Le Corbusier: The Poetics of Machine and Metaphor (Universe Architecture Series)

Book Description

No other architect since Palladio has exercised such an immense influence as Le Corbusier. As with Einstein and Picasso, Le Corbusier made an impact that was felt within but also outside his special discipline. Through numerous buildings, urban projects, paintings, sculptures, drawings, and publications, he succeeded to develop a unique poetics of machine and metaphor, revolutionizing the way people see, use, and make architecture. More than a modern architect, Le Corbusier was the architect of modern life.

The present monograph discusses Le Corbusier's oeuvre in a concise global manner in relation to the revolutionary developments of the century in which it was born. It shows how Le Corbusier worked within the context of new philosophical ideas; the avant-garde culture; the social, economic, and political movements; and new technology, achieving more than a delicate balance-- a synthesis. But it demonstrates also that Le Corbusier was a creator who conceived, enticed, and shaped many of these developments. As well as being the architect of the twentieth century, Le Corbusier is a prototype of human creativity.

Customer Reviews:

An evocation of Le Corbusier.......2003-01-22

A rather slight but very appealling work on Le Corbusier. Tzonis has distilled the rich and varied work of this master of Modern Architecture into a beautifully organized book. He covers Corbu's life from his humble origins in the Swiss Alps to the international influence his ideas would have on architecture. There are many illustrations of his buildings and evocative sketches from Corbu's journals, but this is less a study than it is an evocation of Le Corbusier.

Yet, Tzonis questions some of Corbu's positions especially in regard to his relationships with Stalin and Mussolini, making it seem that Le Corbusier was less an idealist and more a totalitarian when it came to his urbanistic visions. When Le Corbusier proposed the Plan Voisin for Paris, he paid homage to King Louis XIV, noting that only a despot could have carried out such grand visions.

Tzonis also discusses the important role Corbu's early travels had in shaping his views, particularly his "Journey to the East." It is here that he found many of the forms which he would reduce to a "kit of parts" that he employed over and over again in his later work, finding new meanings and many rich combinations.

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Le Corbusier : The Poetics of Machine and Metaphor
Alexander Tzonis
Manufacturer: Universe Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MYOLK4

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful photos and a beautiful story.......1999-10-16

This collaborative book between Hughes and De Carava is small and wonderful. The story by Hughes is a gentle tale of one woman's life in Harlem in 1955. It is richly illustrated with the beautiful photographs of Harlem family life by De Carava.

The Sound I Saw: Improvisation on a Jazz Theme

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5/5
The Best of Black & White
Subject: jazz musicians; Theme people and light

The Sound I Saw: Improvisation on a Jazz Theme
Roy Decarava
Manufacturer: Phaidon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0714841234

Amazon.com

Let legendary photographer Roy DeCarava lead you through the dark, moody, and exciting world of New York jazz in the 1960s. Photographed 30 years ago and not published until now, The Sound I Saw is a saunter through a poignant period of New York musical history and life experience. Vacant lots and sweaty musicians dot a cultural landscape that looks as if it's going to burst at the seams. The beautiful black-and-white images simultaneously capture hard and luscious life in the city. Lonely figures abound, on park benches, street corners, stages, and subways. The music appears and strives to make intense connections with the surrounding world. A delirious trumpet player works so hard you can almost feel him move the camera. This beautiful coffee-table size book has one striking picture after another, each capturing heartfelt experiences of life in the great city. From jam sessions to candy stores, the streets of New York appear choreographed to reveal the depths of the human spirit. --J.P. Cohen

Book Description

Customer Reviews:

5/5.......2002-03-31

For nearly forty years, a masterwork of photography has sat in obscurity, discussed only by aficionados of photography in reverential tones. It's a work that captures the essence of jazz, the spirit of Renaissance Harlem, and the beauty and simplicity of life. That book is The Sound I Saw, and it is available, finally, now.

Created as a prototype by the photographer Roy DeCarava, best-known for his 1955 collaboration with poet Langston Hughes on The Sweet Flypaper of Life, The Sound I Saw is a series of nearly two hundred black-and-white images of Harlem during a time when jazz exemplified the pulse of a city, and most particularly, a neighborhood. The photographs come in no particular order; and they are threaded along by DeCarava's disarming and evocative poetry. It's apparent that DeCarava was trying to capture in print the spirit and essence of jazz, and in this effort he is eminently successful.

What's important to note is that DeCarava doesn't try to impress a certain point of view on us; on the contrary, his photographic style is so unobtrusive that it makes you forget you're looking at a photograph of an empty street or a group of musicians working out an arrangement. DeCarava wants you to feel as if you've ended up on that street, or perhaps you've taken a wrong turn and stumbled into a rehearsal area backstage. He has a profound appreciation for those delicious moments of solitary discovery, and wants you to experience them as well.

His poetry has the same effect - it doesn't so much paint a picture as try to describe a feeling. It's never flighty or filled with hyperbole; it simply tries to describe the essence of the images it accompanies. We become privy to DeCarava's thoughts without being assaulted by his opinions. You get the impression that DeCarava isn't trying to put forth a certain point of view; he simply wants you stumble in on his ideas the way you would his images, and take away with you whatever speaks to you. As a result, The Sound I Saw achieves an exquisite goal of meaning something different to everyone who reads it.

Perhaps what's most striking about these photos is their utter lack of artifice. One of the plagues of modern photography is the heavy reliance of many photographers upon artifice and alteration in their images; with the exception of photojournalists, it's hard to think of many contemporary photographers who don't rely on heavily staged and contrived shots, props or artificial enhancement of their images in order to achieve a visual and emotional impact. DeCarava achieves a sublime and visceral beauty without any of these. He's succeeded in capturing images with the beauty of pure art but the uncomplicated honesty of photojournalism, and in doing so, has created one of the finest works of photography of our time.

The Best of Black & White.......2001-12-18

Roy DeCarava captures the soul of a time gone by - all in available light and black & white!! His images have more emotion and life than I thought possible. A must have book for any serious photographer/collector.

Subject: jazz musicians; Theme people and light.......2001-11-13

A beautiful sensitivity to emotions in motion is mixed with a personal views of musicians lives. The book as a whole displays a counterpoint of visual narrative that brings warmth to the black and white photos. Running, walking, playing, resting jazz people seen with gritty light over years of being there bring power to Roy Decarava's journal. No technical scales of gray or precision of silver sunsets, this is a story book of and about people living jazz.

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Roy DeCarava Photographs
Roy DeCarava
Manufacturer: The Friends of Photography, Carmel, CA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RB6BAK

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Roy DeCarava, photographs (Untitled)
Roy DeCarava
Manufacturer: Distributed by Matrix Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0933286279

The sound I saw: The jazz photographs of Roy DeCarava : January 20 to March 20, 1983

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The sound I saw: The jazz photographs of Roy DeCarava : January 20 to March 20, 1983
Roy DeCarava
Manufacturer: Studio Museum in Harlem
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006E9MTU

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Roy DeCarava Photographs
James (Ed.) Alinder
Manufacturer: Friends of Photography
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000Q6KR42

Roy DeCarava: February 14-May 9, 1976, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C (The Nation's Capital in photographs)

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Roy DeCarava: February 14-May 9, 1976, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C (The Nation's Capital in photographs)
Roy DeCarava
Manufacturer: The Gallery
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006CNYN2

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Roy DeCarava: Photographs

Manufacturer: The Museum of Fine Arts Houston
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LWIXPG

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Roy Decarava: Photographs
James Alinder
Manufacturer: FRIENDS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000R0EUNG

Book Description

The design of infrastructure policies is a controversial issue in the transition economies of Eastern Europe, where the dismal state of infrastructure was widely regarded to be one of the major obstacles to economic recovery and sustained growth. With the imminent enlargement of the EU, Christian von Hirschhausen provides a detailed, reflective analysis of the state of infrastructure development in Eastern Europe.

The author illustrates the different approaches to modernizing infrastructure and the successes that have been achieved in terms of fiscal relief, private investment and increased efficiency. Based upon a comparative institutional analysis and extensive field research and case studies, he provides empirical evidence from different sectors (power, gas, railways, roads, R&D), with particular emphasis on countries such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Baltics and Russia. Given the substantial institutional instability of the early years of transition, the author promotes a gradual but time-consistent approach to liberalization as a more promising path towards a market economy and increased efficiency. The author offers sound policy recommendations on how best to achieve the successful modernization of East European infrastructure in the course of EU-enlargement.

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Modernizing Infrastructure in Transformation Economies: Paving the Way to European Enlargement.(Book Review): An article from: Comparative Economic Studies
Anders Aslund
Manufacturer: Association for Comparative Economic Studies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008GE0GG
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Comparative Economic Studies, published by Association for Comparative Economic Studies on December 1, 2003. The length of the article is 833 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Modernizing Infrastructure in Transformation Economies: Paving the Way to European Enlargement.(Book Review)
Author: Anders Aslund
Publication: Comparative Economic Studies (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2003
Publisher: Association for Comparative Economic Studies
Volume: 45 Issue: 4 Page: 577(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

America's national pastime has been marked from its inception by bitter struggles between owners and players over profit, power, and prestige. In this book, the first installment of a highly readable, comprehensive labor history of baseball, Robert Burk describes the evolution of the ballplaying work force: its ethnocultural makeup, its economic position, and its battles for a place at the table in baseball's decision-making structure.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the growing popularity of baseball as a spectator sport and the dramatic upsurge of America's urban population created conditions that led to franchise competition, the development of rival leagues, and trade wars, in turn triggering boom-and-bust cycles, franchise bankruptcies, and league mergers. According to Burk, players repeatedly tried to use these circumstances to better their economic positions by playing one team off against another. Their successes proved short-lived, however, because their own internal divisions, exploited by management, undercut attempts to create collective-bargaining institutions. By 1920, owners still held the upper hand in the labor-management battle, but as today's sports pages show, owners did not secure a long-term solution to their labor problems.

Customer Reviews:

A Study of Labor Relations in Major League Baseball.......2006-02-02

This work is the first volume of a two-part study on labor relations in Major League Baseball (MLB). It deals with the nineteenth century experience, as well as the early years of the twentieth century through the "Black Sox" scandal and the appointment of Kennesaw Mountain Landis as the first MLB Commissioner. Burk notes in his preface how he decided upon a title: "for those who operate professional franchises, and for those employed by them in the sport, baseball has never been `just a game'." Its history has been marked by "bitter off-field struggles between players and management over prestige, power, and profits." It also included fights "over who would have access to its opportunities, how its profits would be divided, and...who would control its operations" (p. xi).

Mining several primary sources, many at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Burk fashions a narrative of divergent wills. He draws the familiar story of how companies formed in the 1860s and 1870s to field baseball teams, played each other, and eventually established leagues. The owners hired players, treating them like other labor groups in the United States. Like other workingmen, the players sought to maximize their salaries and benefits, and confrontation resulted. In virtually all instances, these disputes ended with the owners gaining greater authority over their employees, and the players gained resentment at these developments. He also relates the already well-known rebellion led by John Montgomery Ward to invigorate the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players and start a league of its own in 1890, as well as the establishment of several rival leagues whose competition served to raise the income of the players. Most of these efforts ended in failure, and the one instance when it did not, with the rise of the American League, the owners of both leagues combined to create a stable business climate.

Burk also spends considerable effort on the creation of the owners' ingenious "reserve clause." Arising in the "Gilded Age" of the latter 1870s, this became a seemingly inviolate section of all players' contracts that allowed the team the right to reserve the services of their players for the next season even without a signed contract. This clause was dreamed up by coal baron William A. Hulbert set about ensuring that the power in MLB resided with the owners rather than the players. It stated that the club had the right to renew a player's contract following each season--effectively making the player's contract the property of the team that first acquired him for the rest of the player's career. While the contract, and hence the player could be traded, a player could not unilaterally choose to play for another team even if he did not have a current signed contract. The manner in which this legal means of controlling players was concocted and adopted amounts to some of the most interesting sections of this book. It was not until the 1970s that the players finally overturned the "reserve clause" and entered the current age of "free agency."

What resulted from these labor disputes was a stable business in which MLB owners made considerable profits and could exploit players without much fear of anything. For example, he discusses the manipulation of MLB rules to depress individual players' statistics, thereby reducing their bargaining position at contract negotiation time. In the process of this narrative, Burk unpacks the economics of MLB in its first half century.
While there is much to praise in this book, I recommend caution when considering parts of it. First, Burk is working from sketching economic records and his tables of salaries, club costs, etc., do not betray the fact that much of his analysis is based on educated guesses rather than on "hard data." Second, Burk is biased toward the players in these disputes and his narrative paints the owners as evil conspirators. While I also support the side of the players, one must be aware that the owners were probably not as evil as sometimes noted nor the players as saintly as too often concluded. Finally, the issue of a conspiracy of owners to beat down and control the players is certainly present, especially when reviewing the history of the "reserve clause" and the prohibition of African American players, but it is important to question the level of collusion that might have existed among the MLB owners. The premise that the owners acted in total agreement, in lock step, as a cartel to maximize their profits belies the inherent competition between them, both on and off the field. Rather, they often disagreed and fought each other fully as much as they fought the players. We have seen this in the period since 1920 as well, and it is an important point to consider when reading this very fine book.

I recommend "Never Just a Game" as an important benchmark in the non-buff study of baseball history. It should find a place on the bookshelves of all those who take MLB history seriously.

A book for true fans of the game!.......2001-03-06

Burk does a great job detailing the often overlooked facets of professional baseball, ie. the business aspects of the game. A very rewarding work that meshes history with the freshness of a great read. Very worthwhile for the diehard baseball advocate. Groundbreaking research here.

Never Just a Game: Players, Owners and American Baseball to 1920. (book reviews): An article from: Canadian Journal of History

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Never Just a Game: Players, Owners and American Baseball to 1920. (book reviews): An article from: Canadian Journal of History
Geoffrey S. Smith
Manufacturer: University of Saskatchewan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by University of Saskatchewan on December 1, 1995. The length of the article is 970 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Never Just a Game: Players, Owners and American Baseball to 1920. (book reviews)
Author: Geoffrey S. Smith
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1995
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan
Volume: v30 Issue: n3 Page: p534(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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