A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

How the Working Class Became Modern, 1900–1940 Thomas C. Hubka University of Minnesota Press , December 2020 Paperback | 8 x 10 inches | 288 pages | 148 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0816693016 | $40.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : At the turn of the nineteenth century, the average American family still lived by kerosene light, ate in the kitchen, and used an outhouse. By 1940, electric lights, dining rooms, and bathrooms were the norm as the traditional working-class home was fast becoming modern—a fact largely missing from the story of domestic innovation and improvement in twentieth-century America, where such benefits seem to count primarily among the upper classes and the post–World War II denizens of suburbia. Examining the physical evidence of America’s working-class houses, Thomas C. Hubka revises our understanding of how widespread domestic improvement transformed the lives of Americans in the modern era. His work, focused on the broad central portion of the housing...

Modern Housing Catherine Bauer; foreword by Barbara Penner University of Minnesota Press , April 2020 Paperback | 6 x 9-1/4 inches | 400 pages | 175 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1517909062 | $35.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Originally published in 1934, Modern Housing is widely acknowledged as one of the most important books on housing of the twentieth century, introducing the latest developments in European modernist housing to an American audience. It is also a manifesto: America needs to draw on Europe’s example to solve its housing crisis. Only when housing is transformed into a planned, public amenity will it truly be modern. Modern Housing ’s sharp message catalyzed an intense period of housing activism in the United States, resulting in the Housing Act of 1937, which Catherine Bauer coauthored. But these reforms never went far enough: so long as housing remained the subject of capitalist speculation, Bauer knew the housing problem would remain. In light of today’s...

The Invention of Public Space: Designing for Inclusion in Lindsay's New York Mariana Mogilevich University of Minnesota Press , August 2020 Paperback | 7 x 9 inches | 240 pages | 85 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1517905767 | $30.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : As suburbanization, racial conflict, and the consequences of urban renewal threatened New York City with “urban crisis,” the administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay (1966–1973) experimented with a broad array of projects in open spaces to affirm the value of city life. Mariana Mogilevich provides a fascinating history of a watershed moment when designers, government administrators, and residents sought to remake the city in the image of a diverse, free, and democratic society. New pedestrian malls, residential plazas, playgrounds in vacant lots, and parks on postindustrial waterfronts promised everyday spaces for play, social interaction, and participation in the life of the city. Whereas designers had long created ...

Elizabeth Scheu Close: A Life in Modern Architecture Jane King Hession University of Minnesota Press , April 2020 Hardcover | 10 x 9 inches | 224 pages | 152 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1517908577 | $39.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Elizabeth “Lisl” Scheu Close (1912–2011) left an indelible mark on Minnesota’s built landscape during her six decades as an architect. In 1938, with her husband, Winston Close, she founded the state’s first architecture firm dedicated to modernism. In addition to designing the first International Style house in Minneapolis, the firm also created more than 250 handsome and efficiently planned modern residences. One of few women who were practicing architects in the mid-twentieth century, she blazed a trail for future generations of women in the profession. As Jane King Hession shows, the trajectory of Lisl’s architectural career was shaped by the political, economic, and aesthetic upheavals of the twentieth century. Raised in a renowned mode...

The Metabolist Imagination: Visions of the City in Postwar Japanese Architecture and Science Fiction William O. Gardner University of Minnesota Press , April 2020 Paperback | 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches | 232 pages | 20 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1517906245 | $27.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : The devastation of the Second World War gave rise to imaginations both utopian and apocalyptic. In Japan, a fascinating confluence of architects and science fiction writers took advantage of this space to begin remaking urban design. In The Metabolist Imagination , William O. Gardner explores the unique Metabolism movement, which allied with science fiction authors to foresee the global cities that would emerge in the postwar era. This first comparative study of postwar Japanese architecture and science fiction builds on the resurgence of interest in Metabolist architecture while establishing new directions for exploration. Gardner focuses on how these innovators created unique versions o...

Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony Michelangelo Sabatino, Ben Nicholson (Editors) University of Minnesota Press , October 2019 Paperback | 8 x 10 inches | 408 pages | 178 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1517903145 | $40.00 Publisher's Description : Avant-Garde in the Cornfields is an in-depth study of New Harmony, Indiana, a unique town in the American Midwest renowned as the site of two successive Utopian settlements during the nineteenth century: the Harmonists and the Owenites. During the Cold War years of the twentieth century, New Harmony became a spiritual “living community” and attracted a wide variety of creative artists and architects who left behind landmarks that are now world famous. This engrossing and well-documented book explores the architecture, topography, and preservation of New Harmony during both periods and addresses troubling questions about the origin, production, and meaning of the town’s...