Encyclopedia of 20th Century Architecture

Abstract

In its broad coverage of architecture produced between 1900 and 2000, the Encyclopedia of 20th -century A rchitecture provides a three-volume, English-language reference work for scholars, professionals, students, and the general public seeking a basic understanding of interdependent topics that define the production of architecture in the developed cities, countries, and regions of the world. Seeking the breadth and diversity of any encyclopedic endeavor, the project extends its coverage beyond the conventional study of prominent architects and their buildings to address important related facets of 20th-century architectural production that motivate architects and their clients and give form and meaning to their buildings. Arranged in alphabetical order, the entries fall into three broad areas: persons, places, and architecture topics. Persons include architects and firms, critics, and historians; places include countries and regions, cities, specific buildings and sites, and unbuilt projects; architecture topics include materials and building technology, building types, stylistic and theoretical terms, schools and movements, architectural practice and the profession, and planning. Ranging in length from 1,000 to 4,000 words, each article is written for the well-informed general reader and signed by an established scholar or professional with expertise in the subject. In addition, each architecture topic and places entry includes a selected bibliography; each person’s entry includes a capsule biography, a list of selected works, and a selected bibliography. The bibliographies consist of standard works and recent scholarship to enable the student or scholar to expand his or her research. This project set out in 1998 in Chicago with the editorial staff of Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers to shape a broad and inclusive reference work designed to provide description and analysis of 20th-century architects, buildings, and places from a global perspective. In its review of an enormously inventive century of ambitious architectural production, the editorial team quickly recognized that the most useful reference work would include far more than buildings and architects alone. The Encyclopedia of 20th-century Archi tecture therefore aims to explain the range of technological, professional, and historical factors that the architectural process entails, from drawings to the completed building. The far-reaching influence of important architects, sustainability and new materials, new digital technologies, and global proliferation of large-scale building types, for example, has altered the scope of modern architectural practice. Moreover, 20th-century architecture profoundly engaged many new constituencies, including the general public. In its efforts to provide a broader audience with a more inclusive understanding of architectural practice, the project seeks to frame a vast scope of selected topics that have defined and directed 20th-century architecture and its consumption worldwide. The practice of architecture has become enormously complex, as modern airports a