The Mathematics Of The Ideal Villa And Other Essays

This collection of an important architectural theorist's essays considers and compares designs by Palladio and Le Corbusier, discusses mannerism and modern architecture, architectural vocabulary in the 19th century, the architecture of Chicago, neoclassicism and modern architecture, and the architecture of utopia.

"Transparency," by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, originally published in English in 1964 (in Perspecta 8), followed by a German translation in 1968, is one of the main modern reference texts for any student of architecture. Rowe and Slutzky co-founded the architects group "Texas Rangers" at the University of Texas in Austin, together with John Hejduk, Werner Seligmann and Bernhard Hoesli. In conjunction with their teaching activities, the group members sought to develop a new method for architectural design and proceeded to test their models in the teaching environment. This edition of Transparency is provided with a commentary by Bernhard Hoesli and an introduction by the art and architecture historian Werner Oechslin.

Spanning a period of over half a century, from the early 1940s until his death in 1999, Colin Rowe wrote a multitude of letters to his parents in England and to friends Henry Russell Hitchcock and Ernst Gombrich; to colleagues Stanford Anderson, Robert Maxwell, Michael Spens, Alan Colquhoun, Alvin Boyarsky, John Miller; to architects Louis Kahn and Peter Eisenman; and most intimately and candidly, to his brother, sister-in-law, and nephews in Oxford, England.

This book is a critical reappraisal of contemporary theories of urban planning and design and of the role of the architect-planner in an urban context. The authors, rejecting the grand utopian visions of "total planning" and "total design," propose instead a "collage city" which can accommodate a whole range of utopias in miniature.

Sir Kenneth Clark wrote in the Architectural Review, that the first result of this book was "to dispose, once and for all, of the hedonist, or purely aesthetic, theory of Renaissance architecture, ' and this defines Wittkower's intention in a nutshell.

Preface by Kenneth Frampton Winner of the 1985 Architectural Critics Award for the best book published on architectural criticism over the past three years. Since the early 1950s, Alan Colquhoun's criticism and theory have acted as a conscience to a generation of architects. His rigor and conceptual clarity have consistently stimulated debate and have served as an impetus for the pursuit of new directions in both theory and practice. This collection of 17 of his essays marks a watershed in the development of architectural thinking over the past three decades, comprising a virtual "theory of Modernism" in architecture. In his earliest essays, Colquhoun concentrated on themes that for him comprised the modernist attitude in architecture - language, typology, and the structure of form. His stance since then has consistently been to try to relate these issues to current practice and to analyze the nature of architectural expression in relation to culture. Alan Colquhoun divides his time between England, where is is a principal in the firm of Colquhoun & Miller, and the United States, where he is Professor of Architecture at Princeton University. An Oppositions Book.

Colin Rowe has achieved legendary status as one of a handful of outstanding studio teachers of architecture and urban design to emerge within the last two generations. His writings reveal the powerful insight and dispassionate, authoritative intelligence that mark him as one of the preeminent architectural thinkers of this perplexing half century. Divided into three volumes, in more or less chronological order, As I Was Saying includes articles, essays, eulogies, lectures, reviews, and memoranda. Some appeared only in obscure journals, and many are published here for the first time.

Introduction -- Formulas, free plans, and a Piranesian city -- Third generation -- Junk, bunk, and tomorrow -- The cube and the pile-up -- The uses of nostalgia -- The mechanical hobgoblin -- Aftermath.