Architecture A History

From Kenneth Frampton, the doyen of architectural history, comes The Evolution of 20th-Century Architecture: A Synoptic Account. In this radical new approach to the history of architecture, Frampton traces what he considers to be the most powerful four lines of architecture: the avant-garde (1887–1986), organic architecture (1910–1998), modern and national styles (1935–1998), and industrialization and prefabrication (1927–1990).

This book presents an historical overview of the Frankish realms in Central Europe during the Carolingian period. Against this background Part II of the book examines the cultural inventory deposited by the scribal culture in Central Europe as represented by manuscripts, crystals, ivories and gem encrusted liturgical art. Part III deals with such examples of Carolingian wall painting and architecture as are still evident in Central Europe.

The book, a documentary history, records a cognitive history of the emergence of modern architecture. Cutting across disciplinarian and institutional divisions, as we know them today, it reconstructs developments within the framework of a cognitive history of the past. Modern is here taken to mean the radical re-thinking of architecture from the end of the tenth century in Europe to the end of the eighteenth century. Among the key debates that mark the period are those that oppose tradition to innovation, canon to discovery, geometrical formality to natural picturesqueness, the functional to the hedonistic.