Portmans America Other Speculations

Combining the talents of an architect, artist, and developer, John Portman was able to embark on a series of large-scale building projects-megastructures-that radically redefined the relationship of architecture to the city and its citizens.Portman''s own voice and ideas complement the contributions of others, including new photographs by Iwan Baan, to present a more complex and nuanced reading of both the architect and his architecture.Finally, the repertoire of Portman''s buildings is analyzed in meticulous detail and used by a group of students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design as a catalyst for a host of divergent and new architectural speculations.