day as Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, Eero Saarinen, A. Quincy Jones, and Ralph Rapson. Their criteria included “using, as far as is practicable, many war-born techniques and materials best suited to the expression of man’s life in the modern world.

”The results of the program would redefine the modern home and extend influence not only across the United States but around the world. This compact guide includes all of the Case Study Houses with over 150 photos and plans, as well as a map showing locations of all sites, including those that no longer exist.

About the series:

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Architecture series features:

- an introduction to the life and work of the architect 
- the major works in chronological order
- information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions
- a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings
- approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts, and plans)

The Modern Home. A complete retrospective of the Case Study Houses program

The Case Study House program (1945–1966) was an exceptional, innovative event in the history of American architecture and remains to this day unique. The program, which concentrated on the Los Angeles area and oversaw the design of 36 prototype homes, sought to make available plans for modern residences that could be easily and cheaply constructed during the postwar building boom.

The program’s chief motivating force was Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza, a champion of modernism who had all the right connections to attract some of architecture’s greatest talents, such as Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen. Highly experimental, the program generated houses that were designed to redefine the modern home, and had a pronounced influence on architecture—American and international — both during the program’s existence and even to this day.

TASCHEN brings you a retrospective of the entire program with comprehensive documentation, brilliant photographs from the period and, for the houses still in existence, contemporary photos, as well as extensive floor plans and sketches.

The photographer

American photographer Julius Shulman’s images of Californian architecture have burned themselves into the retina of the 20th century. A book on modern architecture without Shulman is inconceivable. Some of his architectural photographs, like the iconic shots of Frank Lloyd Wright’s or Pierre Koenig’s remarkable structures, have been published countless times. The brilliance of buildings like those by Charles Eames, as well as those of his close friend, Richard Neutra, was first brought to light by Shulman’s photography. The clarity of his work demanded that architectural photography had to be considered as an independent art form. Each Shulman image unites perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building’s surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs. Today, a great many of the buildings documented by Shulman have disappeared or been crudely converted, but the thirst for his pioneering images is stronger than ever before.

The author

Elizabeth A. T. Smith is Executive Director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, based in New York. Previously, she was Executive Director, Curatorial Affairs, at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. While at LA MOCA she curated the 1989 exhibition Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses. She has curated, published, and lectured widely on a variety of topics in contemporary art and architecture.

The editor

Peter Gössel runs an agency for museum and exhibition design. He has published TASCHEN monographs on Julius Shulman, R. M. Schindler, John Lautner, and Richard Neutra, as well as several titles in the Basic Architecture series.

About the series:

TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program — now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

Perspectives on Heritage, Transformation, and Community Dynamics in East European and Eurasian Microrayons

This research offers a deep dive into the architectural and social landscapes of East European and Eurasian microrayons. Through the lens of heritage, transformation, and community dynamics, this book sheds light on often overlooked narratives in Soviet urban development from the 1960s forwards and their continuations following the breakup of the USSR.

From legislative transformations in Uzbekistan to community-driven spatial transformations in Georgia, each chapter presents a nuanced perspective on the legacy of urbanism in the former USSR. This academic project is one of few, following the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, to take a look at both sides of the front line. The authors also examine developments in the Baltic States, Caucasus, and Central Asia.

The book at hand presents thirteen ‘district stories’ from seven post-Soviet countries, written by experts from a variety of disciplines, including architecture, urban and regional planning, public policy and social sciences, and human geography. The authors present observations of spatial, social, and functional transformations as well as of the formal and informal frameworks, planning strategies, and concepts that lay behind the physical development. They discuss spatial patterns and their modifications with a view to future heritage-sensitive development of the neighbourhoods. They point out unique details and the fact that genius loci makes a difference. The contributions formulate new narratives for large housing estates from the 1960s and identify the potential challenges in responsible planning and the need for action.

About the Author:

Barbara Engel (Prof. Dr.) is a German architect and urban planner. She was awarded her PhD in 2004 and worked as a visiting professor at Kent State University in the US in 2007/2008. In 2008 - 2013 she was head of the department for the inner city at the City Planning Office in Dresden. Since 2013 she has been a professor of international urban planning and design at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Barbara Engel is head of design committees in Halle and Nuremberg and vice president of the Deutsche Akademie für Städtebau und Landesplanung (DASL). Her research interests focus on urban development in post-Soviet countries, metropolitan areas, public spaces, and science communication.

