20th Century Top 100: a Book Review
100 Buildings 1900-2000, produced by The Now Institute, Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2017 We’ve just been through the Winter Olympics and the season of entertainment awards that culminated with the Oscars. And the parade of annual awards for design of all kinds is already underway. This book takes a longer view, rounding up the best buildings of an entire century and ranking them from 1 to 100. It’s presented in an admirably concise 4″ x 10″ format, with a two-page spread for each project that includes one well-chosen black-and-white photo, an informative text of about 100 words, and a few line drawings that concisely explain a lot. The Process Why and how has the sponsoring Now Institute come up with a credible best-of-a-century roster? In his foreword to the book, the Pritzker Prize-winning Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne (a co-founder and director on the Institute) cites “a declining awareness …
Log in to Continue Reading
