Brasilia, Caracas, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro ... these are cities synonymous with some of the most innovative and progressive architecture of the twentieth century. The period between 1930 and 1960 in particular, when many Latin American economies expanded rapidly, was an era of incomparable inventiveness and creative production, as the various governments strove to shake off their colonial pasts and make public their modernising intentions. This book focuses on major state-funded architectural projects, featuring not only the high-profile prestigious building like the House of Representatives in Barsilia but also social architecture such as schools and los-cost housing developments. Architects like Pani, Costa, Reidy and Niemeyer, who undertook this work with considerable autonomy and significant financial resources, in effect became social planners, their avant-garde aesthetic and technical experimentation often being teamed with radical social agendas. By 1960, the year in which Brasilia was inaugurated, economic growth in the region was slowing and faith in the modernist project in general was faltering. The English-speaking world, which had previously endorsed and even envied Latin American architectural production, changed its opinion and largely dismissed it from the history of twentieth-century architecture. Building the New World redresses the balance. It provides an accessible introduction to the most important examples of state-funded modernism in Latin America during a period of almost unimaginable optimism, when politicians and architects saw architecture as, literally, a way of building themselves out of underdevelopment and into the new world of a culturally rich and socially inclusive future .

An essential exploration of how Russian ideas about the United States shaped architecture and urban design from the czarist era to the fall of the U.S.S.R. Idealized representations of America, as both an aspiration and a menace, played an important role in shaping Russian architecture and urban design from the American Revolution until the fall of the Soviet Union. Jean-Louis Cohen traces the powerful concept of “Amerikanizm” and its impact on Russia’s built environment from early czarist interest in Revolutionary America, through the spectacular World’s Fairs of the 19th century, to department stores, skyscrapers, and factories built in Russia using American methods during the 20th century. Visions of America also captivated the Russian avant-garde, from El Lissitzky to Moisei Ginzburg, and Cohen explores the ongoing artistic dialogue maintained between the two countries at the mid-century and in the late Soviet era, following a period of strategic competition. This first major study of Amerikanizm in the architecture of Russia makes a timely contribution to our understanding of modern architecture and its broader geopolitics.

The collapse of the bipolar world sustained by the United States and the former Soviet Union led to a power vacuum in the 1990s that the European Union has only reluctantly begun to fill. It is under pressure to take over important international tasks and roles in order to develop a new equilibrium in the system of international relations. After 2000, reforms were undertaken so that the European Union could deal more efficiently with the tasks the new political system had acquired since the early 1990s. With respect to its international role, reorganization of the EU's external relations department was high on the list. The New World Architecture explores the contribution that the European Union is making to the emerging global governance system. It discusses the theoretical and historical aspects of European integration within the framework of the emerging regional EU and global governance systems. It explores three regimes of governance that are contributing to holding together the new emerging EU multilevel governance system. None of these is complete; all are partial. They include the political regime of governance; the socioeconomic regime of governance; and the territorial regime of governance. The author assesses the impact of the European Union on global politics. The Mediterranean and Latin America represent regions in which the European Union is investing considerable effort in order to create new forms of cooperation. Magone argues that within the next twenty-five years global governance may and should emerge as the new and reconfigured stable system of international relations. In this system, the European Union is and will remain the most advanced regional system. This volume will be of interest to specialists, scholars, and students of European Politics and the European Union.

As seen in an exhibition at the New York's Max Protetch Gallery in January, 60 of the world's top architects offer their visions for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. Color photos & line art throughout.

Global investigation of 20th-century architecture, 750+ masterpieces richly illustrated.

In the last decades Western architecture has largely dominated the discourse and the built environment worldwide. Recently architecture firms from non-Western countries have been establishing local and global recognition for themselves. Practices all over the world face challenges against a backdrop of rapidly growing cities, ecological demands, changing societies and climate, and emerging economies. Local architects often find strikingly different solutions to local requirements, including sustainability, transportation, migration, construction materials, and traditions.In Mexico, architects work closely with indigenous communities to create modular social housing that can be assembled in one week. In Namibia, a lodge in a wildlife conservancy is designed to echo a local birds nest, while in Vietnam, a library and public space have created a micro-ecosystem to house fish and grow food.Beyond the West journeys across Asia, Africa, and the Americas to understand how local architects respond to a changing world, and focuses its wide lens on inspiring and truly global architecture.