Arts & Architecture 1945-49

Welcome to Modernism: The very best of the first five years of the groundbreaking architecture magazine 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 low-cost materials and modern design. This trend was most notably embodied in the famous Case Study House Program, which was championed by the era’s leading American journal, Arts & Architecture. Focusing not only on architecture but also design, art, music, politics, and social issues, A&A was an ambitious and groundbreaking publication, largely thanks to the inspiration of John Entenza, who ran the magazine for over two decades until David Travers became publisher in 1962. The era’s greatest architects were featured in A&A, including Neutra, Schindler, Saarinen, Ellwood, Lautner, Eames, and Koenig; and two of today’s most wildly successful architects, Frank Gehry and Richard Meier, had their debuts in its pages. A&A was instrumental in putting American architecture—and in particular California Modernism—on the map. Other key contributors to the magazine include photographers Julius Shulman and Ezra Stoller, writers Esther McCoy and Peter Yates, and cover designers Herbert Matter and Alvin Lustig, among many luminaries of Modernism. The complete facsimile of Arts & Architecture was published by TASCHEN in 2008 as a limited Collector’s Edition. This selection—directed and produced by Benedikt Taschen—brings together all the covers and the highlights from the first five years of the legendary magazine and is a comprehensive record of mid-century American architecture.