Actar
May 31, 2006
Paffard Keatinge-Clay is a unique figure in American architectural history.
He was born near Stonehenge in England, studied in London and Zurich, worked in
both Le Corbusierís studio in Paris and at Frank Lloyd Wrightís Taliesin, and
then settled in the American West, where he worked for Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill before starting out on his own. While he remained in the U.S. until the
mid-1970s, and practiced there, his work remains largely unknown even in San
Francisco, where he spent more than 20 years. His brand of orthodox Modernism
was decidedly out of step with the prevailing ìBay Area Modernismî exemplified
by figures like Moore, Wurster, McCue and Turnbull, who dominated both the
academic and professional arenas of the period. Keatinge-Clay had to struggle to
execute his own expressive, nonconformist architectural language, and when he
did, he garnered minimal recognition. This book brings to light the importance
of his work as representative of its time period and clarifies the influences
his mentors including Mies van der Rohe, Richard Neutra and Charles and Ray
Eames had upon it. This is the first retrospective study of Keatinge-Clayís
architectural projects and, as such, is an important record of an academically
and socially significant body of work.
200 p., 29x23 cm
EAN 9780976007951