Façadomy: A Critique on Capitalism and Its Assault on Mid-Century Modern Architecture

It should be no surprise to my readers that I have been preoccupied with starting my own practice and working on multiple books, and have been unable to update Critique This! on a regular basis.  This will be the last update to Critique This!, but rest assured a new project is in the works, which embodies all of the lessons that I have learned while developing Critique This! The articles featured on this site have been published in Bauwelt, florida/caribbean Architect and YAF Connection, and have opened up so many other doors into the world of architectural criticism.

Critique This! was an experiment in sharpening my skills as a web designer and computer programmer, as well as honing my skills as an architectural critic. It was also a playground for me to explore many ideas related to society, culture, the built environment and even economics. The musings posted on this site led to the creation of a book: Façadomy: A Critique on Capitalism and Its Assault on Mid-Century Modern Architecture. For those of you that are familiar with my blog, you will notice that some of the concepts and theories in the book, find their early beginnings in the following posts:

Keyshawn Johnson: Tackling Design
Beach House Designed by Richard Meier R.I.P.
no Ya-Ya, people want architecture at a Great Value

The book’s design is as beautiful as its content is compelling and contains 426 pages of thoughtfully composed content, featuring over 1,000 photographs and dozens of original diagrams that seek to bring the beauty of Mid-Century Modern architecture to light.

Façadomy Book Description:

Façadomy offers a comprehensive critique of architecture and its relationship to capitalism. The result of this analysis is a theory that outlines why architectural movements rise and fall, the anatomy of these movements and how dynamic market forces will affect the future of architecture in the United States. The story begins with an analysis of the Revivalist movement of the late 19th century and ends with an examination of the current global economic decline and the effect it has already had on some of the architecture being produced today.

Cornetet’s research reveals that a relatively undocumented architectural movement, known as Mid-Century Modernism, emerged as a response to many of the same problems being dealt with in the United States today, including uncontrolled population growth, limited resources and financial decline. Mid-Century Modern design was the architecture of capitalism and it has come to represent the Golden Age of Capitalism. Mid-Century Modernism embodied a philosophy that contained valuable lessons on process and design that have since been forgotten. These lessons are described in Cornetet’s comprehensive analysis of Mid-Century Modern architecture and supported by an extensive case study that examined nearly 200 structures in Orlando, Florida.

The book’s design, graphics and photography bring to life this uniquely American architecture movement as Cornetet engages in a colorful dialogue that seeks to explain why we build the way we do in the United States.

Conclusion:
I would like to thank everyone who supported this site over the years, and especially those who will support Façadomy: A Critique on Capitalism and Its Assault on Mid-Century Modern Architecture by purchasing a copy. I will post more information about the new blog once it goes live, as well as information about the publication of my future books.