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Anthony Vidler

"Anthony Vidler looks at the historical approaches of Emil Kaufmann, Colin Rowe, Reyner Banham, and Manfredo Tafuri, and the specific versions of modernism advanced by their historical narratives. Vidler shows that the modernism conceived by Kaufmann was like the late Enlightenment projects he revered, one of pure geometrical forms and elemental composition; that of Rowe saw manifest ambiguity and complexity in contemporary design; Banham's modernism took its cue from the aspirations of the futurists; and the "Renaissance modernism" of Tafuri found its source in the division between the technical experimentation of Brunelleschi and the cultural nostalgia of Alberti. Vidler's investigation demonstrates the inevitable collision between history and design that pervades all modern architectural discourse - and has given rise to some of the most interesting architectural experiments of the postwar period."--Jacket.

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Jerome Silbergeld and Dora C.Y. Ching

The calligrapher and book artist Xu Bing has been called the most innovative Chinese artist of our time. As a citizen of both China and the United States and the first Asian-American artist to win the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "genius award," Xu Bing has fascinated and challenged audiences around the world with his imaginative textual art. From his 4,000 unreadable Chinese-looking characters, which unite Asian and Western audiences alike in an egalitarianism of induced illiteracy, to his invention of a "square words" language that makes "Chinese" readable by anyone at all, Xu Bing's use of language is at once artistically brilliant, highly entertaining, and profoundly subversive--a sharp-witted, masterly word-play that, in his own words, "strikes at the very essence of culture."In exhibitions on four continents, Xu Bing's printed art, mixed-media installations, and performance pieces--from books and calligraphic sculptures to inscribed pigs--have fascinated specialists and general audiences alike and generated a growing body of literature. This volume presents the first multidisciplinary study of Xu Bing's art and its intellectual implications. Included is an illuminating account by Xu Bing of his own work, as well as essays by leading scholars in a number of different fields.The essays address the place of this work within the long history of Chinese calligraphic practice, examine it in the context of Chinese intellectual dissidence, discuss Japanese avant-garde parallels, and judge it from a Western art-historical viewpoint.

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Patrick F. Cannon

"Original photographs and essays on more than forty Chicago-area residences, religious institutions, and public and commercial buildings, focusing on the structures' interiors and the stories behind them"--

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Yves Draussin

Décrire la ville, la rendre sensible, perceptible, en démontrer les formes, les évolutions, la complexité visible et invisible ; et en expliquer les échecs. Mais ce récit entend également replacer la conception dans son contexte évènementiel, redonnant aux acteurs la paternité de leurs décisions et de leur influence sur le présent et le futur de la ville. Ainsi, l'identité de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines s'est forgée, principalement dans l'urbanisme, l'architecture et l'art public de son centre.(Ouvrage comportant 85 photos)