A Legacy in Stone. Castles and fortresses of medieval Europe

Follow photographer Frédéric Chaubin as he embarks on a unique, century-spanning journey through Europe. Featuring images of more than 200 buildings in 21 countries, Stone Age presents the history and architecture of the most dramatic medieval castles of the continent in an unprecedented collection.

Building on the success of his foray into Soviet design with CCCP, Chaubin once again documents the afterlife of highly rational structures that seem out of place in a modern-day world. Precursors of Brutalism, these castles value function over form and epitomize the raw materials and shapes that would go on to define so much of architectural history.

Shot on film with a Linhof view camera, the collection is the outcome of five years of travel and investigation. Complete with a practical map and explanatory essay, its castles tell the story of 400 years, unfolding through the feudal Middle Ages into the 15th century.

A photographic study of decay as much as endurance, Stone Age traces the history of some of these singular structures that continue to enchant their audiences today and that occupy a distinct, mystical place in our collective imagination.

The photographer and author:

Frédéric Chaubin has been, for twenty years, editor-in-chief of the French lifestyle magazine Citizen K. Since 2000 he has regularly featured works combining text and photography. His CCCP collection research was carried out from 2003 to 2010 and published in 2011. During the last five years, he has been dedicating himself to the Stone Age project.

The Complete Gaudí. Freedom of form with the “Dante of architecture”

Antoni Gaudí merged Orientalism, natural forms, and new materials into a unique Modernista aesthetic that put Barcelona on the global architecture map. With brand-new photography, plans and drawings by Gaudí himself, as well as an extensive appendix of all his works including furniture and unfinished projects, this XL book takes us through the Catalonian’s fantastical universe like never before.

The life of Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) was full of complexity and contradictions. As a young man, he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was critical of the church; toward the end of his life, he devoted himself completely to the construction of one single spectacular church, La Sagrada Familia. In his youth, he courted a glamorous social life and the demeanor of a dandy. By the time of his death in a tram accident on the streets of Barcelona his clothes were so shabby passersby assumed he was a beggar.

Gaudí’s incomparable architecture channels much of this multifaceted intricacy. From the shimmering textures and skeletal forms of Casa Batlló to the Hispano-Arabic matrix of Casa Vicens, his work merged the influences of Orientalism, natural forms, new materials, and religious faith into a unique Modernista aesthetic. Today, his unique aesthetic enjoys global popularity and acclaim. His magnum opus, the Sagrada Familia, is the most-visited monument in Spain, and seven of his works are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Through brand-new photography, plans and drawings by Gaudí himself, historical photos, as well as an appendix detailing all his works — from buildings to furniture, decor to unfinished projects —t his book presents Gaudí’s universe like never before. Like a personal tour through Barcelona, we discover how the “Dante of architecture” was a builder in the truest sense of the word, crafting extraordinary constructions out of minute and mesmerizing details, and transforming fantastical visions into realities on the city streets.

The author:

Rainer Zerbst studied modern languages at the University of Tübingen and in Wales from 1969 to 1975. From 1976 to 1982 he worked as a research assistant in the Department of English at the University of Tübingen. Since completing his doctorate in 1982, Zerbst has been active as a critic in the fields of art, literature, and theater.

A place that symbolizes freedom, traveling and the wind of change: It’s a Gas! is going in search of the most unique gas stations around the world

The first gasoline was sold in pharmacies — but this was to change in the 1950s. As the car experienced its great rise in popularity, gas stations began to pop up like mushrooms out of the ground. Futuristic and progressive, these modern temples of mobility became roadside reference points for young people hungry for independence, and to everyone who strove for a sense of freedom.

It’s a Gas! explores the surprisingly diverse world of the gas station — a functional high tech temple, a transit zone, a film set, a converted residence, or an abandoned ruin hidden in a backyard. The world of pumps is full of surprises, ready to be discovered in this book.

The preface was written by US-American talkshow legend and passionate car collector Jay Leno.

Co-editor Sascha Friesike is an Assistant Professor of Digital Innovation at VU University in Amsterdam, and associated researcher at Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society Berlin, and passionate photographer of gas stations.

Floral Buildings. Art Nouveau marvels across Europe

With a meticulous sensibility for light and detail, the late Keiichi Tahara captured Europe’s finest Art Nouveau architecture. This exquisite three-volume set features more than 500 of his photographs and is interspersed by brilliant gold pages, each carefully produced using the finest printing techniques. This is a collection of majestic aura, brimming with the unique spirit of the fin de siècle.

