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Juan Jose Lahuerta's Columns of Smoke series offers bold new
readings of modernity and its key figures while redefining the
connections between architecture, ornamentation, and the portrayal
of both in print media. The third volume focuses on the Spanish
architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926), whose spectacular fin-de-siecle
bohemian modernism stood in revolutionary contrast to the leading
approaches of the day. With the rise of Le Corbusier's modern style
of architecture in the early twentieth century, architects who
favored ornamentation and a strong bond with nature, like Gaudi,
were relegated to the sidelines. Lahuerta draws on first-hand
documents, many previously unpublished, to show that Gaudi, far
from being the isolated eccentric seen in other accounts, was
keenly aware of the major theories and works of his time and
cleverly used industrial processes to produce ornamental details
that appear today to be almost handmade. Equally impressive was
Gaudi's ability to capitalize on his fame once in the public eye,
as both the architect and his buildings appeared in illustrations
in the popular press. His influence on avant-garde artists like
Salvador Dali, who admired the edible appearance of Gaudi's Casa
Mila in Barcelona, and Pablo Picasso, who was fascinated by the
eroticism of the Casa Batllo, attests to the architect's impact far
beyond his field. Richly illustrated with rare images from a
variety of sources, this highly visual take on Gaudi is also a
spirited commentary on the roots of modernism more generally.
Entertaining and perceptive, Antoni Gaudi challenges us to
reconsider what we thought we knew about this pioneering architect
and his distinctive work.
In his Columns of Smoke series, Juan Jose Lahuerta takes on the
enormously ambitious task of re-reading modernity, offering us
fresh ways of looking at it while drawing new links between the
ideas of architecture and ornamentation, with a special focus on
how they have been treated in print. While the first volume of
Columns of Smoke considered epoch-making architect Adolf Loos's
relationship with photography, here Lahuerta turns to the Classical
strand in Loos's architecture and to his written work-and
specifically his engagement with architectural and artistic theory.
Lahuerta pays particular attention to Loos's seminal "Ornament and
Crime," the essay that established disornamentation as the signal
feature of twentieth-century architecture. Through close analysis
of that essay he unearths the racially charged, pseudoscientific
ideas from early anthropology that underpin Loos's thinking. Sure
to be controversial, this new reading of Loos's landmark writings
calls the whole disornamentation project into question, and in the
process, it reveals a radically new perspective on a major turn in
modern design and culture.
In Albino, photojournalist Ana Palacios takes us inside a shelter
for people with albinism and reveals what daily life is like for
those living with the genetic condition in Tanzania. As Palacios
documents, widespread ignorance of the causes of albinism has fed
stigmatization, marginalization, persecution, and prejudice within
the country. In addition to the social and physical threats that
those with albinism face from other Tanzanians, they must also
confront the strong possibility of skin cancer a disease for which
effective treatment options can be found in the West, but which in
Africa tends to reduce life expectancy for those with albinism to
under thirty years. Bearing witness to the efforts of a group of
Spanish aid workers to promote health and education in Tanzania,
Albino highlights their work on programs to improve patient
treatment and training for local doctors. In these subtle, complex,
and ultimately optimistic images, Palacios shows the moments of
struggle, but also joy, that mark the lives of the residents of the
shelter.
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