Oscar Nitzchke Architect by Gus Dudley (Editor)

Description

Like New Paperback, 1985, The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union, 64 pages with 140 illustrations … more Like New Paperback, 1985, The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union, 64 pages with 140 illustrations plus 24 color plates.
This catalogue of an exhibition held at The Cooper Union in 1985 - Oscar Nitzchke Architect - is probably the only monograph on this intriguing mid-century modernist. Part One of the book is an appraisal of his work in essays by Joseph Abram, Kenneth Frampton, Isabelle Gournay, George A. Dudley and John Hejduk, illustrated with 140 architectural plans, drawings, models and photographs. Part Two is a portfolio of 24 color plates.
Oscar Nitzchke (1900 - 1991) was a Swiss-American architect best know as a principal designer in the architectural firm of Harrison & Abromovitz responsible for a number of internationally recognized buildings, including the United Nations headquarters in New York, the Alcoa Building and the Mellon National Bank in Pittsburgh and the Los Angeles Opera House. Prior to coming to the United States in 1938, he studied architecture in Paris, worked in the offices of Le Corbusier and the Perret brothers and was a central participant in the modern movement in Paris in the 1920's and 30's. It was here in 1936 that he designed his radical project: Maison de la Publicite on the Champs-Elysees. The entire six story facade of the building was envisioned as a multimedia photomontage screen composed of continuously changing arrangements of moving and still images of advertisements, slogans, and signs. It is this work that is increasingly being recognized today as significant and way ahead of its time, presaging many developments since then up to our own time. less