Bokus
Wim de Wit - Welton Becket, Inbunden

Inbunden, Engelska, 2027

Welton Becket

Architecture, Innovation, and the Midcentury City

Av Wim de Wit

556 kr

Kommande

Beskrivning
Welton Becket (1902-1969) was one of the most prolific architects of postwar America-and one of its most overlooked. From the Capitol Records Building and the Los Angeles Music Center to hospitals, hotels, and corporate headquarters across the United States and abroad, Becket and his firm shaped the everyday landscape of modern life on a massive scale. This first comprehensive study of Becket's career examines the architect's client-centered approach, innovations in design and business, and lasting impact on urban development and midcentury modernism.Situates Welton Becket alongside Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Eero Saarinen.Argues that Becket's extraordinary success-and his subsequent obscurity-were rooted in the same conviction: a building should reflect the client, not the architect.Offers fresh insight into collaborative design practices and architectural authorship in the mid-20th century.This essential book one of modern architecture's most quietly influential figures reshapes how we understand postwar design and the forces that built modern America.
Produktinformation
  • Utgivningsdatum: 2027-05-11
  • Mått: 241 x 254 x undefined mm
  • Format: Inbunden
  • Språk: Engelska
  • Förlag: Getty Trust Publications
  • ISBN: 9798887121178
Utforska kategorier
Mer om författaren

Wim de Wit is an architectural historian and the former head of the Department of Architecture and Contemporary Art at the Getty Research Institute. He is the author of Overdrive (Getty, 2013).

Recensioner i media

This meticulously researched volume examines the work of Welton Becket and his office, Welton Becket & Associates, an architectural firm that during the three decades following World War II designed and planned some 900 projects in the United States and abroad and significantly impacted the urban form of Los Angeles's postwar landscape. In this book, de Wit sheds new light on the organization of the kind of large-scale corporate office that evolved in response to the exponential growth of this Southern California metropolis and relates its structure to other major American firms that were born during this same period. It is a long overdue work that begins to fill a major gap in our understanding of the architectural development of the modern American city.- Kenneth A. Breisch, PhD, Associate Professor Emeritus of Architecture and Founder of the Graduate Program in Heritage Conservation, University of Southern CaliforniaUntil recently, being called a "corporate architect" was an insult levied at those dismissed as bureaucrats and seen as lacking both style and originality. Joining a growing number of scholars who reject that commonplace, Wim de Wit shows that contracts, news clippings, and lightweight concrete are not only fascinating but intricate forms of design. As it turns out, an effective organizational chart requires the same ingenuity and imagination as a deceptively self-evident plan, and the ability to do both allowed Welton Becket's office to become the largest single-owned practice in postwar America.- Sylvia Lavin, Interim Dean and Professor of History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton University School of Architecture

Betyg & recensioner

0 recensioner

Inga recensioner tillgängliga.