A work on the shaping of our architectural environment.

Autorentext
Sigfried Giedion (18881968) was the first secretary-general of the International Congress of Modern Architecture. The author of ten books, including Mechanization Takes Command, he taught at the University of Zurich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University, where he became chairman of the Graduate School of Design.

Klappentext

"The standard work on the development of modern architecture."-Walter Gropius

"Giedion's accomplishment remains unmatched."-José Luis Sert

Sigfried Giedion was an unlikely candidate for the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship in Poetry at Harvard. Trained as a mechanical engineer and an art historian, the Swiss polymath had a tenuous command of English and little name recognition when he accepted the prestigious yearlong post in 1938, narrowly edging out the novelist Thomas Mann. After his twelve Norton Lectures were published in 1941, however, they quickly captured the imagination of a generation of artists, architects, and students.

Revised and expanded four times since its initial publication and translated into half a dozen languages, Space, Time and Architecture remains an unsurpassed classic in its field-a veritable bible of architectural modernism. Giedion delves deeply into the techniques that have made modern architecture possible, from the development of structural engineering to the increasingly sophisticated uses of concrete, glass, and steel. Yet he never loses sight of the human feelings and activities that bring structures to life. Starting with the one-point perspective that defined the Renaissance città ideale and moving through the stark geometries of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, he vividly illustrates how evolving conceptions of space, time, and motion have molded both the contours of our built environment and our daily lives.

Weaving a rich visual tapestry, Space, Time and Architecture juxtaposes over five hundred architectural drawings and photographs with painting, sculpture, and industrial design to make surprising connections across scale and medium. Throughout, Giedion remains tenaciously convinced that architecture offers hope for a grand unification: of reason and emotion, of science and art, and even of human civilization itself.

Zusammenfassung
A classic in its field, Space, Time and Architecture has been revised and expanded four times since its initial publication and translated into half a dozen languages. Giedion delves deeply into the technical advances that have made modern architecture possible while never losing sight of the human feeling that brings structures to life.

Inhalt

• Introduction: Architecture of the 1960's: Hopes and Fears Part I: History A Part Of Life * Introduction * The Historian's Relation to His Age * The Demand for Continuity * Contemporary History * The Identity of Methods * Transitory and Constituent Facts * Architecture as an Organism * Procedure Part II: Our Architectural Inheritance The New Space Conception: Perspective Perspective and Urbanism * Prerequisites for the Growth of Cities * The Star-Shaped City Perspective and the Constituent Elements of the City * The Wall, the Square, and the Street * Bramante and the Open Stairway * Michelangelo and the Modeling of Outer Space * What Is the Real Significance of the Area Capitolina? Leonardo da Vinci and the Dawn of Regional Planning Sixtus V (1585-1590) and the Planning of Baroque Rome * The Medieval and the Renaissance City * Sixtus V and His Pontificate * The Master Plan * The Social Aspect The Late Baroque The Undulating Wall and the Flexible Ground Plan * Francesco Borromini, 1599-1667 * Guarino Guarini, 1624-1683 * South Germany: Vierzehnheiligen The Organization of Outer Space * The Residential Group and Nature * Single Squares * Series of Interrelated Squares Part III: The Evolution Of New Potentialities * Industrialization as a Fundamental Event Iron * Early Iron Construction in England * The Sunderland Bridge * Early Iron Construction on the Continent From the Iron Column to the Steel Frame * The Cast-Iron Column Toward the Steel Frame * James Bogardus * The St. Louis River Front * Early Skeleton Buildings * Elevators The Schism Between Architecture and Technology * Discussions *Ecole Polytechnique: the Connection between Science and Life * The Demand for a New Architecture * The Interrelations of Architecture and Engineering Henri Labrouste, Architect Constructor, 1801-1875 New Building Problems--New Solutions * Market Halls * Department Stores The Great Exhibitions * The Great Exhibition, London, 1851 * The Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1855 * Paris Exhibition of 1867 * Paris Exhibition of 1878 * Paris Exhibition of 1889 * Chicago, 1893 Gustave Eiffel and His Tower Part IV: The Demand For Morality In Architecture The Nineties: Precursors of Contemporary Architecture * Brussels the Center of Contemporary Art, 1880-1890 * Victor Horta's Contribution * Berlage's Stock Exchange and the Demand for Morality * Otto Wagner and the Viennese School Ferroconcrete and its Influence upon Architecture * A. C. Perret * Tony Gamier Part V: American Development * Europe Observes American Production * The Structure of American Industry The Balloon Frame and Industrialization * The Balloon Frame and the Building-up of the West * The Invention of the Balloon Frame * George Washington Snow, 1797-1870 * The Balloon Frame and the Windsor Chair Plane Surfaces in American Architecture * The Flexible and Informal Ground Plan The Chicago School * The Apartment House Toward Pure Forms * The Leiter Building, 1889 * The Reliance Building, 1894 * Sullivan: The Carson, Pirie, Scott Store, 1889-1906 * The Influence of the Chicago World's Fair, 1893 Frank Lloyd Wright * Wright and the American Development * The Cruciform and the Elongated Plan * Plane Surfaces and Structure * The Urge toward the Organic * Office Buildings * Influence of Frank Lloyd Wright * Frank Lloyd Wright's Late Period Part VI: Space-Time In Art, Architecture, And Construction The New Space Conception: Space-Time * Do We Need Artists? The Research Into Space: Cubism * The Artistic Means The Resarch Into Movement: Futurism Painting Today Construction and Aesthetics: Slab and Plane * The Bridges of Robert Maillart * Afterword Walter Gropius and the German Development * Germany in the Nineteenth Century * Walter Gropius * Germany after the First World War and the Bauhaus * The Bauhaus Buildings at Dessau, 1926 * Architectural Aims Walter Gropius in America * The Significance of the Post-1930 Emigration * Walter Gropius and the American Scene * Architectural Activity * Gropius as Educator * Later Development * American Embassy in Athens, 1956-1961 Le Corbusier and the Mean