Facadomy: A Critique on Capitalism and its Assault on Mid-Century Modern Architecture

Façadomy offers a comprehensive critique of architecture and its relationship to capitalism. The result of this analysis is a theory that outlines why architectural movements rise and fall, the anatomy of these movements and how dynamic market forces will affect the future of architecture in the United States. The story begins with an analysis of the Revivalist movement of the late 19th century and ends with an examination of the current global economic decline and the effect it has already had on some of the architecture being produced today.

Cornetet’s research reveals that a relatively undocumented architectural movement, known as Mid-Century Modernism, emerged as a response to many of the same problems being dealt with in the United States today, including uncontrolled population growth, limited resources and financial decline. Mid-Century Modern design was the architecture of capitalism and it has come to represent the Golden Age of Capitalism. Mid-Century Modernism embodied a philosophy that contained valuable lessons on process and design that have since been forgotten. These lessons are described in Cornetet’s comprehensive analysis of Mid-Century Modern architecture and supported by an extensive case study that examined nearly 200 structures in Orlando, Florida.

The book’s design, graphics and photography bring to life this uniquely American architecture movement as Cornetet engages in a colorful dialogue that seeks to explain why we build the way we do in the United States.