Description
If there is anything to be learned from the history of American architecture it is that it reflects the American adventure in creativity and inventiveness, and the desire to be unique and expressive. In The Groundbreakers, Charles E. Dagit, Jr. examines pioneering American architects and the historical events and trends that gave rise to their achievements. These architects, the caliber of Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry, created their own distinct, personal styles, and represented the rich heritages of their specific geographical regions.The American pioneer spirit of individualism is alive and well in the architectural world, and like other American innovations, architecture as practiced in the United States is constantly renewing itself and finding new ways to capture the imagination. This book will be of interest to historians, architects, and students in American studies. Illustrations add dimension to the author's observations.Table of ContentForeword by Peter Q. BohlinAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The American Dream2. Beginnings of American Architecture3. Early History: Two Colonies, Two Capitals4. William Buckland: The First American Architect5. The Search for an American Architecture, Thomas Jefferson, a Romantic Rationalist, North and South6. Boston, the Cradle of Invention, Henry Hobson Richardson7. Philadelphia, the Generator of Institutions, Frank Furness8. Chicago, the Prairie Innovations, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright9. Pasadena and the Railroad Hotel, the Western Legacy of Greene and Greene10. San Francisco, Berkeley and the Gold Rush, Bernard Maybeck11. Tulsa, Oil and Cattle, Bruce Goff12. Detroit, the Economic Engine, the Automobile, Eero Sarrinen13. Los Angeles and the Birth of the Film Industry, Rudolph Schindler, the Beginnings of Abstract Modernism, Mies van der Rohe14. Philadelphia, the Philadelphia School, the Emergence of the Intellectual Revolution, Louis I. Kahn, Romaldo Giurgola, Robert Venturi15. The International Style, The Americans: Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo, I. M. Pei, Philip Johnson16. The New York Five, "the Whites," The Ultramodernists and Their Conversion, Richard Meier, Michael Graves17. Architects Out of Context, Charles Moore, Robert A. M. Stern, Peter Bohlin, James Polshek, Antoine Predock, Cesar Pelli18. Global Architecture and the Architecture of the Bizarre, The Tech-Fantasticism Movement, Eric Owen Moss, Frank Gehry, Los Angeles and the Culture of Fantasy19. On the Brink, Kieran Timberlake, Steven Holl, Tod Williams Billie Tsien20. Observations on History and the Future, The American SpiritIllustration CreditsIllustrations IndexIndexBiographical NoteCharles E. Dagit, Jr. taught at Temple University, USA, the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and Drexel University, USA, and was awarded the American Institute of Architects Pennsylvania's Medal of Distinction. His work has been published in Progressive Architect, Interiors Magazine, and Yale Perspecta.
