Amazon.com
Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal is another of his inspired essays in sweepingly curved building forms, this time celebrating flight. Paradoxically, while the terminal's layout and equipment were technically advanced and carefully thought-out, its form was arbitrarily sculptural rather than structurally rational. The explosive growth of passenger traffic overloaded the capacity of a building whose form defied expansion. Today, the TWA Terminal can be seen as a monument to a simpler, more intimate, and more gracious era of commercial flight. The terminal is just one of the modernist icons that preeminent architectural photographer Ezra Stoller documented in a career that spanned more than half a century. Now retired, Stoller has been reassembling his work for permanent (rather than periodical) publication. The TWA Terminal is one of a series published by Princeton Architectural Press that presents individual buildings in depth in a small-size volume. The photographs are not only stunning, they have particular documentary value in that Stoller shot them when the buildings were new--in this case, 37 years ago.
The series has been designed for relative affordability, and its subjects are well chosen. Each volume includes a very brief preface by Stoller setting out his relationship to the building and a fairly short critical, historical, analytical essay. Buttressed by about a dozen endnotes, the essays occupy a middle ground between informal and scholarly writing. They are followed by 50 to 60 duotone photos and a few plan drawings. This is an expert look at an extraordinary building and well worth readers' serious attention. --John Pastier
New York Times
Mr. Stoller, who is considered the century's greatest architectural photographer, has long been admired for his ability to subtly highlight an architect's intentions. Here he accentuates the soaring, swooping geometries of the dramatically sculptural building, enhancing its intended evocations of birds, planes and flight. The images also remind us that although it became a landmark in 1994, time and New Yorkers have not been kind to Saarinen's masterpiece.
Wallpaper Magazine
"The world's most glamorous spot for a pre-flight martini? Back in 1962 the honor would definitely have gone to Eero Saarinen's sexy new TWA Terminal, with its undulating curves and Raymond Loewy restaurants. Now, through the eyes of photographer Ezra Stoller, you can travel back in time, joining the men in hats and the ladies in heels at the Lisbon Lounge. Gathered together for the first time, Stoller's images of the airport have just been produced by Princeton Architectural Press as one of eight new books dedicated to the work of this pioneering architectural lensman."
Metropolis
Ezra Soller, perhaps the most famous photographer of Modern architecture, is know for his ability to capture not only the heroic qualities of buildings but their complex personalities as well. Many of his photographs have been gathered by Princeton Architectural Press in a new series of books called "Building Block," each one the cumulative portrait of a different structure, complete with a foreword from Stoller, who is now retired. The buildings, photographed by Stoller just after they were finished, have become most familiar to us through his early take on them. The central meeting room in Wallace Harrison's United Nations (1952) appears futuristically theatrical to our eyes, as it must have to Stoller's; a black-robed priest stands in contemplation among the textured gray curves and angular windows of Le Corbusier's Chapel at Ronchamp (1954); the sinuous landscape of Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal (1962) glows through a window into the night. Stoller collected defining moments in the lives of these buildings. Today, after many of his subjects have been debased by the surrounding clutter of parking lots and condominium towers, his photographs keep the initial promise of their hopeful, pristine Modernism alive.
Elle Décor
Architectural photographer Ezra Stoller's stunning oeuvre forms the basis for Princeton Architectural Press's "Building Block" series of books saluting landmarks of 20th-century architecture. The first titles: The TWA Terminal, The Chapel at Ronchamp, The United Nations, and The Yale Art and Architecture Building.
Joshua David, Travel & Leisure
In 1962, when New York's JFK Airport was still called idlewild, TWA hired Ezra Stoller to photograph its new Eero Saarinen-designed terminal. Stoller's photographs , gathered for the first time in the TWA Terminal depict the pristine Modernist icon, the wings of its roof reaching out to an empty sky as a paean to the possibilities of air travel. The terminal was soon overcrowded nobody had predicted to just how many people would join the jet set.
House Beautiful, July 2000
Each compact volume in this impeccably curated series is devoted to a single, seminal work by a modern master.
Interior Design, June 2000
Handsome and well-priced; based on the brilliant photography of Ezra Stoller.
Book Description
The Building Blocks series presents icons of modern architecture as interpreted by the most significant architectural photographers of our time. The first four volumes feature the work of Ezra Stoller, whose photography has defined the way postwar architecture has been viewed by architects, historians, and the public at large. The buildings inaugurating this series--Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal, Wallace Harrison's United Nations complex, Le Corbusier's Chapel at Ronchamp, and Paul Rudolph's Yale Art and Architecture Building--all have bold sculptural presences ideally suited to Stoller's unique vision. Each cloth-bound book in the series contains at least 80 pages of rich duotone images. Taken just after the completion of each project, these photographs provide a unique historical record of the buildings in use, documenting the people, fashions, and furnishings of the period. Through Stoller's photographs, we see these buildings the way the architects wanted us to know them. In the preface to each volume Stoller tells of his personal relationship with the architect of each project and recounts his experience photographing it. Brief introductions reveal the unique history of each building; also included are newly drawn plans.
About the Author
Ezra Stoller, who trained as an architect, began photographing buildings in the late 1930s and soon became the preeminent architectural photographer in the world. The agency he founded, Esto Photographics, continues to operate to this day. Philip Johnson has said that no modern building is complete until it has been "Stollerized."
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