Over the concluding decades of the twentieth century, the historic preservation community increasingly turned its attention to modern buildings, including bungalows from the 1930s, gas stations and diners from the 1940s, and office buildings and architectural homes from the 1950s. Conservation efforts, however, were often hampered by a lack of technical information about the products used in these structures, and to fill this gap Twentieth-Century Building Materials was developed by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Park Service and first published in 1995. Now, this invaluable guide is being reissued—with a new preface by the book’s original editor. With more than 250 illustrations, including a full-color photographic essay, the volume remains an indispensable reference on the history and conservation of modern building materials. Thirty-seven essays written by leading experts offer insights into the history, manufacturing processes, and uses of a wide range of materials, including glass block, aluminum, plywood, linoleum, and gypsum board. Readers will also learn about how these materials perform over time and discover valuable conservation and repair techniques. Bibliographies and sources for further research complete the volume. The book is intended for a wide range of conservation professionals including architects, engineers, conservators, and material scientists engaged in the conservation of modern buildings, as well as scholars in related disciplines.

The Sayn Foundry in Bendorf, a German town on the Rhine near the Dutch border, is a fascinating example of complex technological thinking. Although the structural detailing is typical of its period (1830), Prussian engineer and iron founder Karl Ludwig Althans used and varied the many architectural and engineering models at hand in a sophisticated and complex building with structural elements that can be read as advertisements, machine parts, religious forms, or simply as building elements. The foundry, which is still standing, is just one of the many projects Peters examines in this broad synthesis of nineteenth-century technological thought and methods of design that form the basis of the modern built world. Through such examples, he traces the growth of technological thinking as one of our culture's chief modes of thought and establishes its primacy over other forms such as scientific or humanistic thinking as the major component of building design.

Since their emergence at the start of the 20th century, airports have become one of the most distinctive and important of architectural building types. Often used to symbolize progress, freedom and trade, they offer architects the chance to design on a grand scale. At the beginning of the 21st century, airports are experiencing a new and exciting renaissance as they adapt and evolve into a new type of building; one that is complete, adaptable and catering to a new range of demands. As passengers are held in airports far longer than they used to be, they have also now become destinations in their own right. Airports celebrates the most important airport designs in the world. Beginning with an exploration of the first structures of aviation, and early designs such as the Berlin Tempelhof, the book explores the key airports of the century up to the present day, including Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal in New York, Renzo Piano's Kansai Airport and Norman Foster's Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong.

CD-ROM contains: files for all of the plans, sections and elevations included in the book.

From the summer of 1933 to the fall of 1934, more than 38 million fairgoers visited a 3-mile stretch along Lake Michigan, home to Chicago's second World's Fair. Millions more experienced the Century of Progress International Exposition through newspaper and magazine articles, newsreels, and souvenirs. Together, all marveled at the industrial, scientific, consumer, and cultural displays, many of which were housed in fifty massive and colorful exhibition halls, the largest architectural project realized in the United States during the Great Depression. In the richly illustrated Building a Century of Progress, Lisa D. Schrenk explores the pivotal role of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair in modern American architecture. She recounts how the exposition's architectural commission promoted a broad definition of modern architecture, not relying on purely aesthetic characteristics but instead focusing on new design solutions. The fair's pavilions incorporated recently introduced building materials such as masonite and gypsum board; structural innovations (for example, the first thin-shell concrete roof and the first suspended roof structures built in the United States); and new construction processes, most notably the use of prefabrication. They also featured curiosities like the giant, constantly operating mayonnaise maker and the glass-walled House of Tomorrow, which had no operable windows. Schrenk shows how the halls' designs reflected cultural and political developments of the period, including the expanding relationships between science, industry, and government; the rise of a corporate consumer culture; and the impact of the Great Depression. Many of the designs provoked intense responses from critics and other prominent architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Ralph Adams Cram, fueling heated debates over the appropriate direction for architecture in the United States. Demonstrating the rich diversity of progressive American building design seen at the fair, Building a Century of Progress captures a crucial moment in American modernism. Lisa D. Schrenk is assistant professor of architecture and art history at Norwich University and former education director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation.

A comprehensive and up-to-date survey of 20th century architecture, this volume presents a global perspective on the significant works, architects, ideas, and directions of the past 100 years. 316 illustrations, 148 in color.

In 2003, Bernard Tschumi convened forty of the world's leading architectural designers and theorists for a conference at Columbia University. The State of Architecture brings together manifestos, musings, and meditations to capture the key polemics raised by this extraordinary convocation of thinkers.