Main entry:

Davis, Charles L., II, author.

Title & Author:

Building character : the racial politics of modern architectural style / Charles L. Davis II.

Publication:

Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2019]
©2019

Description:

xi, 275 pages : illustrations (some color), plans ; 27 cm

Series:

Culture, politics, and the built environment

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-264) and index.
Introduction : the racialization of architectural character in the long nineteenth century -- part I. The Aryan character of Alpine architecture -- Campfires in the salon : Viollet-le-Duc and the modernization of the Aryan hut -- Beyond the primitive hut : Gottfried Semper and the material embodiment of Germanic character -- part II . The whiteness of American architecture -- The search for an American architecture : Louis Sullivan and the physiognomic translation of American character -- When public housing was white : William Lescaze and the Americanization of the International Style -- Conclusion : race, nature, and nation in postwar American architecture.

Summary:

In the nineteenth-century paradigm of architectural organicism, the notion that buildings possessed character provided architects with a lens for relating the buildings they designed to the populations they served. Advances in scientific race theory enabled designers to think of "race" and "style" as manifestations of natural law: just as biological processes seemed to inherently regulate the racial characters that made humans a perfect fit for their geographical contexts, architectural characters became a rational product of design. Parallels between racial and architectural characters provided a rationalist model of design that fashioned some of the most influential national building styles of the past, from the pioneering concepts of French structural rationalism and German tectonic theory to the nationalist associations of the Chicago Style, the Prairie Style, and the International Style. In 'Building Character', Charles Davis traces the racial charge of the architectural writings of five modern theorists-Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Gottfried Semper, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and William Lescaze-to highlight the social, political, and historical significance of the spatial, structural, and ornamental elements of modern architectural styles.

ISBN:

9780822945550 (hardcover)
082294555X (hardcover)
(electronic book)
9780822986638

Subject:

Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel, 1814-1879.
Semper, Gottfried, 1803-1879.
Sullivan, Louis H., 1856-1924.
Lescaze, William, 1896-1969.
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1867-1959.
Architecture and race History 19th century.
Architecture and race History 20th century.
Architecture and society History 19th century.
Architecture and society History 20th century.
Architecture et race Histoire 19e siècle.
Architecture et race Histoire 20e siècle.
Architecture et société Histoire 19e siècle.
Architecture et société Histoire 20e siècle.
ARCHITECTURE / General.
Architecture and race.
Architecture and society.

Form/genre:

History.

Added entries:

Culture, politics, and the built environment.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 308266
Call No.: BIB 253697
Status: Available