The Great Builders

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Celebrates the creations of forty architect-engineers who have been pioneers in aesthetic design and the application of materials.

Seven hundred years of architectural innovation make for an international survey of spectacular scope and depth, from the dome of St. Paul's cathedral to the arresting angles of the Sydney Opera House, from the monumental Taj Mahal to Kengo Kuma's attempts "to erase architecture," to fortresses, bridges, and skyscrapers.

The contributors include practicing architects and leading academics, and their essays focus on the architects and engineers through history who have shaped and transformed the built environment. More than two hundred illustrations of structures famous, revolutionary, and surprising--including original drawings and prints and modern photography--bring the works to life.

Architectural structures both subtle and spectacular have always been designed with an audience in mind, an intent to influence the way we see, think, move, and interact; and the builders themselves can be as fascinating as their creations. Mathematician and visionary, philosopher and ecologist, nationalist, modernist, rationalist, deconstructivist: the characters behind the buildings are many and varied.

Featuring work by Filippo Brunelleschi, Shah Jahan, Christopher Wren, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, John Fowler, Gustave Eiffel, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, R. Buckminster Fuller, Louis Kahn, Oscar Niemeyer, Eero Saarinen, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Santiago Calatrava, and many more.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 6)
• Pioneers of Structure (p. 20)
• The father of Renaissance architecture (p. 22)
• Architect to the House of Tamerlane (p. 29)
• Wood sculptor, architect and student of antiquity (p. 34)
• Master architect of the Ottoman Empire (p. 40)
• Mughal emperor and builder (p. 45)
• Scientist, architect and engineer (p. 51)
• Foremost military engineer of the 17th century (p. 60)
• The Age of Iron (p. 66)
• Innovator of cast-iron bridge design (p. 68)
• Genius and engineer (p. 74)
• Inventor of cast-iron architecture (p. 81)
• Landscape gardener and architect (p. 87)
• Municipal architect of Paris (p. 95)
• Visionary railway engineer and ship designer (p. 100)
• Realist and revolutionary (p. 107)
• Gothic as constructive will (p. 113)
• Renowned developer of urban railways (p. 119)
• Concrete and Steel (p. 126)
• Architect of Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (p. 128)
• Developed Chicago's distinctive skyscrapers (p. 134)
• Engineering mastermind of tall metal structures (p. 140)
• Symbol of reinforced concrete (p. 148)
• Architect-craftsman with a unique creative style (p. 153)
• Ornamentalist, skyscraper designer and advocate of an 'American' style (p. 162)
• Architect of the space within (p. 170)
• An aesthetic language and doctrine for concrete construction (p. 178)
• The last great inventor of form (p. 184)
• In concrete or stone, wood or metal? (p. 188)
• Leap into the unknown (p. 196)
• Transfigurations of an engineer (p. 201)
• New Visions (p. 206)
• Design for the future (p. 208)
• The outsider and the art of the impossible (p. 217)
• Architect of the poetics of action and construction (p. 223)
• The constructive imagination (p. 229)
• Radical critic of Modernist orthodoxies (p. 234)
• Exuberance and technological innovation (p. 240)
• Innovator of tensile and membrane structures (p. 247)
• Designer of expressively iconic buildings (p. 254)
• The architect of megastructures (p. 261)
• Invention and innovation in structure and materials (p. 268)
• A universal designer (p. 277)
• An architecture of materiality and immateriality (p. 285)
• Contributors (p. 290)
• Select Bibliography (p. 294)
• Sources of Illustrations (p. 300)
• Index (p. 301)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

British architectural historian and critic Powell (New London Architecture) has compiled a collection that highlights the works of innovative structural engineers from the Middle Ages to the present. He commissioned 40 brief biographies of these master builders, which are presented chronologically and highlight, e.g., Brunelleschi's structural inventions in Renaissance Florence and the globe-spanning work of contemporary figures like Norman Foster and Santiago Calatrava. Visionaries like Christopher Wren, Thomas Telford, Gustave Eiffel, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier are more familiar to general readers. Others, like Sinan, the 16th-century "master architect of the Ottoman Empire," are worthy colleagues. Powell contends that with computer-aided design, more architects and engineers are discovering new innovations together. Almost 230 illustrations help readers visualize the various projects described. VERDICT This book contains much well-known information, but its historical architectural continuum could inspire architecture, -engineering, and construction students.--David R. Conn, formerly with Surrey Libs., B.C. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Filippo Brunelleschi launches this impressive and affordable biographical dictionary of 40 male master builders and designers ranging from the 15th century to Kengo Kuma (b. 1954). All receive six to nine well-appointed and illustrated pages that concisely situate them in their contemporary context and summarize careers, innovations, influences, and legacies. The writing, by 36 knowledgeable authorities (mostly UK and North American architectural historians), is uniformly accessible and intelligently distills major achievements. Beyond the expected stars, what sets this volume apart from a slew of rivals is the emphasis on technical innovators (John Fowler and Isambard Brunel, railways; James Bogardus, cast-iron; Auguste Perret and Francois Hennebique, reinforced concrete; Frei Otto, tensile membrane), and the inclusion of non-Western figures Qavam al-Din Shirzai (Persian), Sinan (Ottoman), and Shah Jahan (Mughal), along with Giuliano da Sangallo, the Medicis' favored designer; Giuseppe Mengoni, known for Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II; and Moscovite Konstantin Melnikov. Twentieth-century architects populate one-half of the work. Illustrations include photos, drawings, and reproductions of paintings. Other useful features are a select bibliography for each architect and a comprehensive index. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most academic and public libraries; lower- and upper-level undergraduates, and general readers. R. T. Clement Northwestern University