BOOK:Arts & Architecture 1945-49,Taschen Publications

From the end of World War II until the mid-1960s, exciting things were happening in American architecture. Emerging talents were focusing on innovative projects that integrated at once modern design and low-cost materials. The trend was most notably embodied in the famous Case Study House Program, a blueprint for modern habitation championed by the era’s leading American journal, Arts & Architecture. The complete facsimile of the ambitious and groundbreaking “Arts & Architecture 1945-49” was published by Taschen in 2008 as a limited edition. This new curation—directed and produced by Benedikt Taschen—brings together all the covers and the highlights from the first five years of the legendary magazine, with a special focus on the Case Study House Program and its pioneers. The Case Study Houses were experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano and Ralph Rapson to design and build inexpensive and efficient model homes for the United States residential housing boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers. The program ran intermittently from 1945 until 1966. The first six houses were built by 1948 and attracted more than 350,000 visitors. While not all 36 designs were built, most of those that were constructed were built in Los Angeles, and one was built in San Rafael, Northern California and one in Phoenix, Arizona.-Dimitris Lempesis

\

\