Changes in the lives of our cities occur in cycles that have little predictability. The fervor that prompted Modern architects to ask in the 1940s if our cities could survive led in America to the decades of urban renewal which, in turn, were refuted by the fervent reactions of citizens and Postmodern architects. Now that the rhetoric of Postmodernism has waned, it is time for a closer look at the modernist vision for the American city. The need to reexamine the intentions of Modernists prompted a symposium, “Modernist Visions and the Contemporary American City,” held at The University of Texas at Austin. We now present the papers of that symposium along with supplementary case studies that show the prevalence of Modernist urban concepts in operation today.
ISBN: 0-8478-5491-4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Visions and Revisions, by Anthony Alofsin
THE VISIONS
Broadacre City: The Reception of a Modernist Vision, 1932-1988, by Anthony Alofsin
Constancies and Changes in Le Corbusier's Urbanism: Part I. Attitudes Toward the Man-Made Environment, by Mary Patricia May Sekler
Constancies and Changes in Le Corbusier's Urbanism: Part II. Relationships Between Painting and Urbanism, by Eduard F. Sekler
THE CONTEXT
A Visionary Discipline: Werner Hegemann and the Quest for the Pragmatic Ideal, by Christiane Crasemann Collins
Mobility and Modernism in the Postwar City, by M. Christine Boyer
The Individual and the City, by Lawrence W. Speck
CASE STUDIES
Avion Village, by David Dillon
Aluminum City Terrace, by Rene David Quinlan
Lafayette Park, by Lise Newman
Portland Center, by Howard Davis
Fragmented Machinery: Speculative Post-Industrial Modernism, by Stephen L. Ross
EDITORS
Anthony Alofsin
Lawrence Speck
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Susan R. Hoover
ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR
Patricia Henderson
