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 | | The Details of Modern Architecture. by Edward R. Ford ISBN-10: 9780262061216 ISBN-10: 0-262-06121-X ISBN-13: 9780262061216 ISBN-13: 978-0-262-06121-6 Hardcover 1990-08-22 The MIT Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description How did the great architects of this century reconcile their vision of architecture with the realities of building? This is a crucial question that every student of architecture must confront. The Details of Modern Architecture, the first comprehensive analysis of both the technical and the aesthetic importance of details in the development of architecture, provides not one answer but many. The more than 500 illustrations are a major contribution in their own right. Providing a valuable collective resource, they present the details of notable architectural works drawn in similar styles and formats, allowing comparisons between works of different scales, periods, and styles. Covering the period 1890-1932, Ford focuses on various recognized masters, explaining the detailing and construction techniques that distort, camouflage, or enhance a building. He looks at the source of each architect's ideas, the translation of those ideas into practice, and the success or failure of the technical execution. Ford examines Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House and Fallingwater Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, and buildings by McKim, Mead & White, Lutyens, Mies van der Rohe, and Schindler from a point of view that acknowledges the importance of tradition, precedent, style, and ideology in architectural construction. He discusses critical details from a technical and contextual standpoint, considering how they perform how they add to or detract from the building as a whole, and how some have persisted and been adapted through time. | ||
Reviews | ||
explains why "God is in Details" I guess most architects are familiar with the super famous modernists' projects, but few know what was put on the working drawings to realize it. This book does not provide actual construction drawings, but provide enough information to address what was quintessential aspects of the details. The reader would really appreciate the ingenuity of modern master's detailing by Ford's rich axonometric drawings of particular details. Ford painstakingly explains major issues involved in the details and weaves back to the historical basis of Modernism. Sometimes he makes bold generalizations to help a reader understand (and categorize) structural vs. envelope relationships. Throughout the book there is a clear categorization of attitudes towards the details; first, architects who would like to expose structure; second, architects who would like to wrap structure; third, architects who would combine the former two attitudes (expose/wrap structure). It was extremely rewarding to learn how Corb's details ("layered") differed from Mies's or Kahn's ("tectonic"). Four architects that I really enjoyed reading (because of my lack of knowledge on them) were; Asplund, Lewerentz, Greene Greene, and Aalto. I had to purchase these four architects' monographs after reading Ford's books. | ||
Just like the first one Like the first volume, excellent book. Be prepared, however, for sentences like this, on page 127: "Perhaps because this methodology required the juxtaposition of opposites seemingly incapable of reconciliation, the irrational combination of radically different techniques, and the simultaneous consideration of multiple variables, it was one at which Aalto excelled". Both books are pretty much like that. It's interesting to read these elaborate sentences, but often they're the umpteenth re-statement of a point. After reading these volumes you'll have an overview of the important buildings and architects of the Twentieth century, complete with detailed drawings describing exactly how they were built, and a sense that architects will always agonize over the deceptions they are forced to perpetuate. | ||
Poor drawings This book could be the greatest book in my bookshelf, but the detail drawings are so basic and naive that it's valuable almost only for the essays. I mean... I bought a book where I expected to find good and useful details, and got a book with excelent essays about construction according to the masters (from Lutyens to Morphosis). That's why I gave it 3 stars instead of the 5 the title deserved. | ||
Scholarly text and incredibly detailed drawings A review of famous modern architects' buildings, starting with H.H. Richardson and ending with Wright's Usonian houses. Shows how each's ideals regarding architectural honesty are revealed and often compromised in their buildings. The theme is really not important, as long as it provides a framework for discussion of construction methods, which is the real heart of the book. (For the sequel, another theme, the influence of industrialization, is added to the discussion.) You'll learn interesting facts: Greene & Greene's Gamble House is post and beam only where it shows; FLW's Martin house owes its distinctive style to framing with structural steel and brick piers. Combine this with the second volume, and you'll be familiar with all the important Modern buildings and architects. | ||
The missing details I received the books (both the earlier publication and the follow up vol 2) today after a long wait. I must say that I have high expectation of the books and reckon that they could make an important contribution to the study of architecture. In an age where students are learning only from glossy mags and have no idea how buildings are put together and how the tactile quality of construction works, I think it is right that somebody should revisit the art and craft of architecture. However, I am greatly disappointed with the books. Whilst the text is general reasonable, insightful and critical, the same cannot be said to the drawings. In a nutshell, they are badly drawn and poorly finished. For example, the style of the drawings does not reflect the quality of the material used. And who is going to believe that when materials of different qualities are joined together, there is no tolerance? Fixing methods are not illustrated and I have a suspicion that some of the details are guesswork. This is evident by noting the impossibility of construction sequence based on the drawings. The most unforgivable sin of the drawings is that lines are missing, or are wrongly drawn. Like my teachers used to say to us, students of architecture, the guy who did the drawings simply has no idea of construction and detailing. As far as trying to teach my students the art and craft of architecture, I will definitely give the books a miss. The books are only useful to show how they should not be done. | ||