Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Plates bright and vivid. Softcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> With some architects the connection between personal character and built work is immediately perceptible. Among Chicago architects one thinks of the taciturn solidity of Mies van der Rohe and of his buildings devoid of unnecessary gesture almost puritanical in their reduction to basic elements; or of Frank Lloyd Wright. whose prodigious exuberantly inventive buildings seem of a piece with his extrav- agant personal life and flare for publicity; or of Helmut Jahn’s carefully polished aura and the sleek glossiness of much of his work. In these cases the architect’s life seemed to have found outlet in the work and the work contributed to the creation of a public persona. The connections between Ralph Johnson’s personality and work are harder to detect. Very little in his soft-spoken apparently diffident manner suggests the per- sonality that led to the creation of plans as intricately formal as that of Warsaw Community High School elevations as elaborately textured as those of Perry High School or spaces as sweepingly dramatic as the ticketing hall in the International Terminal at O’Hare International Airport. In fact it is almost disconcerting that these buildings issued from an individual so lacking in obvious affectation. Little in Johnson’s work moreover suggests a calculated attempt to create a personal signa- ture. Although Johnson’s buildings are distinctive and obviously related to one another differences in programs and sites usually overshadow any obvious stylistic similarities. (MP)