Frank Gehry is widely acknowledged as the father of the "Los Angeles School". His work is characterised by its collage-like complexity, shifts in geometry and use of utilitarian materials. The California Aerospace Museum (1984) in Los Angeles exemplifies Gehry's irreverent, exploded-then-reassembled punk style of architecture.
Irregular, angular forms break out of spatial boundaries and are restructured in multilayered, overlapping and antithetical ways. Defying gravity, Gehry's witty approach is encapsulated by the aeroplane sculpture impacted onto the building's facade, which appears to soar into the blue Californian sky.
'Architecture In Detail' is a superbly photographed and technically informative series of monographs which embraces a broad spectrum of internationally renowned buildings, drawn predominantly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each sixty-page volume contains a lucid text by a respected author; a sequence of large-format, high-quality colour and black and white photographs; a comprehensive set of technical drawings and working details; and a complete bibliography and chronology, thus making these books the definitive work on the subject. They are essential purchases for enthusiasts, practitioners and students alike.
