Post Description

Product Details
Pub. Date: February 2004
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
Format: Paperback, 319pp
ISBN-13: 9783791329734
ISBN: 3791329731

Synopsis
This topical examination of a key moment in modern architecture pointedly and critically evaluates the role of the neo-avant-garde in today?s world.
International in scope and exhaustive in detail, the book explores important exponents of ?visionary? and ?utopian? architecture in the closing juncture of the modernist era, coinciding with the cultural upheavals and social transformations of the 1960s and ?70s. By revisiting ?New Babylon,? the magnum opus of the Dutch painter Constant Nieuwenhuys, whose vision of a situationist urban environment made him one of the most influential artists of this time, this collection of essays re-examines decisive work by Yona Friedman, the Archigram group, the Italian Radicals Superstudio and Archizoom, Koolhaas/Zenghelis and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, and Léon Krier. Timely, in-depth essays and exhaustive project documentations trace the decline of avant-garde projects in architecture. The result is a significant work of architectural theory and history, which will interest anyone studying ideologies of the past and dreaming the cities of tomorrow.

Library Journal
This book, the outcome of an international conference held in Holland and titled "New Babylon: The Value of Dreaming the City of Tomorrow," unearths some neglected and poorly documented utopian design movements dating from 1956 to 1976. In doing so, it fills the gap in general public knowledge of the avant-garde architecture that existed between Modernism and Postmodernism and that today enjoys a worldwide revival among the younger generation. The engrossing essays, refreshingly free of the cant that floats around as theory today, explore the works of Archigram, the Italian Radicals Superstudio and Archizoom, New Babylon, Constant, Yona Friedman, Koolhaas/Zenghelis and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, and Leon Krier. This specialized illustrated volume is highly recommended for libraries with art and architecture collections.-Peter Kaufman, Boston Architectural Ctr. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.