| | Tower and Office: From Modernist Theory to Contemporary Practice. Inaki Abalos & Juan Herreros.
Spanish architects Abalos
& Herreros finished a Spanish-language book in 1992
titled Técnica y arquitectura en la ciudad contemporánea
that lead to a fellowship at Columbia University for additional
research. Published eleven years after its predecessor,
Tower and Office naturally focuses on the technology
of high rise construction and its relationship to the office
environment, though in the end the book also stands as an
intelligent critique of contemporary architecture and urbanity.
Starting with mid-20th-century Modernism, the duo uses Le
Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe's influential work in high-rise
construction to eventually point out Modernism's limits.
Not to say that the movement failed or does not have relevance;
advances in technology since World War II have created problems,
and subsequently ones that were out of reach or unthinkable
with the Modernist approach.
The second part of the book traces
structural, mechanical and curtain wall development in these
years leading up to the present. The third, and last, part
deals with the changing office environment and the evolution
of the mixed-use skyscraper. This last subject gives the
book a potentially broader impact beyond its historical
critique of the office skyscraper. The current incarnation
of tall buildings vertically layers what was previously
spread out horizontally across the urban fabric, necessitating
a change in the idea of the city, of building types and
the meaning of public and private space.
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