Publisher's Synopsis
From the Gothic to the contemporary, glass has transformed the structural, formal and philosophical principles of artchitecture. In "The Glass State", Annette Fierro views the many meanings of transparency in architecture. Specifically, she analyzes the transparent monumental buildings that were built in Paris between 1981 and 1988 as part of Francois Mitterand's program of "Grands Projets". The "Grands Projets" provide a rare opportunity to study a finite set of buidings constructed of similar materials, in the same time period, in a specific urban landscape, and with related ideological missions.;Fierro employs a "discourse of the detail", in which the smallest architectural detail manifests the political, theoretical and urban contexts of the building's design and construction. She examines the paradox of the most pared down architectural configurations being used to support the most complex meanings. Intrinsic to Mitterand's glass buildings in Paris, for example, is a poltiical concept: the metaphor of accessibility as a means of breaking open cultural institutions previously closed to the public.;In addition to the structures of the "Grands Projets" - the Institut du Monde Arabe, the Grande and Petite Pyramides du Louvre, the glass greenhouses at utopian park projects at La Villette and Andre Citroen, and the Bibliotheque nationale de France - Fierro discusses the Fondation Cartier and two precedent structures, the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Eiffel Tower.
