Standard letters in architectural practice

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Richard Goy

"This book charts the metamorphosis of Venice from its meagre origins, as a number of small scattered settlements of hamlets, into one of the wealthiest cities in the world. By focusing on particular nuclei of the city, all its contrasts are explored; these centres range from the political and religious heart of San Marco to the bustling mercantile centre of the Rialto and the Jewish Ghetto, with its distinctive cultural life. Descriptions of individual building types are equally far-reaching, including Scuole Grandi and Piccole, palaces of power and prestige and post-Imperial constructions. The section on the city's housing encompasses fishermen's cottages as a counterpoint to the exuberant palazzi that shimmer on the Grand Canal; the coverage of churches extends from simple early Christian basilicas to Andrea Palladio's masterpieces and the white marble Baroque triumph of Baldassare Longhena's Santa Maria della Salute." "Venice has always had a unique charm and over the ages its buildings and urban fabric have inspired countless writers and artists, including the poet Dante, the writer Ruskin and the painter Canaletto. The visual wealth of the city is reflected in the book's extensive illustrations, in which new colour photographs are combined with historical plans and paintings. Contemporary maps and drawings provide a fresh insight into the city's evolution, while paintings by the Venetian masters such as Carpaccio and Bellini provide both a lyricism and vital detail."--Jacket.

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David Lowe

These dazzling, poignant pages recreate the magical built environment that thrilled generations of Chicago residents and visitors alike before falling victim to the wrecking ball of "progress." Here are the grand residences and hotels, opulent theaters, legendary trains, and state-of-the-art office buildings and department stores-including the world's first skyscraper. Here too are the famous convention halls, parks, and racetracks of a great American city whose architectural treasures have been, and continue to be, recklessly squandered. Rare photographs and prints, many of them published here for the first time, document the transformative architectural achievements of such giants as Dankmar Adler, Louis Sullivan, John Wellburn Root, Daniel Burnham, William Holabird, and Frank Lloyd Wright. But this remarkable book is much more than a portfolio of now-vanished buildings; within its pages are evocative thumbnail sketches of scores of Chicago personalities, from the world-famous (Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Dreiser, Clarence Darrow, Ben Hecht, Jane Addams, Cyrus McCormick, George Pullman, and Gustavus Swift, to name just a few) to the locally notorious.

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Brad Collins

"Featuring the international residential, corporate, educational, and institutional work that has positioned the firm among the world's architectural elite, this look at Gwathmey Siegel's thirty-five-year career is unprecedented in its scope and detail. The twenty-six projects documented here with full-color photography, drawings, and insightful project descriptions - including the seminal Gwathmey Residence and Studio (1965), the controversial renovation and addition to Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum (1992), and the David Geffen Company Building in Beverly Hills (2000) - document the evolution of the firm's work from the highly disciplined modernism of their earliest houses to the investigative collage assemblages of their most recent work. This volume reveals the complete Gwathmey Siegel design philosophy and certifies why their work, along with that of Richard Meier, Robert A. M. Stern, Frank Gehry, and Michael Graves, is among American architecture's most important."--BOOK JACKET.

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Angela Vanhaelen

"Explores the relationship between art and religion after the iconoclasm of the Dutch Reformation. Reassesses Dutch realism and its pictorial strategies in relation to the religious and political diversity of the Dutch cities"--Provided by publisher.