Synopses & Reviews
A milestone in modern thought,
Space, Time and Architecture has been reissued many times since its first publication in 1941 and translated into half a dozen languages. In this revised edition of Mr. Giedion's classic work, major sections have been added and there are 81 new illustrations.
The chapters on leading contemporary architects have been greatly expanded. There is new material on the later development of Frank Lloyd Wright and the more recent buildings of Walter Gropius, particularly his American Embassy in Athens. In his discussion of Le Corbusier, Mr. Giedion provides detailed analyses of the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, Le Corbusier's only building in the United States, and his Priory of La Tourette near Lyons. There is a section on his relations with his clients and an assessment of his influence on contemporary architecture, including a description of the Le Corbusier Center in Zurich (designed just before his death], which houses his works of art. The chapters on Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto have been brought up to date with examples of their buildings in the sixties. There is an entirely new chapter on the Danish architect Jorn Utzon, whose work, as exemplified in his design for the Sydney Opera House, Mr. Giedion considers representative of post-World War II architectural concepts.
A new essay, "Changing Notions of the City," traces the evolution of the structure of the city throughout history and examines current attempts to deal with urban growth, as shown in the work of such architects as José Luis Sert, Kenzo Tange, and Fumihiko Maki. Mr. Sert's Peabody Terrace is discussed as an example of the interlocking of the collective and individual spheres. Finally, the conclusion has been enlarged to include a survey of the limits of the organic in architecture.
Review
[Giedion's] survey of our architectural inheritance, beginning with the "organization of space" in the early Renaissance, is masterly, selective, and instructive. In his treatment of individual architects he calls a famous roll, and leaves us with a clear impression of the significance of each man's work... This is a big book, and one that no reader will exhaust quickly.
Review
This book is an important collection of historical and critical surveys and a brilliant study of the trends and developments of the modern scene with its historical background and true significance. For the general reader interested in the past and its relation to our present, and the specialist in architecture preoccupied with its facets of change, the author has succeeded in presenting a consistently developing process and a clear, concise picture."
--Edward Larocque Tinker, New York Times Book Review"This book contains a graphic, direct, well-illustrated, and absorbing narrative...The rich content and graphic handling make this the best book that has yet appeared in English on the sources of the modern tradition in architecture."
--Douglas Haskell, Nation"Unique...in the literature of modern architecture...[and] perhaps the most instructive, and readable, book on the Modern Movement and all its antecedents."
--Architectural Record"[Giedion's] survey of our architectural inheritance, beginning with the 'organization of space' in the early Renaissance, is masterly, selective, and instructive. In his treatment of individual architects he calls a famous roll, and leaves us with a clear impression of the significance of each man's work...This is a big book, and one that no reader will exhaust quickly.
About the Author
Sigfried Giedion was the first secretary-general of the International Congress of Modern Architecture. He taught at the University of Zurich, MIT, and Harvard, where he became chairman of the Graduate School of Design.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Architecture of the 1960’s: Hopes and Fears
Part I: History A Part Of Life
- Introduction
- The Historian’s Relation to His Age
- The Demand for Continuity
- Contemporary History
- The Identity of Methods
- Transitory and Constituent Facts
- Architecture as an Organism
- Procedure
Part II: Our Architectural Inheritance
The New Space Conception: Perspective
Perspective and Urbanism
- Prerequisites for the Growth of Cities
- The Star-Shaped City
Perspective and the Constituent Elements of the City
- The Wall, the Square, and the Street
- Bramante and the Open Stairway
- Michelangelo and the Modeling of Outer Space
- What Is the Real Significance of the Area Capitolina?
Leonardo da Vinci and the Dawn of Regional Planning Sixtus V (1585-1590) and the Planning of Baroque Rome
- The Medieval and the Renaissance City
- Sixtus V and His Pontificate
- The Master Plan
- The Social Aspect
The Late Baroque
The Undulating Wall and the Flexible Ground Plan
- Francesco Borromini, 1599-1667
- Guarino Guarini, 1624-1683
- South Germany: Vierzehnheiligen
The Organization of Outer Space
- The Residential Group and Nature
- Single Squares
- Series of Interrelated Squares
Part III: The Evolution Of New Potentialities
- Industrialization as a Fundamental Event
Iron
- Early Iron Construction in England
- The Sunderland Bridge
- Early Iron Construction on the Continent
From the Iron Column to the Steel Frame
- The Cast-Iron Column
Toward the Steel Frame
- James Bogardus
- The St. Louis River Front
- Early Skeleton Buildings
- Elevators
The Schism Between Architecture and Technology
- Discussions
- École Polytechnique: the Connection between Science and Life
- The Demand for a New Architecture
- The Interrelations of Architecture and Engineering
Henri Labrouste, Architect Constructor, 1801-1875
New Building Problems—New Solutions
- Market Halls
- Department Stores
The Great Exhibitions
- The Great Exhibition, London, 1851
- The Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1855
- Paris Exhibition of 1867
- Paris Exhibition of 1878
- Paris Exhibition of 1889
- Chicago, 1893
Gustave Eiffel and His Tower
Part IV: The Demand For Morality In Architecture
The Nineties: Precursors of Contemporary Architecture
- Brussels the Center of Contemporary Art, 1880-1890
- Victor Horta’s Contribution
- Berlage’s Stock Exchange and the Demand for Morality
- Otto Wagner and the Viennese School
Ferroconcrete and its Influence upon Architecture
- A. C. Perret
- Tony Gamier
Part V: American Development
- Europe Observes American Production
- The Structure of American Industry
The Balloon Frame and Industrialization
- The Balloon Frame and the Building-up of the West
- The Invention of the Balloon Frame
- George Washington Snow, 1797-1870
- The Balloon Frame and the Windsor Chair
Plane Surfaces in American Architecture
- The Flexible and Informal Ground Plan
The Chicago School
- The Apartment House
Toward Pure Forms
- The Leiter Building, 1889
- The Reliance Building, 1894
- Sullivan: The Carson, Pirie, Scott Store, 1889-1906
- The Influence of the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893
Frank Lloyd Wright
- Wright and the American Development
- The Cruciform and the Elongated Plan
- Plane Surfaces and Structure
- The Urge toward the Organic
- Office Buildings
- Influence of Frank Lloyd Wright
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s Late Period
Part VI: Space-Time In Art, Architecture, And Construction
The New Space Conception: Space-Time
- Do We Need Artists?
