Description
Lumen Books, Published 1987. Paperback, 74 pp.; 21 cm; illustrated with black-and-white photographs throughout.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
110
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In very good condition. Gray flecked pictorial paper covers reproduce the author's photograph of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; mild shelf and edge wear, with a hint of toning and fading to spine. Publisher's price label of $15.00 affixed to rear cover. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Benedikt's first book, an argument against the scenographic postmodernism of the preceding decade and for what he called realness in building: presence, significance, materiality, emptiness. Written between 1979 and 1984, the preface dated Austin, October 1985. Photographs run alongside the text captioned with fragments of it, among them a community hall at Hostyn, Texas, a barn at Moltke, Ontario, and the Getty Museum. The appendix catalogues the pejorative epithets aimed at postmodern work in Progressive Architecture, the AIA Journal and Architectural Record between 1975 and 1985, sorted under headings running from UNREAL to NON-IDENTITY. Benedikt (1946-2025) taught at the University of Texas at Austin; in 1990 he convened the first International Conference on Cyberspace there and went on to edit Cyberspace: First Steps (MIT Press, 1991). Rear cover carries notices by Charles Moore and Karsten Harries. Contents: Preface; For An Architecture of Reality; Appendix; Notes.