At the turn of the 20th century, architecture took an imaginative leap. As new construction materials and technologies met such far-flung stimuli as the Far East, nirvana, and the unleashed unconscious of Freudian psychoanalysis, buildings by the likes of Gaudí, Horta, Hoffmann, Loos, and Mackintosh instilled structure with the sinuous lines of nature, surfaces with a fairy-tale shimmer, and spaces with an ethereal wash of light or shadowy, mysterious hush.

For this dramatic portfolio, printed for the first time ever in a book with five colors including gold, the late architectural photographer Keiichi Tahara traveled across Europe to present the finest examples of this Art Nouveau architecture. From the glamorous façade of the Grand Hotel Europa to the elaborate sweep of a staircase or the perfect poise of a single chandelier, Tahara captures the intricate details as much as the holistic spatial effects of these ambitious, marvelous structures. With an eye attuned to the style’s organic detailing, he surveys its floral patterns, vine-like balustrades, and the soft, hollow interiors that seem to summon us into some primordial place.

Drenched in sunshine or draped in dramatic shadows, Tahara’s pictures excel in evoking not only the unrivaled aura of these buildings but also the particular, fin-de-siècle spirit of their age, caught on the axis of a century, and characterized by reflection and yearning, as much as technological, philosophical, and political advance. Texts by Riichi Miyake accompany Tahara’s pictures to describe the buildings’ floor plans, designs, and the broader context of their dreamlike environments.

Limited and numbered edition of 10,000 copies

The photographer:

Keiichi Tahara (1951–2017) lived in Paris from 1973 to 2004 before moving back to his native Japan. Considered one of architecture’s great photographers, he won many awards, including the Niépce Prize in 1988. His series include Louvre (1995); Les Anges de Croatie (1995); l’Opéra de Garnier (1996); Egypt (1997); Piemonte (2000); the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar (2008); and The Diet Building of Japan (Kokkaigijidou) (2015).

The author"

Riichi Miyake (b. 1948) was educated at the University of Tokyo (1972) and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1979). After working as a professor at Shibaura Institute of Technology, Université de Liège, Keio University, and Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris, he is currently professor at Fuji Women’s University in Sapporo. Miyake’s publications include Weaving Culture, Creating Culture (2005) and Saint-Gobain (2010).

Книга Living Buildings: Architectural Conservation : Philosophy, Principles and Practice является итогом 50-летней теоретической и практической работы автора по реставрации старых зданий от самых маленьких до больших, и даже целых исторических районов.

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'Living Buildings' celebrates the 50th anniversary of Donald Insall Associates, the firm led by British architect Donald Insall. Responsable for the restoration of Windsor Castle after a fire in 1992, Insallís preservation architecture has given longevity to Britainís stately homes, town halls, churches, entire city precincts, hospitals, royal palaces, castles, public buildings and public spaces.

In 1958, Insall and several of his colleagues founded a famous architectural practice in England based on architectural conservation, that is, the salvation, restoration, and rehabilitation of historic buildings and neighborhoods. (In the United States, this practice is called historic preservation.) This book commemorates these 50 years of professional practice, mostly in England, involving some of the United Kingdom's most cherished historic resources (e.g., Windsor Castle, Somerset House, and Covent Garden).

Divided into two sections, the book covers assessing, analyzing, planning, and implementing individual restoration projects ("Organizing the Project") and daily maintenance through radical rehabilitation to contextual new construction ("Degrees of Intervention").

Containing over 600 luxurious color maps, photos, and plans of a wide variety of projects in England, this work could easily serve as a textbook for a beginner's course in historic preservation. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.

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Living Buildings celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Donald Insall Associates, the Practice founded by distinguished British architect Donald Insall, a leading exponent in the field of Architectural Conservation. Probably best known for the restoration of Windsor Castle after a devastating fire in 1992, the team’s dedicated work has ensured the longevity of many of Britain’s national treasures. This book presents a detailed examination of a painstaking approach to architectural conservation, comprehensively illustrated by case studies, drawings, plans and in-depth descriptions. It is designed for a wide readership among all those who love and care for old buildings and appreciate good new design in sensitive areas.

