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Architectural Thoughts in 20th Century
- From Cube to Chaos -

This is the English version of the book written by Toshimasa Sugimoto and published in Japanese by Kajima Institute Publishing Co.Ltd., Tokyo in 1998.

(c)Toshimasa Sugimoto

This book was originally written for Japanese intelectuals and students in the dicipline of architecture. It is translated into Korean and published in Korea. I want to let the people of other countries know the outline of my theory on modern history of architectural design, and so tried to make its tentative English version.

Table of Contents

Foreword

           I. Take off from fin de siècle

1. Crucible of chaos
(1) Melting phenomenon in Art Nouveau architecture
(2) Fluctuation curves
(3) Collapse and rebirth of style

2. Recurrence to classicism and abstract geometry
(1) From Art Nouveau to Neoclassicism
(2) Cult of Greece and inclination to simplicity
(3) Abstract classicism

           II. Adventure of reason

3. Construction from zero
(1) World view of Purism
(2) Breakthrough of Futurism
(3) Constructiveness of Constructionism
(4) Revolution in drawing method
(5) Machine models

4. Romanticism in the 1930s
(1) Temptation of fascism
(2) Budding point of organic architecture

5. Theory of the spatial structure
(1) Way of thinking in cultural anthropology
(2) Urban structure
(3) Future city as an urban machine

           III. Reorientation

6. Post-modernism
(1) Resurgence of sensibility and mannerist hedonism
(2) Semantics of a consumption based society

7. Typological classicism
(1) Cubic typology
(2) Palladian classicism
(3) Hybrid system and picturesque

            IV. Scene of maturity

8. Soaring into chaos
(1) Ellipse and chaos formation of neo-baroque
(2) Complexity as logic

9. New paradigms in embryo
(1) Ecological naturalism
(2) Technological architecture and information space

            Conclusion - Towards the 21st century

Source of figures