Building the peace 5/5

Though this could be called a book about the war, the photos are from 1944 to 1949 and show the extraordinary Allied destruction of Germany and its effect on the population. The four chapters: Liberation; Occupation; Reconstruction; Life in peace, reveal Vacarro's excellent photos of the post-war years, mostly in the American zone of the country.

The photos show the everyday life of Germans struggling to make do in their ruined towns and cities. Vacarro took a lot of photographs of children, he says in the text that boys especially had a hard with so many of them now orphans, girls fared better because they stayed at home with a mother. I thought the last chapter Life in peace had an interesting selection of photos from 1947 to 1949. Children are playing outdoors, fruit and vegetables are available, outdoor swimming pools are open and nightlife in cities is returning. Slowly the country is sorting itself out, at least the western part is, thanks to the Allied powers.

Vacarro's photos in Entering Germany do a remarkable job of revealing life in a war-torn country.

A land of visionary buildings 5/5

Author Sam Lubell writes in the book's introduction that Frank LLoyd Wright was perhaps the main pioneer of the new organic architecture that influenced, in future decades, the building styles of John Lautner, Bruce Goff, Fay Jones, Herb Greene, Bill Peters and others. There was a stimulating counter to the work of these folk with the arrival, during the Thirties, of several European architects like Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Breuer, Saarinen, Frey and Mendelsohn, all of the Modernist School. Their work, in later years, influenced Philip Johnson, Edward Durell Stone, Eero Saarinen, Pierre Koenig and William Pereira.

The book reveals, in hundreds of color photos, the work of these architects backed up with a several hundred-word essay for each building by Lubell, who knows his stuff and writes in an easy conversational style. Of course, all the well-known buildings are here (justifiably Lloyd Wright has twelve) but what I liked about the contents was the selection of the lesser known buildings like Robert Bruno's 'Steel House', Herb Green's 'Praire House' or Ant Farm and Richard Jost's 'House of the Century'. 

I was particularly pleased to see that each building really made an attempt to show the structure, obviously the outside but several of the interiors. Bruce Goff's 'Ford House' has nine, Schindler's 'Kallis-Sharlin residence twelve, Lautner's 'Elrod House' ten. All the book's photos are big on the page, frequently with one over a spread.

There are four essays between all the individual buildings where Lubell delves into various aspects of architecture and twelve pages near the back look at twenty-four buildings with a photo and long essay, this is followed by a building index.

I liked 'American Icons', it's certainly a worthwhile look at some very creative architecture. I believe a second volume will be published later this year.

UK

American Icons: The Iconic Architecture of the USA: The Architecture of the United States: Visions and Defiance : Sam Lubell, Gestalten, Lubell, Sam: Amazon.co.uk: Books

US

American Icons: The Architecture of the United States: Visions and Defiance: gestalten, Lubell, Sam: 9783967041552: Amazon.com: Books