Main entry:

González de Canales, Francisco, author.

Title & Author:

Experiments with life itself : radical domestic architectures between 1937 and 1959 / Francisco González de Canales ; [edited by Dorota Biczel, Lucy Bullivant].

Publication:

Barcelona ; New York : Actar, 2012.
©2012

Description:

175 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 21 cm

Notes:
Text in English.
Spanish ed. also avail. (see our card no. 60726365).
Also available in Spanish under the title: "Experimentos con la vida misma".
Includes bibliographical references.
The conflicting vernacular : Germán Rodríguez Arias and Pablo Neruda, Los Guindos, 1938-43, Isla Negra, 1943-56 and La Chascona, 1952-6, Chile -- The atmospheric expression : Ralph Erskine, The box, 1940-2 and House in Drottningholm, Sweden, 1963-7 -- The cast of life : Charles and Ray Eames, The Eames house, California 1945-54 -- The Mask house : Juan O'Gorman, House in El Pedregal de San Ángel, Mexico, 1948-56 -- A stay outside : scenes of Puck and analogous architectures : Alison and Peter Smithson, Upper lawn solar pavilion, Fonthill, England, 1959-82.
Original Spanish text in English translation.

Summary:

Every book relating the history of modern architecture features a large number of pages dedicated to avant-garde designs and the formation of the modern movement in the interwar years, and a similar number devoted to reconstruction and expansion after the Second World War. Meanwhile, as if owing to lack of understanding or convenient silence, there is void of dark years, of wars, exile and misfortune about which little can be said. However, it was in these dark times, as in so many other revealing moments in the history of culture, that experimental and profoundly invigorating experiences were taking place. Architects and artists voluntarily or forcibly driven to the margins of social importance began to react to a culturally unsustainable situation of which we know very little even today. In Experiments with Life Itself, Francisco Gonzalez de Canales studies a series of unrelated cases from the late 1930s to the late 1950s that he refers to as domestic self-experimentation.

ISBN:

9788492861651 (paperback)
8492861657 (paperback)

Subject:

Architecture, Domestic History 20th century.
Architecture and Planning.
Architecture, Domestic.
Bostadshus.
Experimentell arkitektur.

Form/genre:

History.

Added entries:

Biczel, Dorota, editor.
Bullivant, Lucy, editor.
Biczel, Dorota editor.
Bullivant, Lucy editor.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 282200
Call No.: BIB 219436
Status: Available