The Research Into Space: Cubism
- The Artistic Means
The Resarch Into Movement: Futurism
Painting Today
Construction and Aesthetics: Slab and Plane
- The Bridges of Robert Maillart
- Afterword
Walter Gropius and the German Development
- Germany in the Nineteenth Century
- Walter Gropius
- Germany after the First World War and the Bauhaus
- The Bauhaus Buildings at Dessau, 1926
- Architectural Aims
Walter Gropius in America
- The Significance of the Post-1930 Emigration
- Walter Gropius and the American Scene
- Architectural Activity
- Gropius as Educator
- Later Development
- American Embassy in Athens, 1956-1961
Le Corbusier and the Means of Architectonic Expression
- The Villa Savoie, 1928-1930
- The League of Nations Competition, 1927: Contemporary Architecture Comes to the Front
- Large Constructions and Architectural Aims
- Social Imagination
- The Unité d’Habitation, 1947-1952
- Chandigarh
- Later Work
- The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1963
- Le Corbusier and His Clients
- The Priory of Ste. Marie de la Tourette, 1960
- The Legacy of Le Corbusier
Mies van der Rohe and the Integrity of Form
- The Elements of Mies van der Rohe’s Architecture
- Country Houses, 1923
- The Weissenhof Housing Settlement, Stuttgart, 1927
- The Illinois Institute of Technology, 1939-
- High-rise Apartments
- Office Buildings
- On the Integrity of Form
Alvar Aalto: Irrationality and Standardization
- Union between Life and Architecture
- The Complementarity of the Differentiated and the Primitive
- Finnish Architecture before 1930
- Aalto’s First Buildings
- Paimio: The Sanatorium, 1929-1933
- The Undulating Wall
- Sunila: Factory and Landscape, 1937-1939
- Mairea, 1938-1939
- Organic Town Planning
- Civic and Cultural Centers
- Furniture in Standard Units
- Aalto as Architect
- The Human Side
Jørn Utzon and the Third Generation
- Relations to the Past
- Jørn Utzon
- The Horizontal Plane as a Constituent Element
- The Right of Expression: The Vaults of the Sydney Opera House
- Empathy with the Situation: The Zurich Theater, 1964
- Sympathy with the Anonymous Client
- Imagination and Implementation
The International Congresses for Modern Architecture (CIAM) and the Formation of Contemporary Architecture
Part VII: City Planning In The Nineteenth Century
- Early Nineteenth Century
- The Rue de Rivoli of Napoleon I
The Dominance of Greenery: The London Squares
The Garden Squares of Bloomsbury
Large-Scale Housing Development: Regent’s Park
The Street Becomes Dominant: The Transformation of Paris, 1853-1868
- Paris in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
- The “Trois Réseaux” of Eugène Haussmann
- Squares, Boulevards, Gardens, and Plants
- The City as a Technical Problem
- Use of Modern Methods of Finance
- The Basic Unit of the Street
- The Scale of the Street
- Haussmann’s Foresight: His Influence
Part VIII: City Planning As A Human Problem
- The Late Nineteenth Century
- Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City
- Patrick Geddes and Arturo Soria y Mata
- Tony Gamier’s Cité Industrielle, 1901-1904
Amsterdam and the Rebirth of Town Planning
- H. P. Berlage’s Plans for Amsterdam South
- The General Extension Plan of Amsterdam, 1934
- Interrelations of Housing and Activities of Private Life
Part IX: Space-Time In City Planning
- Contemporary Attitude toward Town Planning
Destruction or Transformation?
The New Scale in City Planning
- The American Parkway in the Thirties
- High-rise Buildings in Open Space
- Freedom for the Pedestrian
- The Civic Center: Rockefeller Center, 1931-1939
Changing Notions of the City
- City and State
- The City: No Longer an Enclosed Organism
- Continuity and Change
- The Individual and Collective Spheres
- Signs of Change and of Constancy
Part X: In Conclusion
- On the Limits of the Organic in Architecture
- Politics and Architecture