Contemporary Native American Architecture [Hardcover]

Carol Herselle Krinsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 19, 1996

This text covers a new kind of architecture which reflects a culture in formation. Since the mid-1960s, Native Americans have taken part in a widespread movement of cultural regeneration - a term that embraces everything from continuity and reinforcement to invention. As part of this movement, tribal governments and supra-tribal urban groups have commisssioned dozens of buildings that are creating a modern Amerindian architecture. The author focuses on ethnic particularity in contemporary architecture, and on its social consequences.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Contemporary Native American Architecture is an essential reference for architects concerned with the complex cultural and aesthetic issues involved in creating new buildings for Native American populations. Carol Herselle Krinsky, author of Synagogues of Europe, drove more than 13,000 miles in the contiguous 48 states to see and document new meeting lodges, casinos, healing centers, homes, and museums. She writes with infectious passion about large themes: how cultures determine the forms of their monuments, how a minority chooses to present itself within majority culture, how new spaces can be endowed with meanings inherent in traditional structures. Of fairly modest house plans approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, she writes, "To be sure, the buildings discussed here do not intend to be traditional. They are evocative responses to cultural evaporation, pouring at least a few old resources into new vessels. They reinforce a sense of identity. And if they can help to build or rebuild Native nations, the best examples will have fulfilled an essential mission."

This book's design is workmanlike, with only black-and-white photographs, but its detailed contents will be pored over long after most coffee-table books have lost their luster.

From Library Journal

This work is dedicated to the premise that Native American architecture has blossomed in the last 30 years, along with other indigenous arts. The author has engaged in an extensive survey of recent building types and augmented the results with interviews with those directly involved in architectural projects. The information gained is valuable in itself, but readers may have a more difficult time discerning the cultural movements Krinsky so eagerly postulates. This is not the fault of the author, a meticulous architectural historian. Rather, the book's survey reveals just how disparate quality contemporary architecture can be, regardless of its creators' background. Replete with vital plans, sketches, and exterior photographs, this work does add new and valuable information on a whole category of modern building. The pieces do not necessarily add up to firm evidence of a cultural renaissance, but academic libraries covering contemporary architecture will want to add this title as a necessary sequel to Peter Nabokov's historically focused Native American Architecture (Oxford Univ., 1989).?Paula A. Baxter, NYPL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1st Printing edition (December 19, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195097394
• ISBN-13: 978-0195097399
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,690,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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