OPPOSITIONS 8
A JOURNAL FOR IDEAS AND CRITICISM IN ARCHITECTURE
Peter Eisenmann, Kenneth Frampton, Mario Gandelsonas, Anthony Vidler [Editors]
Peter Eisenmann, Kenneth Frampton, Mario Gandelsonas, Anthony Vidler [Editors]: OPPOSITIONS 8: A JOURNAL FOR IDEAS AND CRITICISM IN ARCHITECTURE. Cambridge: MIT Press/The Institute For Architecture And Urban Studies, Spring 1977. First edition. 8vo. Silkscreened perfect bound French-folded wrappers. 178 pp. Black and white photographs and diagrams. Designed by Massimo Vignelli. Cover silkscreened on Champion Colorcast Cover Stock. Interior unmarked and very clean. The orange covers mildly soiled and creased, but a very good copy.
8.5 x 9.75 perfect-bound softcover book with 178 pages profusely illustrated with black and white photographs and diagrams. Legendary journal published from 1973 to 1981 that attempted to reconcile the embedded traditions of Modernism with contemporary advances in architecture and urban theory. Highly recommended for both form and content.
- Paris under the Academy: City and Ideology
- SPECIAL EDITOR: Anthony Vidler
- Academicism: Modernism by Anthony Vidler
- The Text of the City by Peter Brooks
- Landscapes of Eternity by Richard A. Etlin
- Housing the Bourgeoisie by Helene Lipstadt
- The Promenades of Paris by Antoine Grumbach
- The 1889 Exhibition by Debora L. Silverman
- The Idea of Type by Anthony Vidler
- The 'End' of Styles by Demetrius Porphyrios
- Form and Society by Ann Lorenz Van Zanten
- Type by Quatremere de Quincy
- Chronology: The Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1671-1900 Compiled by Annie Jacques and Anthony Vidler
- Forum: The Beaux-Arts Exhibition: commentaries by Ulrich Franzen, Paul Rudolph, Denise Scott-Brown, Vincent Scully, Peter Smithson, Robert Venturi, and Arthur Drexler among others.
Artists, designers, and architects include Etienne-Louis Boullee, A. T. Brongniart, S. Constant-Dufeux, Cesar Daly, Henri Labrouste, J. M. Duc, Gustav Eiffel, Charles Garnier, Le Corbusier, J. N. L. Durand, Jean-Jacques Lequeu, Etienne Boullee, Francois Barbier, Jean-Charles Krafft, Viollet-le-Duc, and Joseph Nicolle among others.
The Institute For Architecture And Urban Studies was founded in 1967 as a non-profit independent agency concerned with research, education, and development in architecture and urbanism. It began as a core group of young architects seeking alternatives to traditional forms of education and practice. Peter Eisenman was appointed as the Institutes first executive director followed by Anthony Vidler (1982), Mario Gandelsonas (1983) and Stephen Petersen (1984). In 1985 the Institute ceased to exist. ... Like tears in the rain.
Massimo Vignelli (Italy, 1931 – 2014) recalls the exact day that he found the design language that he would be known for. It was 1963, he had a studio in Milan, Lella & Massimo Vignelli Design & Architecture, where he designed in a reductive manner using Helvetica, black rules, and solid colored backgrounds. He put this into practice for Sansoni designing formats for scores of series and hundreds of books until leaving Italy for American in 1965. Today he uses more Bodoni, but hasn’t changed his basic design attitude one iota. He made his early reputation by designing strict formats for series like these.
"I always worked like this from the very beginning, I never had another way but this structural approach," admits Vignelli proudly. "My aim was always to reach maximum impact, so I used Helvetica on white or solid color backgrounds, which stood out — boom — from the texture of all the other books on the shelves. I designed many series this way, I had some books with only white covers with type raining down and some with a black and white illustration on bottom. We wanted to develop standards to avoid gratuitous criticism by publisher’s wives or secretaries and sales people. First and foremost we were searching for objectivity. So we convinced the publisher that a book was like a soap box. The publisher’s brand was the important thing, so each book looked alike. We played safe with the illustration by using things from the past. Who could argue with Rembrandt and Durer?" [oppositions_2019]