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Architecture in a Tumultuous Age
University Of Chicago Press
October 2010
On Sale: October 1, 2010
304 pages ISBN: 0226423115 EAN: 9780226423111 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
For nearly twenty years now, Blair Kamin of the Chicago
Tribune has explored how architecture captures our
imagination and engages our deepest emotions. A winner of
the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and writer of the widely
read Cityscapes blog, Kamin treats his subjects not only as
works of art but also as symbols of the cultural and
political forces that inspire them. Terror and Wonder
gathers the best of Kamin’s writings from the past decade
along with new reflections on an era framed by the
destruction of the World Trade Center and the opening of the
world’s tallest skyscraper. Assessing ordinary commercial structures as well as
head-turning designs by some of the world’s leading
architects, Kamin paints a sweeping but finely textured
portrait of a tumultuous age torn between the conflicting
mandates of architectural spectacle and sustainability. For
Kamin, the story of our built environment over the past ten
years is, in tangible ways, the story of the decade itself.
Terror and Wonder considers how architecture has been
central to the main events and crosscurrents in American
life since 2001: the devastating and debilitating
consequences of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina; the real estate
boom and bust; the use of over-the-top cultural designs as
engines of civic renewal; new challenges in saving old
buildings; the unlikely rise of energy-saving, green
architecture; and growing concern over our nation’s
crumbling infrastructure. A prominent cast of players—including Santiago Calatrava,
Frank Gehry, Helmut Jahn, Daniel Libeskind, Barack Obama,
Renzo Piano, and Donald Trump—fills the pages of this
eye-opening look at the astounding and extraordinary ways
that architecture mirrors our values—and shapes our everyday
lives.
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