Charles Jencks, Karl Kropf (eds.): Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture (1997)

A survey of 120 texts on architecture from the late 1950s up to the mid-1990s, presented in excerpts organised into five sections.

Publisher Academy Editions, Chichester, UK, 1997
ISBN 0471976873
312 pages
via hindmnj

WorldCat

PDF (152 MB, no OCR)
Scribd

See also Ulrich Conrads (ed.), Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, 1964/1970.

Bernd & Hilla Becher: Gas Tanks (1993)

“Typological, repetitive, at times oddly humorous, Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photographs of industrial structures are, in their cumulative effect, profoundly moving. The Bechers’ serenely cool, disarmingly objective, and notoriously obsessive images of water towers, gas tanks, grain elevators, blast furnaces, and mineheads have been taken over several decades, under overcast skies, with a view camera that captures each detail and tonality of wood, concrete, brick and steel.

In this work, the Bechers’ present four principally different forms of gas holders or gas tanks in 140 photographs taken during the years 1963-1992 in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and the United States. The subjects are photographed under overcast skies that eliminate expressive variations in lighting; the Bechers make no attempt to analyze or explain them. Captions contain only the barest of information: time and place. On the subject of gas holders, the Bechers limit their remarks to a minimal functional description, leaving the aesthetic dimension of their subject to the photographs themselves: much of the fascination of these photographs lies in the fact that these unadorned metallic structures, presumably built with little concern for their visual impact, are almost invariably striking in appearance.”

First published as Gasbehälter, Schirmer/Mosel, Munich, 1993.

Publisher MIT Press, 1993
ISBN 026202361X, 9780262023610
110 pages with 102 duotone plates

WorldCat

PDF (26 MB)

Jeffrey Kastner, Brian Wallis (eds.): Land and Environmental Art (1998)

“The traditional landscape genre was radically transformed in the 1960s when many artists stopped merely representing the land and made their mark directly in the environment. Drawn by the vast uncultivated spaces of the desert and mountain as well as post-industrial wastelands, artists such as Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson moved the earth to create colossal primal symbols. Others punctuated the horizon with man-made signposts, such as Christo’s Running Fence or Walter de Maria’s Lightning Field. Journeys became works of art for Richard Long while Dennis Oppenheim and Ana Mendieta immersed their bodies in the contours of the land.

This book traces early developments to the present day, as artists are exploring eco-systems and the interface between industrial, urban and rural cultures.”

Edited by Jeffrey Kastner
Survey by Brian Wallis
Publisher Phaidon Press, 1998
ISBN 0714835145, 9780714835143
304 pages

Review: Boettger (CAA.Reviews, 1999).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (117 MB, no OCR)

For more on land art see Monoskop wiki (includes a select bibliography and collection of links to online documentation of the works by early land artists).