A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial Building and European Modern Architecture

Abstract

Let us listen to the counsels of American engineers. But let us beware of American architects! declared Le Corbusier, who like other European architects of his time believed that he saw in the work of American industrial builders a model of the way architecture should develop. It was a vision of an ideal world, a made up of daylight factories and grain elevators.In a book that suggests how good Modern was before it went wrong, Reyner Banham details the European discovery of this concrete Atlantis and examines a number of striking architectural instances where aspects of the International Style are anticipated by US industrial buildings.