Louisiana buildings, 1720-1940

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Monica Randall

This beautifully illustrated book features the magnificent estates built in the early part of the twentieth century by the wealthy residents of Long Island's North Shore. Many of the mansions are no longer standing, making this book a critical archive and monument to their glory. In their heyday, they were inhabited by the aristocracy of America's gilded age, among them Vanderbilts, Phipps, and Pratts. The author's evocative photographs capture the splendor of these once luxurious homes, from the houses' turrets, porticos, columns, and courtyards to their vaulted entry halls, spacious ballrooms, and vast libraries. Accompanied by histories of the estates and the families that built them, this book is a classic and evocative reminder of a bygone era and lifestyle. --Publisher description.

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Gottfried Semper

"The enduring influence of the architect Gottfried Semper (1803-79) derives less from his monumental buildings in Dresden, Zurich, and Vienna than from his Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts (1860-63). Semper's landmark survey of the motives giving rise to the technical arts (textiles, ceramics, carpentry, masonry) explores the symbolic and material preconditions of style. An extended inquiry into the inner principles of artistic form, this work radically altered the intellectual field for aesthetics and art history and stands as a vital document in the consolidation of modern architectural theory."--BOOK JACKET.

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guest-edited by Neil Spiller

We are entering a new era of architecture that is technologically enhanced, virtual and synthetic. Contemporary architects operate in a creative environment that is both real and digital; mixed, augmented and hybridised. This world consists of ecstasies, fears, fetishisms and phantoms, processes and spatiality that can best be described as Surrealist. Though too long dormant, Surrealism has been a significant cultural force in modern architecture. Founded by poet Andre Breton in Paris in 1924 as an artistic, intellectual and literary movement, architects such as Le Corbusier, Diller + Scofidio, Bernard Tschumi and John Hejduk realized its evocative powers to propel them to 'starchitect' status. Rem Koolhaas most famously illustrated Delirious New York (1978) with Madelon Vriesendorp's compelling Surrealist images. Architects are now reviving the power of Surrealism to inspire and explore the ramifications of advanced technology. Architects' studios in practices and schools are becoming places where nothing is forbidden. Architectural languages and theories are 'mashed' together, approaches are permissively appropriated, and styles are not mutually exclusive. Projects are polemic, postmodern and surreally media savvy. Today's architects must compose space that operates across the spatial spectrum. Surrealism, with its multiple readings of the city, its collage semiotics, its extruded forms and artificial landscapes, is an ideal source for contemporary architectural inspiration.

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Fabio Mariano

This essay enlights the leading military role played by the city and harbour of Ancona in the Marches, against Muslims attacks, during the XVI century. Antonio da Sangallo jr. designed the strong "Cittadella" above the Astagno hill and other famous military architects carried on the huge "Campo Trincerato" around it, such as Pier Francesco da Viterbo, Giovan Battista Pelori, Pellegrino Tibaldi, Francesco Paciotto, Giacomo Fontana, etc. Born in Ancona, Fontana wrote (1588) a report for pope Sisto V on conditions of the fortifications of his mother town, with several drawings (Codex Vaticano Latino n.13325), which is interely published and widely explicated here, for the first time, by Mariano.