Title

Minnesota modern : architecture and life at midcentury / Larry Millett ; with photographs by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai Saari.

Author

Millett, Larry, 1947-

Publication

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2015]

Items in the Library & Offsite

Details

Description

xv, 366 pages : color illustrations; 24 x 29 cm

Subjects

• Architecture and society
• Minnesota
• History
• Architecture and society > Minnesota > History > 20th century
• 1900 - 1999
• ARCHITECTURE / History / Contemporary (1945-)
• Midcentury modern (Architecture) > Minnesota
• ARCHITECTURE / Regional
• HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Midwest (IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI)

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Prologue: A new world -- 1. The modern age -- Midcentury modern houses, 1938-1950. Benjamin and Gertrude Lippincott house; Gerald and Ruth Buetow house; Dr. Clarence and Ruth Arlander house -- 2. Corporations and commerce -- Midcentury modern houses, 1952-1954. S. Pearl and Millicent Elam house; Dr. Harvey Nelson house -- 3. Entertaining on the road -- Midcentury modern houses, 1955. Donald and Hilda Haarstick house; June Halvorson Alworth house (later June and Robert Starkey house -- 4. Architecture of the public realm -- Midcentury modern houses, 1956-1957. George and Annirene Buck house; William and Frances Shepherd house -- 5. Modern faith -- Midcentury modern houses, 1958-1961. Alcoa "Care-free" house; Benjamin Gingold house; Richard and Dorothy Babcock house -- 6. The midcentury home -- Epilogue: The midcentury legacy.

Call Number

JQF 16-127

ISBN

• 9780816683291
• 0816683298

LCCN

2015026158

OCLC

907651181

Author

Millett, Larry, 1947- author.

Title

Minnesota modern : architecture and life at midcentury / Larry Millett ; with photographs by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai Saari.

Publisher

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2015]

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary

From the genteel elegance of Christ Lutheran Church in Minneapolis to the lowbrow wonder of Porky's Drive-in in St. Paul, the Twin Cities and other Minnesota communities are nothing short of a living museum of midcentury modernism, the new style of architecture that swept through much of America from 1945 to the mid-1960s. Renowned Minnesota architecture critic and historian Larry Millett conducts an eye-opening, spectacularly illustrated tour of this rich and varied landscape. A history lesson as entertaining as it is enlightening, Minnesota Modern provides a close-up view of a style that penetrated the social, political, and cultural machinery of the times. Extending from modest suburban ramblers and ranch houses to the grandest public and commercial structures, midcentury modernism expressed new ways of thinking about how to live, work, and play in communities that sprang up as thousands of military members returned from World War II. Millett describes the style's sources in the work of European masters like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, as well as the midwestern innovations of Frank Lloyd Wright, and its refinement at the University of Minnesota under the guidance of Ralph Rapson and other modernists. He shows us its applications in twelve midcentury homes in Minnesota and takes us through its many permutations in sites as different as Barry Byrne's St. Columba Catholic Church in St. Paul and Eero Saarinen's sprawling IBM complex in Rochester. This is Minnesota modern at its historic best, a firsthand, in-depth history of a singularly American sensibility and aesthetic writ large on the midwestern region.

Chronological Term

1900 - 1999

Research Call Number

JQF 16-127