Archabet; An Architectural Alphabet
Balthazar Korab (Photographs) Washington DC: The Preservation Press (National Trust for Historic Preservation), 1985. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Unpaginated (approximately 70 pages). Illustrations (Black and White). Foreword by Diane Maddex. In this award-winning book noted photographer Balthazar Korab creates a fascinating new game--find the letters of the alphabet in, on and around American buildings ranging from Victorian gingerbread to angular lines of steel. Every letter can be found in architecture either as a basic structural form or as a decorative, eye-catching detail added on as the inspiration of the architect or the whim of the builder. The words of famous architectural observers from Goethe to Wright and from Victor Hugo to Robert Venturi are carefully paired with dramatic photos to produce an exciting array of ideas about what architecture can be. Diane Maddex, Hon. AIA, is an award-winning book publisher and author of a dozen books, including six on Frank Lloyd Wright. Over the last twenty-five years, her company, Archetype Press, has produced scores of titles on architecture and interior design, photography, and historic places. Its garden books showcase the White House garden, historic Georgetown in Washington, D.C., children’s gardens, and the gardens of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A cofounder and director of the National Trust’s Preservation Press, she has also been a journalist and served on the design review board in the new town of Reston, Va. For her service to the profession, the American Institute of Architects awarded her its highest honor for non-architects, honorary membership. Balthazar Korab (1926–2013) was a Hungarian-American photographer based in Detroit, Michigan, specializing in architectural, art and landscape photography. At the École des beaux-arts in Paris, he completed a diploma of architecture in 1954. For a time, he was a journeyman under the direction of leading European architects, including Le Corbusier. In 1955, Korab arrived in the United States, and Eero Saarinen employed him to photograph the architectural design process. The architectural community in Detroit embraced Korab's career, and many firms retained him to document their building and private home projects. In 1956, he was awarded fourth place in the international design competition for the Sydney Opera House. Korab documented the 1966 flood of the Arno in Florence, Italy. In 1994, American President Bill Clinton presented a portfolio of Balthazar Korab's photography to Árpád Göncz, the president of Hungary. Today, Korab's collection is held at the Library of Congress. Here is architectures, A to Z. The unique alphabet created in Archabet provides an extraordinarily enjoyable and rewarding way of looking at architecture. Finding letter in, on, and around building is just one way of looking at architecture, but it is a perfect place to start understanding the logic--and the mysteries--of structures frequently taken for granted. Letter forms were found tucked under an eave, displayed prominently out front and guild right under our feet, often unseen as we travel daily through the multitudes of alphabets that our buildings have written without our realizing it. Every letter can be found in architecture, either as a basic structural form or a a decorative, eye-catching detail added on as the inspiration of the architect or the whim of the builder. Archabet opens windows onto the world of our buildings, both old and new, by showing a novel way of looking at architecture: through details and forms, through the eyes of an exceptional photographer and through the words of famous architectural observers, from Goethe to Wright., Victor Hugo to Robert Venturi. Their words are carefully paired with the photographs, producing an exciting array of ideas about what architecture can be. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Architecture, Art, Alphabet, Letters, Linguistics, Typography, Graphology, Exterior Design, Details, Forms
ISBN: 0891331174
[Book #87020]
Price: $100.00