[PDF] Minoru Yamasaki eBook

Author : Justin Beal
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 31,58 MB
Release : 2021-09-14
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 0262367181

GET BOOK

An account of the life and work of the architect Minoru Yamasaki that leads the author to consider how (and for whom) architectural history is written. Sandfuture is a book about the life of the architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986), who remains on the margins of history despite the enormous influence of his work on American architecture and society. That Yamasaki’s most famous projects—the Pruitt-Igoe apartments in St. Louis and the original World Trade Center in New York—were both destroyed on national television, thirty years apart, makes his relative obscurity all the more remarkable. Sandfuture is also a book about an artist interrogating art and architecture’s role in culture as New York changes drastically after a decade bracketed by terrorism and natural disaster. From the central thread of Yamasaki’s life, Sandfuture spirals outward to include reflections on a wide range of subjects, from the figure of the architect in literature and film and transformations in the contemporary art market to the perils of sick buildings and the broader social and political implications of how, and for whom, cities are built. The result is at once sophisticated in its understanding of material culture and novelistic in its telling of a good story.

Author : Dale Allen Gyure
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 12,76 MB
Release : 2017-11-28
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 0300229860

GET BOOK

The first book to reevaluate the evocative and polarizing work of one of midcentury America’s most significant architects Born to Japanese immigrant parents in Seattle, Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986) became one of the towering figures of midcentury architecture, even appearing on the cover of Time magazine in 1963. His self-proclaimed humanist designs merged the modern materials and functional considerations of postwar American architecture with traditional elements such as arches and colonnades. Yamasaki’s celebrated and iconic projects of the 1950s and ’60s, including the Lambert–St. Louis Airport and the U.S. Science Pavilion in Seattle, garnered popular acclaim. Despite this initial success, Yamasaki’s reputation began to decline in the 1970s with the mixed critical reception of the World Trade Center in New York, one of the most publicized projects in the world at the time, and the spectacular failure of St. Louis’s Pruitt-Igoe Apartments, which came to symbolize the flaws of midcentury urban renewal policy. And as architecture moved in a more critical direction influenced by postmodern theory, Yamasaki seemed increasingly old-fashioned. In the first book to examine Yamasaki’s life and career, Dale Allen Gyure draws on a wealth of previously unpublished archival material, and nearly 200 images, to contextualize his work against the framework of midcentury modernism and explore his initial successes, his personal struggles—including with racism—and the tension his work ultimately found in the divide between popular and critical taste.

Author : Paul Kidder
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 42,81 MB
Release : 2021-07-18
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1000417131

GET BOOK

Few figures in the American arts have stories richer in irony than does architect Minoru Yamasaki. While his twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center are internationally iconic, few who know the icon recognize its architect’s name or know much about his portfolio of more than 200 buildings. One is tempted to call him America’s most famous forgotten architect. He was classed in the top tier of his profession in the 1950s and ’60s, as he carried modernism in novel directions, yet today he is best known not for buildings that stand but for two projects that were destroyed under tragic circumstances: the twin towers and the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis. This book undertakes a reinterpretation of Yamasaki’s significance that combines architectural history with the study of his intersection with defining moments of American history and culture. The story of the loss and vulnerability of Yamasaki’s legacy illustrates the fragility of all architecture in the face of natural and historical forces, yet in Yamasaki’s view, fragility is also a positive quality in architecture: the source of its refinement, beauty, and humanity. We learn something essential about architecture when we explore this tension of strength and fragility. In the course of interpreting Yamasaki’s architecture through the wide lens of the book we see the mid-century role of Detroit as an industrial power and architectural mecca; we follow a debate over public housing that entailed the creation and eventual destruction of many thousands of units; we examine competing attempts to embody democratic ideals in architecture and to represent those ideals in foreign lands; we ponder the consequences of anti-Japanese prejudice and the masculism of the architectural profession; we see Yamasaki’s style criticized for its arid minimalism yet equally for its delicacy and charm; we observe Yamasaki making a great name for himself in the Arab world but his twin towers ultimately destroyed by Islamic militants. As this curious tale of ironies unfolds, it invites reflection on the core of modern architecture’s search for meaning and on the creative possibilities its legacy continues to offer. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color illustrations of Yamasaki’s buildings, this book will be of interest to students, academics and professionals in a range of disciplines, including architectural history, architectural theory, architectural preservation, and urban design and planning.

Author : John Gallagher
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
Page : 130 pages
File Size : 36,37 MB
Release : 2015-09-01
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 0814341209

