Dell Upton: American architecture.

A is for Architecture

In this episode of A is for Architecture, Dell Upton, Professor Emeritus of Architecture, UC Berkeley and Professor and Chair of Art History at UCLA, speaks about his book, American Architecture: A Thematic History, published by Oxford University Press in 2019.

To the question, What is American architecture? Dell suggests ‘That is a very long and vexed question, not only with American architecture, but in American culture. And it really starts from at the time of the American Revolution. How are we different from Europe? But how are we also connected to the best aspects of Europe, so can we be refined in a European sense, but also distinctively American? […] Louis Sullivan […] influenced by the poet Walt Whitman, begins to talk about [American] architecture in a kind of rhapsodic way, as somehow tied to the character of democracy, the character of the land, to the … well, he would say spiritual.’

But is it though? Listen to every word of Dell’s to see.

Dell has a Wikipedia page because he’s proper. You can also find him linked above, along with the book.

Thanks for listening.

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Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick