Lisa Mahar-Keplinger

This is the type of book there should be more of: a smart yet slim study on a particular topic that is a fascinating blend of the visual and the written. It helps that the topic — grain elevators in the American Midwest — is one that I find of interest, born from many years spent in Kansas where concrete elevators dot the horizon and the occasional steel and wood ones can be glimpsed. This study does not simply take the approach of Le Corbusier, who polemically applied their practicality and pared down forms to modern architecture, but instead Mahar-Keplinger looks at their formal diversity, analyzes how they function, and dissects their role in town planning. The author's photos, as on the cover, have a Becher-like quality that is undeniable. It's no surprise that Aldo Rossi provides a foreword, given the way these industrial edifices are unmistakably themselves.… (meer)