Designing UNESCO

<p><em>Designing UNESCO: Art Architecture and International Politics at Mid-Century</em> represents the first full-length monograph on the genesis construction and reception of the Paris headquarters of the United Nations' Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The book traces the long and complex birth of UNESCO's permanent seat from its conception in 1950 to its inauguration in 1958 showing how its history constitutes a unique nexus of modernist practices in twentieth-century international politics art architecture and criticism. Drawing on a wide range of unpublished archival material and examining critical reception of the building in the local and international press Christopher Pearson's analysis operates on formal structural and theoretical levels revealing many of the largely unspoken assumptions of modern architecture at mid-century and elucidating the conflicted relation between art and science in the post-war period. The volume also throws new light on many of the major architects and artists of the period among them Breuer Gropius Le Corbusier and Eero Saarinen as well as Picasso Moore Miró Arp Calder and Noguchi. Designing UNESCO is a compelling and original account of one of the most important yet under-appreciated buildings of twentieth-century modernism.</p>