Spiro Kostof

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Spiro Kostof (born May 7, 1936 in Istanbul , † December 7, 1991 in Berkeley ) was an American architectural historian who taught at the University of California at Berkeley .

Life

Born in Turkey to Bulgarian parents , Spiro Konstantine Kostof began his academic training at Robert College in Istanbul. In 1957 he went to Yale University in the United States to study. Although he originally wanted to graduate in theater studies , his interests shifted to the field of architectural history . Kostof was born in 1961 with the dissertation The Baptistry of Ravenna. A Study in early Christian Art and Architecture is doing her PhD. From 1961 to 1965 he taught at Yale, then Kostof taught at the University of California. He stayed in Berkeley until his death in 1991. He was also a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Columbia University and Rice University .

Spiro Kostof viewed art and architecture history in the manner of Max Weber from a structural-analytical point of view and without Eurocentrism . Among other things, he examined the permanent tension between organic urban development and grid planning, which was widespread in antiquity as well as in ancient China and the European colonial empires of the 16th to 18th centuries . Kostof dealt with the "planning of the picturesque", the symbolic content of the skyline , from the dominance of the cathedrals and temple towers to that of the "cathedrals of money". He analyzed the phenomenon of the outskirts and their variants, from the city ​​wall and waterfront to the overflowing settlement mush of suburbanization , but also, for example, the social and ethnically determined urban district formation. Kostof compared the structural similarities of Roman legionary camps and modern concentration camps and those of “princely avenues ” and “socialist main lines ”.

Kostof's textbook A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals , first published in 1985, soon became a standard work and a modern classic in its field. The author, who died at the age of 55, was unable to finish his two-volume urban history work. The second volume was edited by Kostof's friend and colleague Greg Castillo based on the notes from the estate.

The American Society of Architectural Historians - Kostof was President of the Society from 1974 to 1976 - has been awarding a Spiro Kostof Award for outstanding English-language books on the subject of architectural history since 1993 .

Publications

  • The Orthodox Baptistery of Ravenna. Yale University Press, New Haven 1965
  • Caves of God. The Monastic Environment of Byzantine Cappadocia. MIT Press, Massachusetts 1972
  • History of Architecture. Settings and rituals. Oxford University Press, New Haven 1985
  • The City Shaped. Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History Thames & Hudson, London 1991
    • German edition: The face of the city. History of urban diversity. Translated from the English by Klaus Blocher and Susanne Statesman. Campus, Frankfurt / New York 1993
  • The City Assembled. The Elements of Urban Form Through History. Thames & Hudson, London 1991
    • German edition: The anatomy of the city. History of urban structures. In collaboration with Greg Castillo. Translated from the English by Klaus Binder and Jeremy Gaines. Campus, Frankfurt / New York 1993
  • History of architecture. 3 volumes:
    • Volume 1: From the beginnings to the Roman Empire. DVA, Stuttgart 1992
    • Volume 2: From the early Middle Ages to the late baroque. DVA, Stuttgart 1993
    • Volume 3: From Classicism to Modernism. DVA, Stuttgart 1993

literature

  • Robert Schediwy : A Max Weber der Urbanistik , In: Wiener Zeitung EXTRA November 19, 1993, printed in Städtebilder - Reflections on Change in Architecture and Urbanism , LIT Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7755-8 , p. 363ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Review The City Shaped.