- New look at architectural conservation. Includes an introduction by author Donald Insall, and a foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales
- Head architect of restoration for Windsor Castle after the 1992 fires. The book focuses on Donald Insall & Associates with a chronology of the firm's work from its post-war beginnings
- Features sections on day-to-day building care, maintenance, conservation, major repairs, and restoration and rebuilding
- A practical handbook in which the author shares 60 years of experience with 'Living Buildings' and his thoughts for the future
- 2018 marks the 60th anniversary of the practice

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Пролистать книгу Living Buildings: Architectural Conservation : Philosophy, Principles and Practice  на Google books

Traces the evolution of midcentury houses and demonstrates how they are experienced and lived in today

This expanded and updated edition of the 2014 classic focuses on the concentration of midcentury houses in New Canaan, Connecticut, built by noted architects including Marcel Breuer, Eliot Noyes, Philip Johnson, John Black Lee, and Edward Durell Stone. This new edition addresses the issue of preservation and adaptive reuse as a sustainable architectural strategy.

A representative group of 17 houses reveals an evolving legacy, now adapting to contemporary life. Each is examined in detail, with plans, timelines, and both archival and new photography, capturing the clean, minimalist look of the initial construction and re-imagining by significant architects of our time. Today preservation and renovation of older buildings has new visibility as a sustainable approach. As the National Trust for Historic Preservation has said, “The greenest building is the one that is already built.”

About the Authors:

Cristina A. Ross is an architect and preservationist, based in New Canaan, and a board member of Preservation Connecticut.

Lorenzo Ottaviani is the creative director of Lorenzo Ottaviani Design.

Jeffrey R. Matz is a practicing architect in Stamford, Connecticut.

Michael Biondo is an architectural photographer whose work has appeared in numerous design publications.

An extensively revised and updated edition of a bestselling classic on modern architecture and its origins

This highly acclaimed survey of modern architecture and its origins has become a classic since it first appeared in 1980, and has helped to shape architectural practice and discourse worldwide. For this extensively revised and updated fifth edition, Kenneth Frampton has added a new section that explores in detail the modernist tradition in architecture across the globe in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He examines the varied ways in which architects are not only responding to the geographical, climatic, material and cultural contexts of their buildings but also pursuing distinct lines of approach that emphasize topography, morphology, sustainability, materiality habitat and civic form. It remains an essential book for all students of architecture and architectural history.

Contents List:

Introduction • Part I: Cultural developments and predisposing techniques 1750–1939 • Part II: A critical history 1836–1967 • Part III: Critical transformations 1925–90 • Part IV: World Architecture and the Modern Movement • Afterword: Architecture in the Age of Globalization

About the Author:

Kenneth Frampton was born in 1930 and trained as an architect at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. He has taught at a number of leading institutions in the field, including the Royal College of Art in London, the ETH in Zürich, the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, EPFL in Lausanne and the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio. From 1972 to 2019 he served as Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, New York. He is the author of numerous essays on modern and contemporary architecture, has served on many international juries for architectural awards and building commissions, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2018 he was awarded the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale. His publications include Studies in Tectonic Culturei (1992), Labour, Work and Architecture (2005), American Masterworks (2008), Kengo Kuma: Complete Works (2012) and A Genealogy of Modern Architecture (2013).

With this introduction to the work of Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), TASCHEN's Basic Architecture series shines its spotlight on one of the most influential figures in the history of Western architecture. 

Palladio's Villa Rotonda in Vicenza became the most famous building of its kind; it influenced many later designs and remains an important source of inspiration for today s architects. 

The Palladian style, distinguished by the typical Serlian windows, pillared façades resembling Roman temples, symmetrical floor plans, and elevations, was imported to other European countries and became widely known; in Great Britain, it was one the important roots of 17th and 18th-century architecture.

In the 19th century, American architecture heavily referred to the style, as seen in, for example, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello home.

About the series:

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Architecture series features:

- an introduction to the life and work of the architect 
- the major works in chronological order
- information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions
- a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings
- approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts, and plans)

architecture under the microscope. rem koolhaas’s essential toolkit to building anatomies

This collection is a look through the microscope at the real fundamentals of our buildings, revealing the essential design techniques used by any architect, anywhere, anytime. Conceived by Rem Koolhaas and made with the Harvard Graduate School of Design, it is a primordial toolkit to understanding how seemingly stable elements are actually in constant evolution.

