Description
Book SynopsisAncient history, midcentury modernism, Cinemascope, humanism and monumentality, totalitarianism and democracy: transformations in American culture and architecture.In Flintstone Modernism, Jeffrey Lieber investigates transformations in postwar American architecture and culture. He considers sword-and-sandal films of the 1950s and 1960s—including forgotten gems such as Land of the Pharaohs, Helen of Troy, and The Egyptian—and their protean, ideologically charged representations of totalitarianism and democracy. He connects Cinemascope and other widescreen technologies to the architectural “glass curtain wall,” arguing that both represented the all-encompassing eye of American Enterprise. Lieber reminds us that until recently midcentury modern American architecture was reviled by architectural historians but celebrated by design enthusiasts, just as sword-and-sandal epics are alternately hailed as cult clas
