Paris An architectural history

Featuring 250 illustrations (most in color), this superb architectural history argues that Paris's organic beauty stems from a continuous classical building tradition that has survived the onslaught of functionalist modernism. According to Sutcliffe, a professor of economic and social history at the University of Leicester, England, even Art Nouveau was rejected by the Parisians. It was found inimical to a design tradition that extended from Louis XIV to the Second Empire's modernization program led by architect/planner Georges-Eugene Haussmann to the present. The ``machine age'' architecture prominent in the 1960s and '70s, as Sutcliffe shows, has been challenged by a new generation of architects emphasizing human scale, tradition and a closer aesthetic relationship between a building and its site. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

This valuable book summarizes not only the architectural development of Paris over 20 centuries but also much urban and political history as well. Sutcliffe (history, Univ. of Leicester) writes well, and his text falls within the English tradition of such figures as Donald Olsen, Sir John Summerson, and Mark Girouard, who interpret buildings primarily as social and historical documents. Sutcliffe does enthusiastic justice to Paris, long regarded as the most beautiful city in the world, a model of superb architecture and exemplary planning. This is a footnoted, narrative history organized chronologically, as opposed to a guidebook like Norval White's Guide to the Architecture of Paris ( LJ 4/15/92), which is arranged geographically by arrondissement. Recommended for all larger libraries.-- Peter Kaufman, Boston Coll. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.