The Secret Life of Buildings: An American Mythology for Modern Architecture

Abstract

Not since the 1920s has American architecture undergone such fundamental changes as those which are revitalizing the profession today. But in this period of great artistic fertility and unrest, there has yet to emerge a critical theory capable of analyzing the conditions and examining the attitudes by which our architecture is being redefined.Gavin Macrae-Gibson is the first of a generation of architects educated in the 1970s to construct a method of criticism powerful enough to interpret this new architecture. The theory is built upon a close reading of seven works, all completed in the 1980s: Frank Gehry's Gehry House in Santa Monica, Peter Eisenman's House El Even Odd, Cesar Pelli's Four Leaf Towers in Houston, Michael Graves' Portland Public Service building, Robert Stern's Bozzi residence in East Hampton, Allan Greenberg's Manchester Superior Courthouse in Connecticut, and Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown's Gordon Wu Hall at Princeton.The author uses urban plans, and architectural drawings and photographs to reveal the layers of meaning present in each building, including the deepest layer--its secret life. At this level the buildings have in common the fact that their meaning is derived from the realities of an imperfect present and no longer from the anticipation of a utopian future.A Graham Foundation Book.