Taschen Basic Art Series 2.0 Koenig

A Taschen Basic Art Series 2.0 hardcover on Pierre Koenig, measuring 8.5 x 10.5 x 1 inches across 96 pages and weighing 1.38 lb. There are few images of 20th-century architecture more iconic than the nighttime view of Case Study House #22 — at its eagle's nest promontory above Los Angeles, the building is a vision of streamlined glass and steel, its slick lines echoing the twinkling city boulevards below. With this and his other equally innovative builds for the famous Case Study House program sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, American architect Pierre Koenig (1925–2004) became one of the leading figures of the Modern movement. While still a student of architecture, Koenig designed and built his first exposed steel house in 1950, proving that the use of prefabricated materials could allow for spatial freedom in affordable houses; throughout his career he championed socially responsible design as well as buildings that responded deftly and directly to the Southern California climate, using windows, water, terraces, skylights, and glazing to optimize the rapport between inside and outside while pursuing a simplistic purity of appearance. Through all of Koenig's major projects, including the Johnson House (1962) and Oberman House (1962), this book introduces an architect who was pioneering in method and material and iconic of his time, as fueled by experimentalism as the postwar optimism of the age.