Vincent Scully: Architecture, Urbanism, and a Life in Search of Community

Vincent Scully, a renowned architectural historian and critic, played a significant role in American architecture during the 20th century. This intellectual biography explores his life and career, tracing the formative moments in his thinking and the relationships he formed with influential architects, artists, and cultural figures. Scully's work spanned various architectural styles, from postwar modernism to postmodernism and New Urbanism, challenging outdated beliefs and shaping the built environment. He believed that architecture should respond to human needs for community and connection, and his extensive body of work reflects this core belief. This appraisal provides a platform for reassessing the legacy of Scully's values and how we write and think about architecture in the twenty-first century.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 21 September 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Vincent Scully, a renowned architectural historian, critic, and public activist, emerged as a guiding voice in American architecture during the 1950s. This intellectual biography delves into the formative moments of Scully's life and career, tracing his relationships with a constellation of architects, artists, and cultural personalities over the past century. Scully's journey traversed from postwar modernism to postmodernism and New Urbanism, challenging outdated beliefs and reshaping the built environment. As a teacher for over 60 years, he played a pivotal role in an expansive network of associations, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, Robert Stern, Harold Bloom, and Norman Mailer. Scully's extensive body of work, spanning centuries and civilizations, centered around the core belief that architecture shapes and is shaped by society, and that the best architecture responds foremost to the human need for community and connection. This timely appraisal offers a platform for reassessing the legacy of these values and how we write and think about architecture in the twenty-first century.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350298378