Synopses & Reviews
From the Gothic to the contemporary, glass has transformed the structural, formal, and philosophical principles of architecture. In The Glass State, Annette Fierro views the many meanings of transparency in architecture. Specifically, she analyzes the transparent monumental buildings that were built in Paris between 1981 and 1998 as part of Francois Mitterrand's program of Grands Projets. The Grands Projets provide a rare opportunity to study a finite set of buildings constructed of similar materials, in the same time period, in a specific urban landscape, and with related ideological missions.Fierro employs a "discourse of the detail," in which the smallest architectural detail manifests the political, theoretical, and urban contexts of the building's design and construction. She examines the paradox of the most pared down architectural configurations being used to support the most complex meanings. Intrinsic to Mitterrand's glass buildings in Paris, for example, is a political concept: the metaphor of accessibility as a means of breaking open cultural institutions previously closed to the public.In addition to the structures of the Grands Projets -- the Institut du Monde Arabe, the Grande and Petite Pyramides du Louvre, the glass greenhouses at utopian park projects at La Villette and Andre Citroën and the Bibliotheque nationale de France -- Fierro discusses the Fondation Cartier and two precedent structures, the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Eiffel Tower.
Review
"Annette Fierro's The Glass State makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Mitterand's Grands Projects, their place in a long history of monumental architecture in Paris, and their role in the cultural politics of that city, both enacted and implied. The book is distinguished from other treatments of these projects by its attention to construction and technics as sites whereideology operates and is resisted."--Detlef Mertins, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto The MIT Press
Review
"... The Glass State is an important resource." John A. Stuart Journal of Architectural Education The MIT Press
Review
"The Glass State is a triumph of complex interpretation. Situating these buildings in multiple contexts, Annette Fierro not only illuminates the Grand Projets but provides a new model for architectural understanding."--Margaret Crawford, Professor of Urban Design and Planning Theory, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
Review
"No nation has constructed an identity out of glass with such monumental ambition or spectacular results as France. Yet paradoxically, as Annette Fierro points out in this provocative book, this production has rarely been theorized. Fierro offers an informed critical framework for interpreting the Grands Projets undertaken by Mitterand as well as their antecedents and progeny."--Joan Ockman, Director, Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, Columbia University
Review
"Reyner Banham once described architectural history--at its most interesting--as a 'snap-crackle-pop subject.' Nigel Whiteley's critical reading of Banham's writings and ideas brims with informed discussion and sparkles with insights about one of the twentieth century's liveliest and keenest architectural minds."--Joan Ockman, Director, Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, Columbia University The MIT Press
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [304]-310) and index.
Synopsis
In addition to the structures of the Grands Projets -- the Institut du Monde Arabe, the Grande and Petite Pyramides du Louvre, the glass greenhouses at utopian park projects at La Villette and Andre Citro?n and the Bibliotheque nationale de France -- Fierro discusses the Fondation Cartier and two precedent structures, the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Eiffel Tower.
Synopsis
A study of the technological, theoretical, and cultural significance of the transparency of the glass structures of Francois Mitterrand's Grands Projets in Paris.
About the Author
Annette Fierro is Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.