“Key Modern Architects provides an accessible and thought-provoking introduction to the work of the most significant architects of the modern era. Fifty short chapters introduce fifty key architects, from Le Corbusier to Aldo Van Eyck to Zaha Hadid, exploring their most influential buildings and developing a critique of each architect’s work within a broader cultural and historical context. The selection represents the most influential architects working from 1890 to the present, those most likely to be taught on survey courses in modern architectural history, along with some lesser-known names with an equal claim to influence. Emphasis is placed on a critical…

“Every fall on move-in day, parents tearfully bid farewell to their beloved sons and daughters at college dormitories: it is an age-old ritual. The residence hall has come to mark the threshold between childhood and adulthood, housing young people during a transformational time in their lives. Whether a Gothic stone pile, a quaint Colonial box, or a concrete slab, the dormitory is decidedly unhomelike, yet it takes center stage in the dramatic arc of many American families. This richly illustrated book examines the architecture of dormitories in the United States from the eighteenth century to 1968, asking fundamental questions: Why…

“During his long career as a photographer, Martin Parr has always photographed on beaches, particularly in the UK. He has often used the beach as a laboratory to experiment with new cameras and techniques. So far example, when he changed from black and white to medium format color in the early 80s his first major project was about New Brighton, a run down seaside resort near Liverpool. In recent months he has started exploring the beach with the aid of a telephoto lens. This lens is rarely used in the world of art and documentary photography so it is a…

“Sigfried Giedion (1888–1968) and Carola Giedion-Welcker (1893–1979) were among the most distinguished and influential scholars of art and architectural history during the 20th century’s earlier decades. Of particular impact was their role in connecting leading protagonists of modernism in architecture, art, and literature, such as Alvar Aalto, Hans Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Breuer, Max Ernst, Walter Gropius, Barbara Hepworth, Le Corbusier, László Moholy-Nagy, Piet Mondrian, or Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The discourses they initiated, for example on the New Vision in photography or a ‘Synthesis of Arts’, have lost nothing of their relevance and provide new starting points until the present day….

Every summer season, the sun-drenched coasts of Bulgaria and Croatia turn into densely inhabited, intensively exploited tourism industry hotspots. This book traces the various architectural and urban planning strategies pursued there since the mid 1950s, in order first to create then to further develop modern holiday destinations. It portrays (late-) modern tourism architecture and resorts of a remarkable quality and typological diversity, which have persisted both as a playground for the domestic labour force and as a viable product on the international market. Yet the authors focus above all on how, in the wake of political change and the privatization…