The Villa - by James S Ackerman (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A classic account of the villa--from ancient Rome to the twentieth century--by "the preeminent American scholar of Italian Renaissance architecture" (Architect's Newspaper)

In The Villa, James Ackerman explores villa building in the West from ancient Rome to twentieth-century France and America. In this wide-ranging book, he illuminates such topics as the early villas of the Medici, the rise of the Palladian villa in England, and the modern villas of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. Ackerman uses the phenomenon of the "country place" as a focus for examining the relationships between urban and rural life, between building and the natural environment, and between architectural design and social, cultural, economic, and political forces. "The villa," he reminds us, "accommodates a fantasy which is impervious to reality." As city dwellers idealized country life, the villa, unlike the farmhouse, became associated with pleasure and asserted its modernity and status as a product of the architect's imagination.

Review Quotes

"[A] thoughtful, thought-provoking study."---Martin Filler, New York Times Book Review

"To read this stimulating book is to meet an erudite scholar who has thought a great deal about the subject, and is willing to entertain, as well as inform, to patiently explain, as well as to make pronouncements."---Witold Rybczynski, New York Review of Books

About the Author

James S. Ackerman (1919-2016) was the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard University. His many books include The Architecture of Michelangelo, Palladio, and Palladio's Villas.