Modern Architecture: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Somewhere between 1910 and 1970, architecture changed. Now that modern architecture has develop into familiar (every now and then celebrated, every now and then vilified), it’s hard to consider how novel it once seemed. Expensive buildings were transformed from ornamental fancies which referred to the classical and medieval pasts into strikingly plain reflections of novel materials, functions, and technologies. Modern architecture promised the transformation of cities from overcrowded conurbations characterized by packed slums and dirty industries to spacious realms of generous housing and clean mechanized production set in parkland. At certain times and in certain cultures, it stood for the liberation of the future from the past.

This Very Short Introduction explores the technical innovations that opened up the cultural and intellectual opportunities for modern architecture to happen. Adam Sharr shows how the invention of steel and reinforced concrete radically altered possibilities for shaping buildings, transforming what architects were able to consider, as did new systems for air conditioning and lighting. Even as architects weren’t responsible for these innovations, they were a number of the first to appreciate how they could make the world feel and look different, in connection with imagery from other spheres like modern art and industrial design. That specialize in a selection of modern buildings that also symbolize bigger cultural ideas, Sharr discusses what modern architecture was once like, why it was once like that, and how it was once imagined. Considering the work of one of the historians and critics who helped to shape modern architecture, he demonstrates how the field owes as much to its storytellers as to its buildings.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the easiest way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.