GET BOOK

Explores the life, creative drive, and notable projects of modernist architect Minoru Yamasaki. Although his best-known project was the World Trade Center in New York City, Japanese American architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986) worked to create moments of surprise, serenity, and delight in distinctive buildings around the world. In his adopted home of Detroit, where he lived and worked for the last half of his life, Yamasaki produced many important designs that range from public buildings to offices and private residences. In Yamasaki in Detroit: A Search for Serenity, author John Gallagher presents both a biography of Yamasaki—or Yama as he was known—and an examination of his working practices, with an emphasis on the architect's search for a style that would express his artistic goals. Gallagher explores Yamasaki's drive to craft tranquil spaces amid bustling cities while other modernists favored "glass box" designs. He connects Yamasaki's design philosophy to tumultuous personal experiences, including the architect's efforts to overcome poverty, racial discrimination, and his own inner demons. Yamasaki in Detroit surveys select projects spanning from the late 1940s to the end of Yamasaki's life, revealing the unique gardens, pools, plazas, skylight atriums, and other oases of respite in these buildings. Gallagher includes prominent works like the Michigan Consolidated Gas Building in downtown Detroit, Temple Beth-El in Bloomfield Township, and landmark buildings on the Wayne State University and College for Creative Studies campuses, as well as smaller medical clinics, office buildings, and private homes (including Yamasaki's own residence). Gallagher consults Yamasaki's own autobiographical writings, architects who worked with Yamasaki in his firm, and photography from several historic archives to give a full picture of the architect's work and motivations. Both knowledgeable fans of modernist architecture and general readers will enjoy Yamasaki in Detroit. Wayne State University Press gratefully acknowledges the organizations that generously supported the publication of this book: Friends of Modern and Contemporary Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Yamasaki, Inc. and The Office of the Vice President of Research (OVPR) of Wayne State University.

Author : Amy Arnold
Publisher : Gibbs Smith
Page : 740 pages
File Size : 18,28 MB
Release : 2016-10-04
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1423644980

GET BOOK

Michigan Modern: Design That Shaped America is an impressive collection of important essays touching on all aspects of Michigan’s architecture and design heritage. The Great Lakes State has always been known for its contributions to twentieth-century manufacturing, but it’s only beginning to receive wide attention for its contributions to Modern design and architecture. Brian D. Conway, Michigan’s State Historic Preservation Officer, and Amy L. Arnold, project manager for Michigan Modern, have curated nearly thirty essays and interviews from a number of prominent architects, academics, architectural historians, journalists, and designers, including historian Alan Hess, designers Mira Nakashima, Ruth Adler Schnee, and Todd Oldham, and architect Gunnar Birkerts, describing Michigan’s contributions to Modern design in architecture, automobiles, furniture and education.

Author : Anat Geva
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Page : 463 pages
File Size : 26,56 MB
Release : 2023-12-14
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1648431364

GET BOOK

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States experienced a rapid expansion of church and synagogue construction as part of a larger “religious boom.” The synagogues built in that era illustrate how their designs pushed the envelope in aesthetics and construction. The design of the synagogues departed from traditional concepts, embraced modernism and innovations in building technology, and evolved beyond the formal/rational style of early 1950s modern architecture to more of an expressionistic design. The latter resulted in abstraction of architectural forms and details, and the inclusion of Jewish art in the new synagogues. The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s–1960s introduces an architectural analysis of selected modern American synagogues and reveals how they express American Jewry’s resilience in continuing their physical and spiritual identity, while embracing modernism, American values, and landscape. In addition, the book contributes to the discourse on preserving the recent past (e.g., mid 20th century architecture). While most of the investigations on that topic deal with the “brick & mortar” challenges, this book introduces preservation issues as a function of changes in demographics, in faith rituals, in building codes, and in energy conservation. As an introduction or a reexamination, The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s–1960s offers a fresh perspective on an important moment in American Jewish society and culture as reflected in their houses of worship and adds to the literature on modern American sacred architecture. The book may appeal to Jewish congregations, architects, preservationists, scholars, and students in fields of studies such as architectural design, sacred architecture, American modern architecture and building technology, Post WWII religious and Jewish studies, and preservation and conservation.

Author : Clifton Fordham
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 14,81 MB
Release : 2020-07-21
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1000081842

GET BOOK

Constructing Building Enclosures investigates and interrogates tensions that arose between the disciplines of architecture and engineering as they wrestled with technology and building cultures that evolved to deliver structures in the modern era. At the center of this history are inventive architects, engineers and projects that did not settle for conventional solutions, technologies and methods. Comprised of thirteen original essays by interdisciplinary scholars, this collection offers a critical look at the development and the purpose of building technology within a design framework. Through two distinct sections, the contributions first challenge notions of the boundaries between architecture, engineering and construction. The authors then investigate twentieth-century building projects, exploring technological and aesthetic boundaries of postwar modernism and uncovering lessons relevant to enclosure design that are typically overlooked. Projects include Louis Kahn’s Weiss House, Minoru Yamasaki’s Science Center, Sigurd Lewerentz’s Chapel of Hope and more. An important read for students, educators and researchers within architectural history, construction history, building technology and design, this volume sets out to disrupt common assumptions of how we understand this history.

Author : Katie Yamasaki
Publisher : Holiday House
Page : 32 pages
File Size : 25,79 MB
Release : 2020-11-17
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 0823427870

GET BOOK

For two boys in a Japanese American family, everything changed when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States went to war. With the family forced to leave their home and go to an internment camp, Jimmy loses his appetite. Older brother Taro takes matters into his own hands and, night after night, sneaks out of the camp and catches fresh fish for Jimmy to help make him strong again. This affecting tale of courage and love is an adaptation of the author's true family story, and includes a letter to readers with more information about the historical background and inspiration.