Overview

Situated in a Mediterranean landscape, the Maeght Foundation is a unique Modernist museum, product of an extraordinary collaboration between the architect, Jose Luis Sert, and the artists whose work was to be displayed there. The architecture, garden design and art offer a rare opportunity to see work in settings conceived in active collaboration with the artists themselves. By focusing on the relationship between this art foundation and its Arcadian setting, including Joan Miro's labyrinth, George Braque's pool, Tal-Coat's mosaic wall and Giacometti's terrace, Jan Birksted demonstrates how the building articulates many of the ideas that preoccupied this group of artists during the culminating years of their lives. The study pays special attention to the ways in which architecture can shape the experience of time, and addresses the Modernist desire for wilderness and its problematic roots in the classical Mediterranean ideal. In showing how the design of the Maeght Foundation is a Modernist representation of Mediterranean culture, Jan Birksted has developed an interpretation of architecture that accomodates not only the architect's handling of material or function, but also shows how it can be the embodiment of a particular vision of space and time.

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9780754601791

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Reviews

'Jan Birksted has responded with passion and ingenuity to a marvellous subject. Sert's Maeght Foundation fulfils the criteria for an exemplary Gallery of Modern Art, but in this account it becomes a site of deconstruction. Using a mass of archival material from Sert and the Maeght family, he explores the relationship between patron, artists and architect, and between the built form of the gallery and the surrounding Mediterranean world.' Stephen Bann, University of Bristol, UK 'Jan Birksted's unravelling of the design process of the Maeght Foundation reads like a thriller where the corpse is only discovered at the very last line. It unwraps one layer of intentions after another, revealing the fascinating potentials of architectural modernism beyond the stereotypes of the International Style. It brings to light the surprising reinvention of architecture as landscape, and garden as architecture, begot by the dance of Modernism and Surrealism under the timely skies of the Mediterranean. A marvellous promenade architecturale.' Michel Conan, Dumbarton Oaks, US 'This book is a handsome object... Birksted has accomplished a rare task. He has written a book of fine scholarship; he has managed to make it read like a gripping story; and he draws us into a world of reflection upon the nature of landscape and architecture... When Birksted leaves scholarship behind and moves into the space of argumentative speculation he treats us to rich, rewarding and exigent thought.' Edward Winters, The Architects' Journal 'The author's style manages to be both readable and scholarly, and the notes and bibliography are exhaustive...' Sandy McLendon, Modernism Magazine '... this is a beautiful, many-layered book that greatly deepens our understanding and knowledge of the building's whole design and methodology and has many fascinating details.' Twentieth Century Society Newsletter 'Though of particular interest to landscape historians, this book would also be useful to scholars of modernist art and architecture.' Katie Campbell, The Art Book

'Jan Birksted has responded with passion and ingenuity to a marvellous subject. Sert's Maeght Foundation fulfils the criteria for an exemplary Gallery of Modern Art, but in this account it becomes a site of deconstruction. Using a mass of archival material from Sert and the Maeght family, he explores the relationship between patron, artists and architect, and between the built form of the gallery and the surrounding Mediterranean world.' Stephen Bann, University of Bristol, UK 'Jan Birksted's unravelling of the design process of the Maeght Foundation reads like a thriller where the corpse is only discovered at the very last line. It unwraps one layer of intentions after another, revealing the fascinating potentials of architectural modernism beyond the stereotypes of the International Style. It brings to light the surprising reinvention of architecture as landscape, and garden as architecture, begot by the dance of Modernism and Surrealism under the timely skies of the Mediterranean. A marvellous promenade architecturale.' Michel Conan, Dumbarton Oaks, US 'This book is a handsome object... Birksted has accomplished a rare task. He has written a book of fine scholarship; he has managed to make it read like a gripping story; and he draws us into a world of reflection upon the nature of landscape and architecture... When Birksted leaves scholarship behind and moves into the space of argumentative speculation he treats us to rich, rewarding and exigent thought.' Edward Winters, The Architects' Journal 'The author's style manages to be both readable and scholarly, and the notes and bibliography are exhaustive...' Sandy McLendon, Modernism Magazine '... this is a beautiful, many-layered book that greatly deepens our understanding and knowledge of the building's whole design and methodology and has many fascinating details.' Twentieth Century Society Newsletter 'Though of particular interest to landscape historians, this book would also be useful to scholars of modernist art and architecture.' Katie Campbell, The Art Book

Author Information

Jan K. Birksted, Bartlett School of Architecture, UK

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