Books published by Atara Press

Puesto que la siguió durante toda su vida, Richard Neutra (1892-1970) debía apreciar la máxima de Sócrates, el gran filósofo griego: "una vida sin examen no tiene objeto de vivirla para el hombre". En sus libros, en sus conferencias, incluso en sus conversaciones informales, Neutra reexaminaba constantemente no solo su propia vida, sino también la vida de los demás - presente y pasada - y el mundo, natural y humano, en que habitaban. En ningún otro lugar se hace esto más patente que en Vida y forma, su autobiografía publicada por primera vez en 1962, y que ahora, tras años de estar descatalogada, ha vuelto felizmente a la vida. A diferencia de Planificar para sobrevivir (1954), su magnífica colección de ensayos, profunda y filosófica, Neutra opta por otro enfoque en Vida y forma, y adopta un acercamiento más ligero y desenfadado. Parece como si Neutra, normalmente tan serio y vehemente, se diera aquí permiso para mostrar su irónico sentido del humor y para sondear determinadas áreas de su experiencia personal que nunca antes había examinado tan de cerca. Esto incluye recuerdos hasta ese momento no contados de sus padres y hermanos, de su infancia, y de su educación en la Viena imperial, así como de sus duras experiencias como oficial de la artillería austríaca en la Primera Guerra Mundial y de los inicios de su conciencia arquitectónica en respuesta a las obras de Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Erich Mendelsohn, Louis Sullivan y Frank Lloyd Wright. Al igual que las autobiografías de Sullivan y Wright, Vida y forma se concentra en los primeros años de Neutra, tanto en Europa como en América. Como es natural relata en sus memorias los encargos más conocidos como la Lovell Health House (1929), su propia Van der Leeuw Research House (1933) y la casa Von Sternberg, pero también se detiene en algunas construcciones mucho menos famosas como la pequeña y casi ignorada casa Mosk (1933). Vida y forma también confirma la obsesión de Neutra con el paso del tiempo y su firme resolución de no perderlo nunca. Como Sullivan y Wright, Neutra evita escribir una crónica de los hechos, para proponer más bien, a sus setenta años, una meditación sobre los aspectos de su vida y su trabajo que retrospectivamente le parecen más interesantes y significantes. En vez de "incluirlo todo", prefiere presentar un relato honesto de la memoria de su vida. Al escribir mi propio libro "Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture" (Oxford University Press, 1982; Rizzoli Press, 2006), me basé en Vida y forma siempre que necesité presentar las experiencias de Neutra con su auténtica voz. Para las generaciones futuras de arquitectos, historiadores y lectores, es una gran noticia tener este libro disponible de nuevo. - Thomas S. Hines, Profesor emérito de Histora y arquitectura, Universidad de California Los Ángeles

A seminal early text on lenticular and holographic imaging, Takanori Okoshi's "Three-Dimensional Imaging Techniques" provides analysis and insights into the fundamentals of 3-D perception and the creation of 3-D imagery as well as a history of its technological development.

Since he followed it all of his life, Richard Neutra (1892-1970) must have relished the maxim of the Greek philosopher Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living." In his books, articles, lectures, correspondence, and even casual conversations, Neutra constantly examined, not only his own life, but the lives of others - present and past - and the human and natural world they inhabited. Nowhere was this truer than in his autobiography Life and Shape, first published in 1962, which now, after years of being out of print, has again happily come back to life. As opposed to Survival Through Design (1954), his superb collection of densely philosophical essays, Neutra took a different tack in Life and Shape, following a lighter and more deliberately relaxed approach. It was as if the usually serious and intense Neutra was giving himself permission to reveal his richly ironic sense of humor and to probe areas in his personal experience which he had not examined as closely before. These included hitherto unrecorded memories of his parents, siblings, and his childhood and education in imperial Vienna, his numbing experiences as an Austrian artillery officer in World War I, and the beginnings of his architectural consciousness in his response to the work of Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Erich Mendelsohn, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.As in the autobiographies of Sullivan and Wright, Life and Shape concentrates on Neutra's earlier years, both in Europe and America. While he naturally recounts his memories of such well-known commissions as the Lovell Health House (1929), his own Van der Leeuw Research House (1933) and the von Sternberg House (1935), he also muses on such less famous buildings as the small, and now virtually forgotten, Mosk House (1933). Life and Shape also confirms Neutra's obsession with the passage of time and his firm resolution never to waste it.Like Sullivan and Wright, Neutra eschewed writing a factual chronicle, and - at the age of 70 - composed instead a meditation on the aspects of his life and work that seemed, in retrospect, to be the most interesting and significant. He felt no need to try to "include everything" but rather to present an honest recounting of his memory of his life. In writing my own Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture [Oxford University Press, 1982; Rizzoli Press, 2006], I relied on Life and Shape when I wanted an account of Neutra's experiences told in his own authentic voice. For future generations of architects, historian, and readers, it is good to have it back.- Thomas S. Hines, UCLA Professor Emeritus of History and Architecture

"Did you come out of personal conviction or are you from Germany?" was the question German Jews were asked when they arrived in Palestine in 1933. Few came out of conviction. The majority of 60,000 German Jews who took refuge in the then British mandate came because they had no other option. Palestine was not the land of their dreams, but rather a place of asylum where one would have to start life anew. Doctors became bus-drivers, lawyers raised chickens, and artists worked as waiters. For the young however, immigration to Palestine was a great adventure, the beginning of a new life free from old conventions and, sometimes, the beginning as well of a life or death battle. Gad Granach still went by Gerhard when he arrived at Haifa Harbor in 1936 at the age of 21. The son of a famous actor in Berlin and of a politically engaged mother, he was not one of those who came out of conviction. He made the best of it whether working as a reserve policeman for the British, a construction worker in Tel Aviv, or a locomotive driver along the Dead Sea. He encountered a land of neither milk nor honey, and took part in five major wars and a number of smaller ones, wishing all the while that that God would 'choose' another people and leave the Jews in peace. "This land is like a magnet. There is something that attracts people from all corners of the world for all kinds of reasons, everybody looking for his own God and master, especially in Jerusalem." "Everybody here is searching for themselves. I don't know why everyone has to go searching for an identity. For me, they told me my name and that was all I needed.""Of course there are people who always think of the future, who prepare for it, like a squirrel getting ready for the winter when its still summer. I have never prepared for winter, and now winter is here, but I am not cold." "In Israel, everyone lives close to God and everybody can speak to him directly. Somebody should ask him why he had to create the world in just six days. What was the big hurry? From the looks of things here sometimes, it would have been better if he'd taken a bit more time with it."