About the Book
Architectural travel, from the Eternal City to the generic city.The Grand Tour was once the culmination of an architect's education. As a journey to the cultural sites of Europe, the Tour's agenda was clearly defined: to study ancient monuments in order to reproduce them at home. Architects returned from their Grand Tours with rolls of measured drawings and less tangible spoils: patronage, commissions, and cultural cachet. Although no longer carried out under the same name, the practices inscribed by the Grand Tour have continued relevance for contemporary architects. This edition of Perspecta--the oldest and most distinguished student-edited architectural journal in America--uses the Grand Tour, broadly conceived, as a model for understanding the history, current incarnation, and future of architectural travel. Perspecta 41 asks: where do we go, how do we record what we see, what do we bring back, and how does it change us? Contributions include explorations of architects' travels in times of war; Peter Eisenman's account of his career-defining 1962 trip with Colin Rowe around Europe in a Volkswagen; Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's discussion of their traveling and its effect on their collecting, teaching, and design work; drawings documenting the monolithic churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia; an account of how James Gamble Rogers designed Yale's Sterling Library and residential colleges using his collection of postcards; and a proposed itinerary for a contemporary Grand Tour--in America.
Contributors
Esra Akcan, Aaron Betsky, Ljiljana Blagojevic, Edward Burtynsky, Matthew Coolidge and CLUI, Gillian Darley, Brook Denison, Helen Dorey, Keller Easterling, Peter Eisenman, Dan Graham and Mark Wasiuta, Jeffery Inaba and C-Lab, Sam Jacob, Michael Meredith, Colin Montgomery, Dietrich Neumann, Enrique Ramirez, Mary-Ann Ray and Robert Mangurian, Kazys Varnelis, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Enrique Walker
About the Author: Gabrielle Brainard is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture and a practicing architect. Rustam Mehta is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture and a practicing architect. Thomas Moran is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture and a practicing architect. Michael Meredith is a Principal at MOS, an internationally recognized architectural practice based in New York. His writing has appeared in Artforum, LOG, Perspecta, Harvard Design Magazine, and other publications. Robert Venturi is an award-winning architect and an influential writer, teacher, artist, and designer. His work includes includes the Sainsbury Wing of London's National Galler; renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; dozens of major academic projects; and the groundbreaking Vanna Venturi House. Denise Scott Brown is an architect, writer, and planner. She and Robert Venturi are founding principals of the influential architectural firm Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates (VSBA), whose work and ideas have influenced generations of architects and planners. Ljiljana Blagojevic is a practicing architect and an architectural historian and theoretician. She is Lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, and teaches at the School for History and Theory of Images in Belgrade. Keller Easterling is Associate Professor, Yale University School of Architecture. She is the author of Organization Space (MIT Press, 1999). Kazys Varnelis is Director of the Network Architecture Lab, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, and Member of the Founding Faculty at the School of Architecture, University of Limerick. Dan Graham's artwork has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. His writings have appeared in Artforum, Arts, and numerous other magazines, books, and monographs.
