Searching for Authenticity - by Edward Ford (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The iconic structures or National Park Rustic architecture or "Parkitecture"--the rustic log and stone buildings built in the Adirondacks and the West from 1887 to 1940, are some of the most valued but least understood moments in American architecture.

Searching for authenticity: Rustic Architecture in America tells us their deeper history. Previous publications on these buildings expressed admiration for their apparent pioneer craft while showing little understanding of their real construction, focusing on the charm of their associations with the frontier while ignoring the larger historical context in which they were created. The historical truth is more complex--a story of massive destruction, social and economic, caused by the railroads who built those buildings at the same time. Yet there is in the best of this architecture something truly authentic, a product of the unique conditions of the West. At its best its' designers drew on industrial power and indigenous craft, combining the aesthetics of the Western landscape with rustic European traditions to create an original architecture. Forty buildings are examined in detail. The text and the numerous original drawings unfold the story how the work was actually constructed in relation to its many enduring myths.

Review Quotes

"Books this definitive are extremely rare, appearing but once or twice in a generation and leaving their mark on the literature for years to come.... there is nothing else like it for the national parks--some wonderful coffee table books and guides, perhaps, but not a volume this painstakingly detailed." --National Park Traveler

"Frederick Kiesler (1890-1965) submitted this 10-part manuscript shortly after World War II. It was his most ambitious book: a genre-bending, holistic alternate history of architecture spanning from prehistoric caves to the atomic bomb.... Over the last decade, the editors have painstakingly reassembled this book from the archives, supplementing it with introductory essays, notes, and interpretations." --Architectural Record