Steel Architecture: The Designed Landscape of Modernity

Angus Macdonald

nov 2021 · The Crowood Press

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Steel Architecture offers a re-interpretation of Modernist design through an examination of the history of metal-framed buildings, from the mills, warehouses and spectacular glasshouses of the nineteenth century to the multi-form, tall towers which currently characterize the skylines of the world's major cities. Based on extensive research, this insightful book reassesses the development of a signature landscape of Modernism through the lens of contemporary issues, and critically appraises some of the most prominent works of architecture of the Modern age, including Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion, Richard Neutra's Lovell Health House, and Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Topics covered include: the early commercial steel buildings; steel and mid twentieth-century consumerism; the Chicago skyscrapers of the 1970s; High Tech architecture and finally the 'formalist' architecture of the late-Modern period. Extensively illustrated and accessibly written, Steel Architecture discusses the meanings behind the visual vocabulary of Modern steel architecture, and places the style in the broad context of the social, political and economic preoccupations of its age.

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Angus Macdonald is Professor Emeritus of Architectural Structures and former Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Edinburgh. He teaches at all levels in the degree programmes in Architecture and Architectural History at UoE/Edinburgh College of Art and is the author of several books including Structure and Architecture (3 rd ed., 2019) and Crowood’s High Tech Architecture (2019).