Synopses & Reviews
One of the country's largest and most important postwar architectural projects, the United States Air Force Academy opened in 1958. With its spectacular natural setting and stunning Modernist design, the Academy was quickly hailed as a national landmark and attracts over a million visitors each year.
The contributors to this volume (Jory Johnson, Robert Nauman, Sheri Olson, James Russell, and Kristen Schaffer) and editor Robert Bruegmann chronicle the complex history of the planning, design, and construction of the Air Force Academy. As the most conspicuous commission of the American military at the height of the Cold War, the design of the Academy generated intense popular interest and was a lightning rod for conflicting values in postwar society. The design, by architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, has been hailed as the final triumph of the International Style and as a monument to military bureaucracy.
Table of Contents
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Robert Bruegmann
Creating a National Monument: Planning and Designing the Academy
Kristen Schaffer
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill: The Early History
Sheri Olson
Architectural Consultants
Sheri Olson
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill: The Project Team
Sheri Olson
Strange Alliances: Frank Lloyd Wright and Congress
Sheri Olson
The Architects at Work: Design Drawings
Robert Bruegmann
Documenting Construction: Photos by Stewart's
Robert Nauman
The National Geographic Visits the Academy
Robert Bruegmann
Raising the Roof: Constructing Mitchell Hall
Sheri Olson
Military Culture, Architectural Culture, Popular Culture
Robert Bruegmann
Man as Nature
Jory Johnson
Presenting the Academy
Robert Nauman
A Comprehensive Design Vision
Sheri Olson
Learning from Industry
James Russell
Lauded and Maligned: The Chapel
Sheri Olson
Epilogue
Robert Bruegmann
A Conversation between Walter Netsch and John Burchard
Recollections of Gordon Bunshaft
Interview with Lieutenant General Bradley Hosmer
Index