The monumental era : European architecture and design, 1929-1939 /

Borsi, University of Florence, is a scholar of the Renaissance and Baroque, but he has written extensively on the architecture of the early 20th century. To most architectural historians the decade from 1929 to 1939 is the heroic age of the International Style. The official architecture of Fascist Italy, National Socialist Germany, Stalinist USSR, of the French expositions of 1931 and 1937 and, to a lesser degree, the institutional architecture of other European countries are dismissed as the last gasp of the beaux arts. The postmodernist resurgence of historicism has given Borsi the impetus for a sympathetic look at the mixed bag of excellent and mediocre work and of styles that he groups as the ``monumental order.'' The photos are revealing and many readers under the age of 60 will be surprised by the eclectic official taste of the period, while postmodernists will welcome this latest attack on functionalist doctrine. Although this essay and the bibliography are limited in scope, the book should be acquired by libraries with interest in architecture and design.-P.J. Mitarachi, Boston Architectural Center

Borsi's overstated thesis is sure to stir controversy. After pointing out striking parallels between the monumental architecture of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Stalinist Russia, he argues that the same drive for monumentality overtook architects in the democracies of Europe as well. He identifies a ``Novecento'' style of the 1930s marked by rhetorical flourishes, nobility of expression and formal purism. Next, he shows how architects throughout Europe interpreted this style to create their own nationalist versions of classicism. As if this weren't unsettling enough, Borsi, an Italian critic and author of Vienna 1900, analyzes the ``return to order'' that swept interior decorators, furniture makers, jewelry designers, sculptors and theater and fashion designers who flirted with monumentality. In a final affront to those who prefer to keep stylistic concepts in neat compartments, he asserts that modern architects like Philip Johnson, Louis Kahn and I. M. Pei are monumentalizers at heart. (December 28) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved