Shopping the Past: Aluminum in Modern Architecture

While in the historic town of Micanopy, FL this weekend I got to visit the soon-to-close O. Brisky Books. In the Architecture section I found not only Ada Louise Huxtable’s Kicked A Building Lately? (my favorite book title ever) but the two-volume set of Aluminum in Modern Architecture, published in 1956 with funding from Reynolds Metals. Metals companies clearly understood the power of design to sell their products during this period; Alcoa also sponsored many metal showcases.

Vol. 1 is a trove of projects famous (General Motors Technical Center) and unknown, at least to me (the Zurich airport). I paid $10 for the set, sadly lacking its original aluminum slipcase.

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