Product Description

Architects on Architects Susan Gray

Here's a profound, stirring study of how the world's greatest architects influenced the work of others and why--told in the architect's own dramatic and awe-filled words. The contributors discuss the career-inspiring achievements of their mentors, designers of some of the most famous structures on earth. They delve into their own design philosophy, and how the genius of others affected their careers, their goals, as well as their lives.

This candid personal testimony imparts the emotion, inspiration, and wonderment of architecture and vividly demonstrate the power of mentorship and the potential it can unleash. Each original essay is beautifully illustrated with photographs (most in full color) of both the architect's work and that of his mentor, providing a visually stunning forum for comparison and learning.

An ideal book for architecture aficionados, ARCHITECTS ON ARCHITECTS captures the soul, inspiration, and majesty of architecture.

Susan Gray (New York, NY) is an architectural photographer and writer who has worked with many large corporations and magazines. (20020508)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1050685 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-16
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.86 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In a tried-and-true pop-scholarly format, writer and photographer Susan Gray (Writers on Directors) presents Architects on Architects. The essays include Mario Grandelsonas on Mies van der Rohe, Cesar Pelli on Eero Saarinen, Diana Agrest on Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, Charles Gwathmey on Louis Kahn and Der Scutt on Paul Rudolph. The contributors discuss the impact of their heroes and teachers on their own work, and many pieces convey nostalgia, admiration and gratitude. Arata Isozaki discusses Le Corbusier's death by drowning in relation to his vision: "the sea was the substance of motive force that provoked all of his imagination by permeating every detail of his body." Ricardo Legorreta describes studying under Jos‚ Villagr n at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. With 200 elegant photos and illustrations of work by both mentors and mentees, architects and enthusiasts will delight in this moving, erudite collection.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
Get architects to write about their mentors and they may disclose more of themselves than when writing or talking about their own work.

Such revelations are among the pleasure of this book. The 24 contributors are well known. Some reveal themselves to be quite selfless, some to be self-absorbed, but all show themselves to be “people who think and learn, and whose ideas do not spring full-blown from their heads,” as Paul Goldberger accurately says in the foreword.

Some have written gemlike tributes, notably Tadao Ando to Le Corbusier and Norman Foster to Paul Rudolph. Others are more solipsistic, particularly Michael Graves, FAIA, on Le Corbusier. A full five eulogize Corbu, which doesn’t come as a surprise. But that Rudolph is honored by four – albeit four Yalies – is telling, and especially that one of them is Robert A.M. Stern, FAIA, who has spent most of his career rebelling against Rudolphian Modernism. And who would have guessed that Henry Cobb, FAIA, would select H.H. Richardson as his mentor, in part of his “intuitive capacity, which we would not be wrong to call genius.” Or that Richard Meier, CAIA, with his many built references to Corbu, would nevertheless single out Wright and Fallingwater?

But remember, this is a book about memory, and, as John Irving wrote in A Prayer for Owen Meany, “You think you have a memory, but it has you.” (Architectural Record )

Publisher's Weekly, Nov. 5, 2001
With 200 elegant photos and illustrations ... architects and enthusiasts will delight in this moving, erudite collection.