Arts & architecture 19551959

Ambitious and engaged, Arts & Architecture magazine celebrated change and innovation across politics, society and especially culture. This selection brings together the magazine’s highlights from 1955 to 1959, with a focus on mid-century American architecture and California modernists such as Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood, and Richard Neutra. From the end of World War II until the mid-1960s, exciting things were happening in American architecture. Emerging talents were focusing on innovative projects that integrated at once modern design and low-cost materials. The trend was most notably embodied in the famous Case Study House Program, a blueprint for modern habitation championed by the era’s leading American journal, Arts & Architecture. The complete facsimile of the ambitious and groundbreaking Arts & Architecture was published by TASCHEN in 2008 as a limited edition. This new curation—directed and produced by Benedikt Taschen—brings together the magazine’s highlights from 1955 to 1959, with a special focus on mid-century American architecture and California modernists such as Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood, and Richard Neutra.A celebration of a politically, socially and culturally engaged publication, this special selection is also a testimony to one of the most unique and influential eras in the history of American architecture.