I acquired today a copy of Nikolaus Pevsner's Pioneers of Modern Design at a second hand book sale and already I've finished it. If you want a quick introduction into (surprisingly enough, given the title) modern design, then you can't do any better than this.
Despite the fact that it was first written in 1936, when modern design as we think of it was only just getting under way, Pevsner's observations and predictions prove remarkably astute (it continued to be revised by Pevsner up until 1975) and it shows how we got from the cottagey style of the Arts & Crafts movement to the rather brutal blocks of the sixties with panache and logic. Plus, it is amusingly written (especially when referring to some horrible carpets made for the Great Exhibition) and very easy to follow, which isn't always the case with this sort of book. Words like sachlichkeit, from the untranslatable sachlich (meaning at the same time pertinent, matter-of-fact and objective) are only bandied about here when there's no other word that'll do and it's crammed full of amusing little quotes - Ruskin's "ornamentation is the principal part of architecture," is in, for example, as is George Gilbert Scott's (father of the telephone-box man) claim that architecture's "great principle is to decorate construction."
It's good, in other words.
So, if you already know that William Morris has nothing to do with the British Leyland and don't think Walter Gropius is a filthy faux-German pun (same goes for the Fagus Factory) you'll love this little elucidation. If it's still in print, which I expect it will be, buy it now. If it isn't, ask nicely and I might let you borrow it.
Oh yes, and the Wainright Building in St Louis is in it (a bluff ten story block with a cornice like a breaking wave). Makes me feel all warm inside.
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