Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 724
EAN num: 9780500202579
ISBN number: 0500202575
Label: Thames & Hudson
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 376
Printing Date: 1992-05
Publishing house: Thames & Hudson
Sale Popularity Level: 52556
Studio: Thames & Hudson
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Product Description:
This acclaimed survey of 20th-century architecture and its origins has become a classic since it very first appeared in 1980. Now revised, enlarged and expanded, Kenneth Frampton brings the story up to date and adds an entirely new concluding chapter that focuses on four countries where individual talent and enlightened patronage have combined to produce a comprehensive and convincing architectural culture: Finland, France, Spain and Japan. The bibliography has also been reviewed and extended, making this volume more indispensable than ever.
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Rated by buyers 
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This is one of those 'must have' books for anyone interested in modern architecture. Although it does not have detailed information on each architect or movement, it is a great starting point from which to have a general idea of how the pieces of modern architecture fit with each other.
Rated by buyers 
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This book is admittedly very dense. Each short essay is packed with knowledge, but Frampton is not difficult. It certainly isn't useful to rush through it. Mull over a paragraph instead of the whole book. I originally found Frampton a challenge but it never seemed hopelessly out of reach. His writing coaxes you to a higher level. Your knowledge grows as you consider and wrestle with any two essays. It forces you to amass an inter-related structure of knowledge. I now think the book is extremely forthright and consider it a generous gift to those striving to get deeper; a primer and a leg-up on assessing the history of architecture. I don't think Frampton is pretentious at all. His personality is not even present in the mateiral. I have no more idea about who he is now than before I picked up this book a long time ago. He foregrounds his architectural knowledge and graciously disappears.
90 percent of architecture publishing is coffee-table quality stuff that asks little of a reader, and consequently leaves you with little of substance. If you think this is difficult, pick up anything by the inscrutable, pretentious K. Michael Hayes. If you want facts in isolation, just keep telling yourself that Liebeskinds new WTC tower "which is 1,776 feet tall..." is architecture.
Rated by buyers 
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I took the very first year architecture history in community college. Frampton's book is extreme. This book is absolutely not a choice for beginers in architecture history. It is not the pleasant experience to read Frampton's book. I doubt whether it is necessary for the author to use such not understandable writing style. In average, I read about three times in order to understand what he is talking about VAGUELY! However, it is no doubt that this book is considered as the classic (or the Bible) of architecture history. Frampton made a lot (A LOT!) comparison of enormous archtiects from different eras and different parts of the world. According most practicing architects, it is the best arch history book you could read (only if you are knowledgable enough in the field)
By the way, if you are interested in a visual architecture history book, this is not you choice. All the illustration in this book is all white & black, small.
Hope this commend help!
Rated by buyers -
Frampton makes no apologies for modern architecture, instead he makes one of the more arduous defenses of modern architecture, taking in the full sweep of this architectural movement, and critically examining some of the contemporary trends which have followed in its wake.
It is a very readable overview of modern architecture, beginning with the late 18th century and 19th century predecessors which led to a thorough re-examination of architecture in the early 20th century. Frampton divides his study into short thematic chapters which allow readers to focus on one movement at a time. There are various recurring figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe; but Frampton covers an exceedingly broad range of architectural ideas in the past century.
He has updated the book to include some of the more recent currents in architecture such as deconstruction and fragmentation, which he places in the context of the broader stream of architecture since 1962 in one of his more thought-provoking chapters, "Place, Production and Scenography." He notes how many of the recent ideas in architecture draw from the Russian avant-garde and Italian Futurism. He pans Post-Modernism for its pretension display of historicism, as exhibited in the work of Michael Graves, preferring the more rigorous historic views of neo-rationalists like Aldo Rossi. It is an insightful, illuminating book, which has been updated to include Modern Architecture to 1991.
Rated by buyers 
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Calculus textbooks read easier than this book. The content is probably concise but the communication is not. The writing is awkward and often incoherent.
Whatever happen to the simplistic yet skillful writing style of a Hemingway? His style was neither haughty nor indolent. He did not have to impress with fancy wordage. And his simplistic, flowing style took far more effort and thought than the rudimentary level of stringing out difficult sentences.
This book is okay for the intellectual or the elitist but for the real world it can be painful. Architects are not always known for their communication skills. This book does'nt help.
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