Building the nation : Americans write about their architecture, their cities, and their landscape / edited by Steven Conn and Max Page.

Title & Author:

Building the nation : Americans write about their architecture, their cities, and their landscape / edited by Steven Conn and Max Page.

Publication:

Description:

xi, 412 pages : illustrations, map ; 26 cm

Notes:
Includes index.
Introduction: American architecture? -- They do things better in Europe: Americans view the world -- So glorious a landscape: shaping nature the American way -- One nation, of many parts: regionalism and the built environment -- Urbanism, real and imagined -- Taming the crabgrass frontier: the triumph of the suburbs -- Better building, better people: architecture and social reform -- Monuments and memory: building and protecting the American past.

Summary:

Moving away from the standard survey that takes readers from architect to architect and style to style, Building the Nation: Americans Write About Their Architecture, Their Cities, and Their Landscape suggests a wholly new way of thinking about the history of America's built environment and how Americans have related to it. Through an enormous range of American voices, some famous and some obscure, and across more than two centuries of history, this anthology shows that the struggle to imagine what kinds of buildings and land use would best suit the nation pervaded all classes of Americans and was not the purview only of architects and designers. Some of the nation's finest writers, including Mark Twain, W. E. B. Du Bois, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Lewis Mumford, E. B. White, and John McPhee, are here, contemplating the American way of building. Equally important are those eloquent but little-known voices found in American newspapers and magazines which insistently wondered what American architecture and environmental planning should look like. Building the Nation also insists that American architecture can be understood only as both a result of and a force in shaping American social, cultural, and political developments. In so doing, this anthology demonstrates how central the built environment has been to our definition of what it is to be American and reveals seven central themes that have repeatedly animated American writers over the course of the past two centuries: the relationship of American architecture to European architecture, the nation's diverse regions, the place and shape of nature in American life, the design of cities, the explosion of the suburbs, the power of architecture to reform individuals, and the role of tradition in a nation dedicated to being perennially young. -- Amazon.com.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents

ISBN:

081223734X (cloth ; alk. paper)
0812218523 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
9780812237344 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780812218527 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Architecture United States.
Cities and towns United States.
Architecture États-Unis.
Villes États-Unis.
Architecture.
Cities and towns.
Architektur
Landschaftsplanung
Städtebau
USA Architektur Geschichte 1790-2000.
United States.
USA

Form/genre:

Aufsatzsammlung.

Added entries:

Conn, Steven.
Page, Max.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 228555
Call No.: NA705 .B7 2003
Status: Available

Actions:

Add to folder

Request these items

Email this list to yourself (or someone else)

Your folder is empty.

Please complete this form to make a request for consultation. A copy of this list will also be forwarded to you.

Your contact information

First name:

Last name:

Email:

Phone number:

Notes (optional):

We will contact you to set up an appointment. Please keep in mind that your consultation date will be based on the type of material you wish to study. To prepare your visit, we'll need:

— At least 2 weeks for primary sources (prints and drawings, photographs, archival documents, etc.)
— At least 48 hours for secondary sources (books, periodicals, vertical files, etc.)

Back to list

Submit