XY2498_T&HCat-Spr13_UK_SP_076-077
12/6/12
9:50 AM
Black Yellow Magenta Cyan
Architecture on the Carpet The Curious Tale of Construction Toys and the Genesis of Modern Buildings Brenda and Robert Vale Brenda and Robert Vale are architects, writers, researchers and experts in the field of sustainable housing. They are both professors of architecture at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Their previous books include The Autonomous House, Green Architecture, The New Autonomous House and Time to Eat the Dog, all published by Thames & Hudson.
111 illustrations, 97 in colour 22.9 x 15.2cm 208pp ISBN 978 0 500 342855 June
£19.95
A novel view of architecture explored through the enduring delights of children’s construction toys This entertaining book offers an intriguing new perspective on the history of modern architecture. Brenda and Robert Vale discover a host of connections linking the model-building sets of the modern period with architectural movements, social history, and national identities and myths. They investigate not only how model sets have reflected different building styles, but also whether the toys themselves influenced the subsequent careers of the children who grew up playing with them. Some construction toys have looked to the past – Richter’s Blocks, Lincoln Logs and Tudor Minibrix, for example. Others have looked to the future: as early as the 1920s, the American metal toy Bilt-E-Z could be used to construct the iconic stepped-back skyscraper, like the Empire State building in New York. Later, the British Arkitex and its American forerunner Girder and Panel mirrored the steel-framed glass towers of the modern era. The Vales show how the prefabricated engineered aesthetic of Meccano does seem to have influenced some notable architects. They draw out novel connections between model-railway buildings and modernism; model sets such as Castos and reinforced concrete housing; and even between the creative but slightly surreal Playplax and postmodern deconstructivist architecture. Informative, opinionated and ranging across more than a century of architectural trends, this book imparts an infectious nostalgia for these wonderful toys, many of them vintage classics.