Customer Reviews

The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design (World of Art)

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I like this book so much: we used it for an art history course at Yale on art, architecture, and design from 1890-1940. Pevsner's goal, seemingly quite simple but really so complex, is to show the SOURCES of modernism, its origins. This is what the title suggests. Yet it seems he does so much more - he teaches, he gives things dignity, he makes clear intricate connections reaching across space, time, and place in architecture and the applied arts. Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, industrialism, the International Style - everything. Plus the illustrations are fitting and so beautiful. Pevsner gives mention to things often neglected - jewelry, ceramics, etc. It's a compact work, slim, beautiful, easy to read, and great to have as a reference.

An excellent primer on the 19th and early 20th century sources of Modern Architecture, but a little thin when it comes to the underlying theories that set the stage for the movement that began after WWI. Pevsner starts with the British Arts and Crafts Movement and ends with the Deutscher Werkbund, which the Arts and Crafts Movement inspired. He covers the short Art Nouveau era, making some interesting comments on the role Gaugin played in it by inspiring a return to primitivism in the early stages of the movement. He notes the strong impact Frank Lloyd Wright had on the European architects at the turn of the century with the publication of the Wasmuth monograph, and the further impact of Cubism in leading to the further abstraction of architectural form. But, for the most part the book is a catalog of buildings and decorative designs that will give the reader a good starting point for investigating the roots of the Modern Movement.

Even though the Nikolaus Pevsner's name launched an entire series of books on modern design and architecture, one would hardly be able to guess it from reading this volume alone, which was written by Pevsner himself and originally published in 1968.

Aside from the illustrations, most of which are in black and white, there are not many good things to be said about this book. Pevsner's approach covers architecture, furniture, jewelry, and the decorative arts from around the mid-nineteenth century and ends with the very beginning of the Bauhaus, with an interesting section on the Art Nouveau. Beginners will find Pevsner's approach especially unhelpful, as he does not provide an overarching approach to any of the periods that he covers: instead of starting with some of the broad themes of, say, Art Nouveau, he jumps right into some of the pieces that he wants to discuss. In addition to this, Pevsner's choices of artists and designers seem arbitrary. Much of the text is simply written description of things that are readily obvious by looking at the illustrations. He does, however, provide some biographical information of the people he discusses which goes some way in contextualizing the information he has to offer.

I would recommend against this book in general, particularly for someone who is looking for a general, thematic approach to the periods covered.

There are so many problems with this book I don't even know where to begin. Pevsner writes in passive voice throughout the text, the paragraphs are filled with people referenced only by surname, the author takes up much more space quoting architects and designers rather than describing or analyzing the buildings and objects that are ostensibly the subject of the book, and nearly all the reproductions are black and white. There is no logic to the choice of the few color illustrations--single insignificant decorative arts objects are given a full page while Victor Horta's breathtaking and pivitol no. 6 rue house is relegated to a tiny black and white...?!? The intention of focusing on and explaining the sources of modernist design is a smart one, but readers should look elsewhere for the information this text purports to elucidate; especially a text that employs contemporary approaches to history (Pevsner's first edition was from 1968 and clearly has never been changed in any reprinting).