| | Age of the Masters: A Personal View of Modern Architecture. Reyner Banham.
One of the most unique architectural
critics of the last half of the 20th century, Banham contributed
not just one, but many significant texts during his career:
Theory and Design in the First Marchine Age, The
Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, and
Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies
in particular. Masters, written initially in 1962
and revised for a 1975 printing, finds the critic assessing
the impact of the Modern Movement through its architects
and buildings. Although the title refers to architects like
Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der
Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Walter
Gropius, others are featured throughout the roughly chronological
presentation of important works, from the Schröder
House by Rietveld to Mies's National Gallery in Berlin.
Obvious landmarks like the Eames and Robie Houses, Unité
d'Habitation, the Seagram Building, the Bauhaus, the TWA
Terminal, Brasilia, and Habitat are included, but so are
lesser-known structures like Bruce Goff's Ford House, the
Climatron in St. Louis, CLASP prototype schools in Italy,
and the US Atomic Energy Commission Pavilion from 1960.
What each work has in common is Banham's appreciation, his
unique point of view coming across in every paragraph. Before
the presentation of projects, he sets up four chapters that
lay out his definition of Modern architecture - function,
form, construction, and space - helping to frame the ideas
he presents for each project and lend an understanding to
these architects and their contributions to the environment.
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