Huxtable wasn't the first architecture critic employed full time by an
American newspaper. That honor goes to The Chronicle's Allan Temko,
who joined the staff in 1961, two years before Huxtable was hired by
the Times. Nor is this the first overview of her work; a collection
emphasizing preservation issues appeared in 1988 as "Architecture,
Anyone? Cautionary Tales of the Building Art."
But "On Architecture" is meant as a summing-up of sorts from Huxtable,
who, at 87, continues to review for the Journal and published a short
biography of Frank Lloyd Wright in 2006. The selection of 106 pieces
is shaped, she writes in the introduction, by a desire to chart "the
transformation of the modernism that pervaded every intellectual and
cultural aspect of the twentieth century into a new way of thinking
and building."
If this sounds forbidding, it isn't. While much of "On Architecture"
concerns the work or specific designers - from such refined masters as
Finland's Alvar Aalto to skyline-busting provocateurs like Philip
Johnson - there's an equal emphasis on pieces that kept track of how
certain types of buildings shaped our urban landscape.