The Salk Institute

Building Blocks

by Ezra Stoller

These new titles in the "Building Blocks series showcase four more icons of modern architecture, as portrayed by renowned architectural photographer Ezra Stoller. Two buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater and Taliesin West, Louis Kahn's Salk Institute, and Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building are shown in original condition, with original furnishings, as the architects intended them to be seen. Wright's integration of architecture and landscape, Kahn's dramatic yet humane monumentality, and Mies's austere elegance are revealed and preserved in Stoller's classic compositions. Small, elegant, and affordable, each volume presents the photo-graphs that made these structures famous. With 60 rich duotone plates (and 16 color plates for Taliesin West), a brief introduction, and newly drawn plans, sections, and elevations, these books constitute the essential photographic histories of the most important works of modernism.

Genres: Architecture

90 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Ezra Stoller's interest in photography began while he was an architecture student at New York University, when he began making lantern slides and photographs of architectural models, drawings and sculpture. After his graduation in 1939, he concentrated on photography. His work featured landmarks of modern architecture, and Stoller is often cited in aiding the spread of the Modern Movement. In 1961, he was the first recipient of a Gold Medal for Photography from the American Institute of Architects.

Reviews

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, pretty pictures for sure, but I like photographing people a lot better; been wading into the world of photography of late and eagerly brushing up on the classics; many photobooks are freely available online at the internet archive, go check!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stoller's photo essay shows The Salk Institute to be one of the most sublime and monumental buildings and landscapes in the United States. His black and white photographs are crisp enough to show the texture of Kahn's concrete and travertine, but wide enough in scope to reveal the complexity of an apparently very simple scheme.