Toward a Concrete Utopia

Not precisely a new book at this point, but Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, edited by Martino Stierli and Vladimir Kulić, was just awarded the Society of Architectural Historians 2021 Exhibition Catalogue Award. Kudos to the editors and authors!

I regret to say it looks like this is no longer available from MOMA's design shop, but you can still get it on Amazon (for a high price).

The Female Secession

Is it great or is it a bit sad that so many interesting books are coming out during the pandemic? I really don't know--on the one hand there is plenty to read (for anyone who has time, which many of us don't really just now), and on the other hand it's harder to promote books when we can't meet in person and often we just feel that the last thing we want to see is another Zoom-type event.

Nonetheless, here's another want-to-have title for those of us who study art/design history, Central Europe, and/or women's/gender history! Megan Brandow-Faller's The Female Secession: Art and the Decorative at the Viennese Women’s Academy traces the history of the women’s art movement in Secessionist Vienna from its origins in 1897, at the Women’s Academy, to the Association of Austrian Women Artists and its radical offshoot, the Wiener Frauenkunst and "draws a direct connection to the themes that impelled the better-known explosion of feminist art in 1970s America." I know I want to learn more!

Click here for more information and to order your copy.

Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office

Another intriguing book by a scholar of my acquaintance is Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office, by Jennifer Kaufmann-Buehler. Jennifer is a design historian and has long been fascinated by the utopian but now-despised open office. She " traces the history and evolution of the American open plan from the brightly-colored office landscapes of the 1960s and 1970s to the monochromatic cubicles of the 1980s and 1990s," and analyzes both the original architectural intentions and how workers have actually experienced these spaces. (I can affirm that working in a gray cubicle during much of my early adulthood was not a pleasant experience.)

I love her book cover! You can read more about the book and order it here.