The Yale Art + Architecture Building (Building Block Series) [Hardcover]

Ezra Stoller (Author), E. Stoller (Photographer), P. Nobel (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Building Block Series | Publication Date: August 23, 1999

The Building Blocks series presents icons of modern architecture as interpreted by the most significant architectural photographers of our time. The first four volumes feature the work of Ezra Stoller, whose photography has defined the way postwar architecture has been viewed by architects, historians, and the public at large. The buildings inaugurating this series-Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal, Wallace Harrison's United Nations complex, Le Corbusier's Chapel at Ronchamp, and Paul Rudolph's Yale Art and Architecture Building-all have bold sculptural presences ideally suited to Stoller's unique vision. Each cloth-bound book in the series contains at least 80 pages of rich duotone images. Taken just after the completion of each project, these photographs provide a unique historical record of the buildings in use, documenting the people, fashions, and furnishings of the period. Through Stoller's photographs, we see these buildings the way the architects wanted us to know them. In the preface to each volume Stoller tells of his personal relationship with the architect of each project and recounts his experience photographing it. Brief introductions reveal the unique history of each building; also included are newly drawn plans.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Art + Architecture Building at Yale University is Paul Rudolph's undoubted masterpiece, and it was highly influential in its time. The structure is solid, muscular, spatially complex, and strongly textured, built in a period when simplicity, lightness, smoothness, and transparency ruled the day, and it emboldened other architects to explore similar avenues of expression. Rudolph's career peaked quickly, but he and his remarkable building for Yale are clearly undervalued. Rudolph's building is just one of the modernist icons that preeminent architectural photographer Ezra Stoller documented in a career that spanned more than half a century. Now retired, Stoller has been reassembling his work for permanent (rather than periodical) publication. The Yale Art + Architecture Building is one of a series published by Princeton Architectural Press that presents individual buildings in depth in a small-size volume. The photographs are not only stunning, they have particular documentary value in that Stoller shot them when the buildings were new--in this case, 36 years ago.

The series has been designed for relative affordability, and its subjects are well chosen. Each volume includes a very brief preface by Stoller setting out his relationship to the building and a fairly short critical, historical, analytical essay. Buttressed by about a dozen endnotes, the essays occupy a middle ground between informal and scholarly writing. They are followed by 50 to 60 duotone photos and a few plan drawings. This is an expert look at an extraordinary building and well worth readers' serious attention. --John Pastier

Review

"Ezra Stoller is the Annie Leibovitz of modern architecture." -- House & Garden

"The books are pocket-sized but Stoller's images, well-reproduced, are still effective in this small format. Not just his eye and technique impress but also his tolerance and apt inclusion of people." -- Architects Journal

"These books are telling, not only about their subjects (shown in lush duotones), but also about how modern architecture came to be perceived by historians, architects, and the public." -- Cathy Lang Ho, Architecture

Each compact volume in this impeccably curated series is devoted to a single, seminal work by a modern master. -- House Beautiful, July 2000

Handsome and well-priced; based on the brilliant photography of Ezra Stoller. -- Interior Design, June 2000

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (August 23, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568981856
• ISBN-13: 978-1568981857
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #278,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #98 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Architectural

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Chilly work, August 3, 2009

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tierny - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Yale Art + Architecture Building (Building Block Series) (Hardcover)

I like Paul Rudolph's building. Photogrpaher Ezra Stoller seems to take his pictures according to technical criteria, and the belief that there IS a right way to take a picture of a building. In this entire book there may be two or three great photos. Everything else passes by your eyes without note. Too many similar or unremarkable shots. Maybe it's the way he sequenced the pics. He is not sharing his vision, or creating; he's documenting. His contemporary Julius Schulman instead captures things that are evocative and gets at the wordless qualities, and spatiality of the buildings he photographs, while still conveying plenty of objective info.

Compared to him, Stoller's images tend to fall on the side of mere descriptiveness.