Ancient Wisdom and Modern Knowhow

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Adept at moving between the examination of modern and contemporary architecture, art, literature and music, Robert Maxwell is a respected scholar whose critical writings articulate the role architecture plays in contemporary culture. In Ancient Wisdom And Modern Knowhow, Maxwell considers the notion of 'doubt' encountered by the modern architect. In ten chapters that draw upon writers and topics as diverse and engaging as Andre Malraux and his concept of the Musée Imaginaire, Colin Rowe and his exploration of "Mannerism in Modern Architecture" as well as Rowe's book with Fred Koetter, Collage City, and examining works by artists including Albrecht Du?rer, Picasso and Duchamp and architects including James Stirling, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind, Maxwell steps effortlessly through a range of ideas and concepts, to create an engaging and provocative thesis. Ancient Wisdom and Modern Knowhow is the second of two new books to be published by Artifice books on architecture by Professor Robert Maxwell, Emeritus Professor of Architecture at Princeton University. The first, A Few Years of Writing Interspersed with some Facts of Life, was published in autumn 2012.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. 7)
• Introduction (p. 9)
• Chapter 1 Claude Perrault and the Orders of Architecture (p. 12)
• Chapter 2 The Animated Archive (p. 22)
• Chapter 3 Taking from the Archive (p. 34)
• Chapter 4 Rowe and Mannerism in Modern Architecture (p. 42)
• Chapter 5 Rowe's Urbanism: The Triumph of Common Sense (p. 64)
• Chapter 6 Functionalism and the Avant-garde (p. 82)
• Chapter 7 Questions that Remain (p. 104)
• Chapter 8 Stirling's Theory: The Critical Act (p. 120)
• Conclusion: The Age of Uncertainty (p. 132)
• Acknowledgements (p. 139)
• Image Credits (p. 140)
• Index (p. 142)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

For much of his career, Maxwell (emer., Princeton) has been fascinated by architecture's content rather than its contents, i.e., architecture's meaning. He recognizes that works of architecture convey meaning just as other forms of visual art do. However, whereas other art forms can rely on representing the real world to communicate meaning, in architecture content and meaning are often conveyed through visual references--to earlier architectural styles and building types; to specific buildings; and to scenes and situations from one's own visual image banks, drawn from popular culture. Increasingly, as Maxwell observes, architects over the past half century have exploited their own and others' inherited archive of visual memory and imagery in their designs, thus creating layers of meaning and complexity. To illustrate this thesis, Maxwell presents four previously unpublished lectures delivered in recent years; these are connected by four additional chapters plus a conclusion. In particular, the author concentrates his analyses and observations on the group of British and European architects and architectural theorists associated with the resurgence of Mannerism in contemporary architecture; these include James Stirling, Colin Rowe, Peter Eisenman. and Rem Koolhaas. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above. W. S. Bradley Colorado Mesa University