Elements of Architecture focuses on the fragments of the rich and complex architectural collage. Window, façade, balcony, corridor, fireplace, stair, escalator, elevator: the book seeks to excavate the micro-narratives of building detail. The result is no single history, but rather the web of origins, contaminations, similarities, and differences in architectural evolution, including the influence of technological advances, climatic adaptation, political calculation, economic contexts, regulatory requirements, and new digital opportunities. It’s a guide that is long overdue — in Koolhaas’s own words, “Never was a book more relevant — at a moment where architecture as we know it is changing beyond recognition.”

Derived, updated, and expanded from Koolhaas’s exhaustive and much-lauded exhibition at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, this is an essential toolkit to understanding the fundamentals that comprise structure around the globe. Designed by Irma Boom and based on research from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the 2,600-page monograph contains essays from Rem Koolhaas, Stephan Trueby, Manfredo di Robilant, and Jeffrey Inaba; interviews with Werner Sobek and Tony Fadell (of Nest); and an exclusive photo essay by Wolfgang Tillmans.

In addition to comprehensively updated texts and new images, this edition is designed and produced to visually (and physically) embody the immense scope of its subject matter:

Custom split-spine binding: our printer modified their industrial binding machine to allow for the flexible, eight-centimetre thick spine
Contains a new introductory chapter with forewords, a table of contents, and an index, located in the middle of the book (where it naturally opens due to its unique spine)

Printed on 50g Opakal paper, allowing for the ideal level of opacity needed to realize Boom’s palimpsest-like design
Translucent overlays and personal annotations by Koolhaas and Boom are woven in each chapter to create an alternative, faster route through the book
Printed at the originally intended 100% size for full readability

The author:

Rem Koolhaas is a co-founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Having worked as a journalist and scriptwriter before becoming an architect, in 1978 he published Delirious New York. His 1996 book S,M,L,XL summarized the work of OMA and established connections of contemporary society and architecture. He was listed among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2008, and among many international awards and exhibitions, he received the Pritzker Prize (2000) and the Premium Imperiale (2003). He directed the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, coinciding with the first publication of Elements of Architecture.

The designer:

Irma Boom is a graphic designer specialized in making books. Since founding Irma Boom Office in 1990, she has worked with the likes of Chanel, the United Nations, OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Fondazione Prada, Pirelli, and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. She received the Gutenberg Prize and the Johannes Vermeer Prize, the Dutch state prize for the arts, among others. Her work is in a permanent collection of the Design and Architecture Department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since 1992, Boom is a Senior Critic at Yale University in the USA.

The artist:

Wolfgang Tillmans was born in Remscheid, Germany, in 1968 and studied at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of his generation. His work, whilst appearing to capture the immediacy of the moment and character of the subject, also examines the dynamics of photographic representation. From the outset, he ignored the traditional separation of art exhibited in a gallery from images and ideas conveyed through other forms of publication, giving equal weight to both. His expansive floor-to-ceiling installations feature images of subcultures and political movements, as well as portraits, landscapes, still-lives and abstract imagery varying in scale from postcard- to wall-sized prints. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1996 and Tate Britain, London, in a major retrospective in 2003. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2000.

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Посмотреть видео о книге Rem Koolhaas. Elements of Architecture

Sarasota in the 1950s was a small community graced with an alluring natural beauty. What set it apart from so many Florida beachfront towns was the concentration of artists, writers, and architects who gathered there - including author MacKinley Kantor and architects Paul Rudolf and Ralph Twitchell - a unique confluence of talented and daring architects coupled with a hip crowd willing to take risks.

Sarasota was a place in which innovation and experimentation were the order of the day, a place where an architect might run into the local watering hole to shout: "I just invented the sliding glass door." Such was the confluence of art and architecture that laid the groundwork for the Sarasota School of Architecture, so named after the fact by architect Gene Leedy at an American Institute of Architecture (AIA) conference in the 1980s to refer to the unique architecture of this region, an architecture that is wonderfully responsive to Sarasota's sub-tropical environment and which has achieved international importance for its beauty, intelligence, and style.

Today, Sarasota's treasures are being rediscovered by lovers of innovative architecture, who are buying and restoring these prized homes; but also, unfortunately, by developers, who are recklessly knocking them down.

Sarasota Modern, the first book of its kind to focus exclusively on this vibrant community, offers the reader an intimate look into the stunning houses as they are lived in today.