Leading urbanist Carole Rifkind takes readers on an illuminating tour through half a century of design in this comprehensive and lavishly illustrated book. From private homes and public housing to museums, religious and educational edifices, shopping centers, malls, and office buildings, the accessible text demonstrates the interplay between form and function, and how the uses of space, mass, materials, and ornament have evolved to produce the structures that surround us today. Rifkind also discusses the development of style and analyzes the contributions of more than two hundred architects, as well as the political and economic forces that influenced their work. Filled with over four hundred photographs and line drawings, A Field Guide to Contemporary American Architecture is an essential reference for both casual observers and serious scholars. Its in-depth exploration of the postwar intellectual, social, and artistic environment offers a unique perspective on our recent past and the forces that shape our modern landscape.

The essential walking companion to more than two hundred cutting-edge buildings constructed since the new millennium. The first decade of the 21st century has been a time of lively architectural production in New York City. A veritable building boom gripped the city, giving rise to a host of new—and architecturally cutting-edge—residential, corporate, institutional, academic, and commercial structures. With the boom now waning, this guidebook is perfectly timed to take stock of the city’s new skyline and map them all out, literally. This essential walking companion and guide features 200 of the most notable buildings and spaces constructed in New York’s five boroughs since the new millennium—The High Line, by James Corner Field Operations/Diller Scofidio + Renfro; 100 Eleventh Avenue, by Ateliers Jean Nouvel; Brooklyn Children’s Museum, by Rafael Vinoly Architects; 41 Cooper Square, by Morphosis; Poe Park Visitors Center, by Toshiko Mori Architect; and One Bryant Park, by Cook + Fox, to name just a few. Projects are grouped by neighborhood, allowing for easy, self-guided tours, with photos, maps, directions, and descriptions that highlight the most important aspects of each entry.

Incisive, jargon-free and a pleasure to read, A Field Guide To American Architecture presents an exceptionally comprehensive view of American architecture from the 1940s to the present. Plentiful photographs and graphic representations, carefully interwoven with succint text and informative captions, make this volume ideal for browsing as well as serious study.Like Carole Rifkind's earlier book, this one investigates buildings by type, taking a fresh vantage point for each--houses, housing projects, public buildings, art museums, churches and synagogues, schools and colleges, tall office buildings, and shopping centers. Encompassing the works of two hundred architects, from the little known to the famous, it builds a diverse and fascinating panorama of recent American architecture.

Defines and illustrates architectural terms relating to building style, structural components, and architectural ornaments.

Why did the colonial Americans give over a significant part of their homes to a grand staircase? Why did the Victorians drape their buildings ornate decoration? And why did American buildings grow so tall in the last decades of the 19th century. This book explores the history of American architecture from prehistoric times to the present, explaining why characteristic architectural forms arose at particular times and in particular places.

Visual presentation of the many types of houses built in America from the earliest Indian dwellings to designs for futuristic homes.

"Some anthologies seem slapdash or opportunistic; others are labors of love, informed by a mastery of a particular field and a passion for sharing the heterogeneous richness of their documents. "Building the Nation" is happily one of the latter. . . . Vastly useful."--"Preservation"