Johannesburg Style: Architecture and Society 1880s-1960s - Clive M. Chipkin

Just as we have come to talk about distinctive styles of urban architecture in Europe and North America - such as Chicago Style - so Clive Chipkin argues that Johannesburg has evolved a recognisable style or procession of styles that are as interesting and deserving of serious consideration as those of other major cities of the world. Like Chicago, too, Johannesburg was the progeny of nineteenth-century industrial society, and its history is the story of its development as an industrial metropolis tied to the world market.

In this lively and engaging work, Clive Chipkin sets the architecture of Johannesburg firmly against its historical context and surveys the development of the city's fabric and cultural style up to the 1960s. There are chapters on Victorian architecture - the first in the procession of building styles; on Edwardian architecture - which characterised the mining town of the early twentieth century that was fast growing into a little New York in the mid-1930s, with stunted skyscrapers to emulate their Manhattan paradigms. Further sections deal with the Modern Movement, Township Johannesburg, and Johannesburg's architecture after the Second World War.

As Professor Julian Cooke of the School of Architecture, University of Cape Town, has commented:

"Students and professional architects will find Clive Chipkin's refusal to follow conventional mainstream accounts of Johannesburg's architectural history challenging. General readers will enjoy the way the book romps through politics, music, biography, industry and architecture - very consistent with Johannesburg's mad romp through history."

Price: R900.00

Edition: First Edition

Published: 1993

Publishers: David Philip Publishers

ISBN: 0864862210ISBN / 9780864862211

Condition: Dust jacket and hardcover in very good condition with very minor shelf wear around the edges. Internally in excellent condition - clean and tightly bound.