A. Lawrence Kocher: American Architect
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Author: Luis Pancorbo
The book offers a new conceptual and historical framework for the study of architect A. Lawrence Kocher’s body of work that relocates it within the history of American modern architecture. The book devotes several chapters to this little-known part of Kocher’s practice and re-situates him as one of the main protagonists in the history of American Modern architecture and reveals the profound relationship between Kocher’s designs and existing American domestic traditions. Kocher’s ideological position and his continuous eagerness for experimentation transformed him into an atypical practitioner. While many of his contemporaries were purely design focused, he established a very avant-garde symbiosis among his three main endeavors: his work as an educator, as a scholar, and as a practitioner.His concept of the vernacular included not only the different residential types of Colonial and Early Republican America, but most importantly, other kinds of transitional dwelling artefacts. This book tries to provide evidence about Kocher’s intention of using these vernacular artefacts, alongside the concepts of prefabrication and industrialisation inherent to them as a base to construct a new national architecture in which to graft the European modernist tradition.Some of his architectural works can be seen as manifestos that would later further develop in the articles of Architectural Record. Some others are the direct and material demonstrations of industrial systems and materials previously explored in his articles. Even other works are conceived and executed as part of a pedagogical activity. It is rare to find an architectural design in Kocher’s body of work that does not demonstrate a multitude of interconnections among his pedagogy, his editorial work, and his scholarship.
ISBN 9781961856615. Applied Research & Design. hb. 380 pages. 28 x 24 cm.
available
The book offers a new conceptual and historical framework for the study of architect A. Lawrence Kocher’s body of work that relocates it within the history of American modern architecture. The book devotes several chapters to this little-known part of Kocher’s practice and re-situates him as one of the main protagonists in the history of American Modern architecture and reveals the profound relationship between Kocher’s designs and existing American domestic traditions. Kocher’s ideological position and his continuous eagerness for experimentation transformed him into an atypical practitioner. While many of his contemporaries were purely design focused, he established a very avant-garde symbiosis among his three main endeavors: his work as an educator, as a scholar, and as a practitioner.His concept of the vernacular included not only the different residential types of Colonial and Early Republican America, but most importantly, other kinds of transitional dwelling artefacts. This book tries to provide evidence about Kocher’s intention of using these vernacular artefacts, alongside the concepts of prefabrication and industrialisation inherent to them as a base to construct a new national architecture in which to graft the European modernist tradition.Some of his architectural works can be seen as manifestos that would later further develop in the articles of Architectural Record. Some others are the direct and material demonstrations of industrial systems and materials previously explored in his articles. Even other works are conceived and executed as part of a pedagogical activity. It is rare to find an architectural design in Kocher’s body of work that does not demonstrate a multitude of interconnections among his pedagogy, his editorial work, and his scholarship.
ISBN 9781961856615. Applied Research & Design. hb. 380 pages. 28 x 24 cm.
available