Monument Builders: Modern Architecture and Death (Academy Builders S.)
Editorial Reviews
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In common usage the term "monument" usually refers to symbolic sculptural constructions that honor great people, military victories, or victims of disasters or genocide. In this book, however, it typically denotes actual buildings that serve practical purposes connected with death and burial. This may not sound like a particularly promising subject, but don't be misled: Monument Builders is a meaty and significant work that explores subtle issues of spirit and human mortality--and architects' attempts to capture and express it.
An extensive essay--"Modernism, Architecture, and Death"--occupies a third of the book and traces the development of funerary architecture and sculptural memorials. It is followed by an eclectic portfolio of 29 designers' funerary projects, most of them recent. Familiar names and major talents such as Gunnar Asplund, Herman Hertzberger, Arata Isozaki, Maya Lin, Fumihiko Maki, Aldo Rossi, Moshe Safdie, Carlo Scarpa, and Peter Eisenman populate this section, along with less-well-known but often equally interesting designers. The constructions themselves run the gamut from a minimalist stone marker--Wim Cuyvers's grave for his father--to architecturally ambitious building complexes such as Rossi's near-legendary Modena cemetery ensemble. Nearly all of the included works achieve a quiet, contemplative serenity.
Edwin Heathcote, an architect and editorial staffer at Church Building magazine, clearly knows his subject intimately, and has produced an enlightening and impressively authoritative book. Physically, it is equally impressive, featuring a large format, quietly elegant layout, and copious, well-reproduced illustrations--mainly in color. --John Pastier
Book Description
A thoughtful exploration of modern architectural monuments and memorials
Structures built in response to death pose unique architectural challenges-challenges that transcend the physical to encompass symbolism, beliefs, and culture. Monument Builders highlights this rarely discussed yet fascinating building type, exploring the links between different perceptions of death and their expression in architecture over the course of the twentieth century. Sensitive but never somber, it features the work of an impressive international roster of architects as it moves from neo-classisist and modernist treatments of death to holocaust memorials and other difficult projects.
Monument Builders: Modern Architecture and Death (Academy Builders S.)
Monument Builders: Modern Architecture and Death (Academy Builders S.),Edwin Heathcote,John Wiley & Sons,0471983683,20th century,Architecture,Architecture Of Specific Structures,Architecture, Modern,Criticism,Death & Dying,Mausoleums,Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings,Religious Buildings,Sepulchral monuments,Interior design,Memorials, monuments
Book Contents:
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