In 1930, when Albert Frey (1903-1998) came to the US from his native Switzerland, he brought the influence of his mentor, Le Corbusier, with him. The innovative Aluminaire House that he developed together with A. L. Kocher was exhibited in 1932 by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson in the legendary show in the Museum of Modern Art in New York “The International Style: Architecture since 1922” as one of the very few American examples of the movement. Soon after, Frey discovered the California desert, where he would settle and complete his most substantial works. Throughout his life, Frey was interested in finding new ways of building, as well as working with and doing research on prefabricated materials, the results of which he regularly published. With visionary talent, Frey built elegant, clearly structured residential houses and was the founder of the “desert modernism” style.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

• approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
• an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

The focus of this monograph on Spanish-born Felix Candela (1919–1997) is on modern Mexican architecture and its international influence. Conducting daring structural experiments with materials such as reinforced concrete and experimenting with shell vaulting to find new methods to save costs and material in building, Candela not only succeeded in putting his engineering knowledge into high-quality constructions but also into high-quality architecture. Geometry marks his impressive sculptural work, not only in the industrial buildings but also in churches, restaurants, university buildings, and sport facilities. With this book, readers are invited to discover how construction problems result in poetic and bizarre forms, and how advances in engineering can lead to expressionist architecture.

About the Series:

Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

• approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
• an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

One of Austria’s most influential architects, Otto Wagner (1841-1918) played a key role in modernizing urban architecture. Forming an approach described as structural rationalism, Wagner pioneered use of materials such as glass, steel, and especially aluminum. He was associated with the Viennese Succession, a group of artists and designers headed by Gustav Klimt that initiated a departure from the conservative style of the Viennese Künstlerhaus. Among Wagner’s most important buildings are the Vienna Postsparkassenamt (Postal Savings building) and the Steinhof Church.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

• approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
• an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

As an architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841) is considered one of finest in German history, having established a "new," patriotic German style based on the Gothic style; as a painter, draftsman, and designer of furniture, interior fittings, and stage sets, he created some of the best examples of 19th century art. His work was so admired by King Frederick William III that Schinkel acted as state architect of Prussia for nearly his entire career, designing many public buildings, palaces, and royal country estates, including the Royal Theater and Altes Museum in Berlin. So highly was Schinkel regarded that his contemporaries deemed him a genius and biographies were written about him during his lifetime.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

• approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
• an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

"Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects, etc.,... the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
- Charles Eames

"... everything hangs on something else."
- Ray Eames

Nothing says modernist perfection like an Eames design. Though they are best known to the general public for their furniture, the husband and wife duo of Charles and Ray Eames (1907-78 and 1912-88, respectively) were also forerunners in the fields of architecture, industrial design, photography, and film. This book covers all the aspects of their illustrious career, from the earliest furniture experiments and molded plywood designs to the Case Study Houses to their work for Herman Miller and films such as the seminal short, Powers of Ten.

About the Series:

Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

- approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
- introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
- the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
- an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) was one of the founding fathers of modern architecture. The creator of the Barcelona Pavilion (1929), the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois (1945–1951) and the Seagram Building in New York (1954–1958), Mies was one of the founders of a new architectural style. Well known for his motto "less is more," he sought a kind of refined purity in architectural expression that was not seen in the reduced vocabulary of other Bauhaus members. His goal was not simply building for those of modest income but building economically in terms of sustainability, both in a technical and aesthetical way; the use of industrial materials such as steel and glass were the foundation of this approach. Though the extreme reduction of form and material in his work garnered some criticism, over the years many have tried - mostly unsuccessfully - to copy his original and elegant style.

This book explores more than 20 of his projects between 1906 and 1967, from his early work around Berlin to his most important American buildings.

About the Series:

Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

- approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
- introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
- the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
-an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

In 1956, Time magazine called him one of the “form-givers of the 20th century“: with his invention of steel-tube furniture, Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) has made his mark in the history of design at the tender age of 23. He started his architectural career as one of the Bauhaus’s most influential architects with the 1932 Harnischmacher House. Even Breuer’s earliest work was marked by the search for a symbiosis between local and global, big and small, smooth and rough. His sparse use of materials emphasized the balance among textures, colors, and shapes. In 1943, he conceived the “binuclear” house concept - the splitting of living and sleeping areas into separate wings - which he first applied to the Geller House I (1944-1946), and which would attain great popularity. After designing the UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1953-1958), reinforced concrete, with its formal plasticity und structural elasticity, continued to give monumental character to buildings such as the Abbey and Campus of St. John’s University in Minnesota (1953-1961), the IBM Research Center in France (1960-1962), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1963-1966) in New York City. With his keen sense of proportion, shape, and material, Breuer is one of the most important Modernists and is still very much central in the discussion of contemporary architecture.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

• approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
• an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

French architect and designer Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) was one of the most important constructors of the 20th century. Prouvé's design innovations included cleverly-shaped metal parts for building prefabricated structures; he designed buildings and furniture that could be produced with economy of labor and material and efficiency in use, while maintaining high technical standards and quality materials. His simple and elegant style, while born from the desire for inexpensive production, has become an imitable aesthetic and has earned him a position as one of the century`s most influential designers.

This introduction to Prouvé`s work gives a profound insight into the variety of his oeuvre and the progressiveness of his inspirational vision.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

• approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
• an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) adopted his famous pseudonym after publishing his ideas in the review L’Esprit Nouveau in 1920. The few buildings he was able to design during the 1920s, when he also spent much of his time painting and writing, brought him to the forefront of modern architecture, though it wasn’t until after World War II that his epoch-making buildings were constructed, such as the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles and the Church of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp. 

Посмотреть русскоязычное издание книги Le Corbusier -  Ле Корбюзье

About the Series:

Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

• approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
• an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

Это издание посвящено гению испанской архитектуры Антонио Гауди (1852–1926), создавшему своеобразный вариант стиля модерн.

Мало заботясь о чистоте стиля, Гауди добивался впечатления фантастичности будто вылепленных архитектурных форм. Его творчество повлияло на всю архитектуру ХХ века. Он отличался от своих коллег-архитекторов особой чуткостью к формам проявления природы и тем, какое значение он придавал геометрии как средству познания и инструменту для создания задуманной конструкции. В период между 1890 и 1914 годами талант архитектора нашел воплощение в строениях и парках, которые, безусловно, принадлежат к числу мировых шедевров.

Его проекты всегда начинались с трехмерной модели из гипса, дерева или веревочек с грузом, холсты служили для имитации поверхностей. Хотя он придавал очень большое значение черчению, модели являлись самым важным инструментом для отработки его идей, как он объяснял своим ученикам, поскольку можно обдумывать форму в пространстве.

Его творения обретали все более сложные формы, не в последнюю очередь по той причине, что он находил способы их реализации в соответствии с традиционными недорогими и не требующими особых затрат строительными технологиями. Кроме того, он отказался от использования при строительстве необычных материалов, отдавая предпочтение кирпичу. Из традиционных технологий, которые возродил Гауди, особо знаменитой стала сводчатая крыша, образуемая рядами кладки из особо прочных, скрепленных известковым раствором плит.

Книга состоит из введения, шестнадцати частей с подробными описаниями самых знаменитых построек, иллюстрированной хронологии жизни и творчества, карт с указанием мест построек Гауди в Испании, и более подробно - в Барселоне, а также избранной библиографии трудов о Гауди.

About the Series:

Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

- approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
- introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
- the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
- an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings