Böcker av Thomas Leslie

"The John Hancock Center. Marina City. Sandburg Village. The Sears Tower. The Inland Steel Building. From skyline-defining icons to wonders of the world, the second period of the Chicago skyscraper transformed the way Chicagoans lived and worked. The Second Chicago School dominates many histories of the era. Yet these accounts often overlook essential Chicago sites, important areas away from downtown, the teams of people involved in the conception and construction of skyscrapers, and the financial, social, racial, and political factors that influenced the buildings that came to be. Thomas Leslie's comprehensive look at the modern era of Chicago skyscrapers rewrites the narrative to view the skyscraper idea, and the buildings themselves, within the broad expanse of city history. As construction emerged from the depths of the Great Depression, structural, mechanical, and cladding innovations evolved while continuing to influence designs. An earlier generation of architects would have been impressed-but not shocked-by expansive glass elevations and more efficient concrete columns, girders, and slabs. The truly radical changes concerned the motivations that drove construction of many new skyscrapers. While profit remained key in the Loop, developers elsewhere worked with a Daley political regime that saw tall buildings as tools for a wholesale recasting of the city's appearance, demography, and economy. Focusing on both the wider cityscape and specific buildings, Leslie reveals skyscrapers to be the physical results of negotiations between motivating and mechanical causes. Illustrated with more than 140 photographs, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986 tells the fascinating stories of the people, ideas, negotiations, decision-making, compromises, and strategies that changed the history of architecture and one of its showcase cities"--

Born in Sondrio, Italy, in 1891, Per Luigi Nervi was a pioneer in the engineering and architecture of reinforced concrete. His buildings showed how the use of reinforced concrete expanded the possibilities of form and structure. His methods, meanwhile, ingrained his structures with patterns that came directly out of his economical, manual construction processes. The results were buildings that matched awe-inspiring spans with surprisingly human scale. Beauty''s Rigor offers a comprehensive overview of Nervi''s long career. Drawing on the Nervi archives and a wealth of photographs and architectural drawings, Thomas Leslie explores celebrated buildings like Palazetto dello Sport built for the 1960 Rome Olympics, St. Mary''s Cathedral in San Francisco, and the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. He also sheds new light on unbuilt projects such as the Pavilion of Italian Civilization for the Universal Exposition of Rome E42. What emerges is the first complete account of Nervi''s contributions to modern architecture and his essential role in a revolution that realized concrete''s potential to match grace with strength.

Highlights an exceptionally dynamic, energetic period of architectural progress in Chicago.