Modern Architecture and Other Essays

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003 Scully ... may find a place among the gallery of distinguished American critics ... for his historically grounded but engaged architectural criticism. That possibility is enhanced by the well-chosen essays in this volume. Not only did Neil Levine make an excellent selection, he also provided a brief but illuminating biographical essay tracing Scully's career. Better yet, the headnotes he has written for each of Scully's essays are themselves gemlike mini-essays. --Thomas Bender, The Nation Vincent Scully is surely one of the most influential architectural historians and critics of the twentieth century... None of the essays included here are available in Scully's (more than 15) published books. Interestingly, I think the selection will work well both for readers familiar with Scully and his work, as well as for those to whom his writing will be new territory... The very best thing about this book is the wonderful quality of Scully's writing itself--clear, learned and witty. --Victoria Keller, The Art Book Many of the texts, which span the years 1954 to 1999, were previously published only in magazines and have thus effectively been out of print. They cover the 20th century's mainstream trends, from the birth pangs of Frank Llyod Wright's Prairie Style to the death throes of postmodernism. All are fiercely opinionated. --Eve M. Kahn, ArtNews Scully ranks among the most influential architectural historians of the 20th century... [T]his anthology is a wonderful source for anyone with a keen interest in architecture. No one living has written on the subject in a more eloquent and compelling way. --Choice Covering diverse themes from Classicism to Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright to suburbia, each essay is telling in its own right, But whatever the ostensible theme, almost every one charts a growing awareness of Modernism's complex roots and relationships to tradition. --Jeremy Melvin, Architectural Review [These essays] provide wide-ranging insights into the architectural thought of the past half-century by a central figure. --Richard Guy Wilson, Architectural Record [An] overdue and welcome anthology. Scully owes his reputation to an authorial voice that is as arresting in the classroom as the printed page. In lecture, it is the elegant literary and formal precision that startles; on the printed page, the intimate spoken quality. --Michael Lewis, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Reading [this book], one sees quickly why Vincent Scully (now emeritus) was such a popular lecturer, a charismatic professor whose influence extended broadly throughout the architectural profession and the academy... Scully's writing bears comparison with [the] elevation of the esthetic to an almost religious level, and his particular approach to the architectural object--which he regards ideally both as internally coherent and as somehow 'corresponding' with reality itself--is very much in keeping with the New Criticism. --Tom McDonough, Art in America