Tower and Office

From Modernist Theory to Contemporary Practice

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by Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros

MIT Press

Due/Published November 2003, 400 pages, cloth

ISBN 0262011913

In Tower and Office, the Spanish architects Inaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros look at the meaning of technology in contemporary architecture, particularly American, from World War II to the early 1990s. World War II, they claim, marked the end of the modern cultural cycle, destroying the illusion that technological progress alone could produce a perpetually better future. At the same time, the war was the source of powerful new technologies. Inspired by the new pragmatism advocated by American philosopher Richard Rorty, they examine the many ways in which the new building technologies have intertwined since then with the more subjective process of architectural conceptualization.

In the first part, Abalos and Herreros focus on the work of Le Corbusier and his followers, identifying the degree of complexity achieved in their interpretations of the modern skyscraper. In the second part, they look at the technological, typological, and urban evolution of high-rise construction and the contemporary office building. Among the issues they consider are the evolution of the load-bearing structure, the impact of high-tech systems in buildings, and the transparent building skin. In the third part, they address developments in the planimetric concept of the office and the repetitive and homogeneous office skyscraper, as well as present-day mixed-use structures. Throughout, they emphasize the importance of technical analysis in exposing subjective architectural issues that remain stubbornly hidden when viewed from other perspectives.