Gwendolyn Wright
USA modern architectures in history Gwendolyn Wright REAKTION BOOKS Contents 7 Introduction one '7 Modern Consolidation, 1865-1893 two 47 Progressive Architectures, ,894-'9,8 t h r e e 79 Electric Modernities, '9'9-'932 fau r "3 Architecture, the Public and the State, '933-'945 fi ve '5' The Triumph of Modernism, '946-'964 six '95 Challenging Orthodoxies, '965-'984 seven 235 Disjunctures and Alternatives, 1985 to the Present 276 Epilogue 279 References 298 Select Bibliography 305 Acknowledgements 3°7 Photo Acknowledgements 3'0 Index chapter one Modern Consolidation. 1865-1893 The aftermath of the Civil War has rightly been called a Second American Revolution.' The United States was suddenly a modern nation, intercon- nected by layers of infrastructure, driven by corporate business systems, flooded by the enticements of consumer culture. The industrial advances in the North that had allowed the Union to survive a long and violent COll- flict now transformed the country, although resistance to Reconstruction and racial equality would curtail growth in the South for almost a cen- tury. A cotton merchant and amateur statistician expressed astonishment when he compared 1886 with 1856. 'The great railway constructor, the manufacturer, and the merchant of to-day engage in affairs as an ordinary matter of business' that, he observed, 'would have been deemed impos- sible ... before the war'? Architecture helped represent and propel this radical transformation, especially in cities, where populations surged fourfold during the 30 years after the war. Business districts boasted the first skyscrapers. Public build- ings promoted a vast array of cultural pleasures) often frankly hedonistic, many of them oriented to the unprecedented numbers of foreign immi- grants.
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