Pietro Belluschi

by Meredith L. Clausen

Pietro Belluschi (1899-1994) was the last of a generation of architects that included Marcel Breuer, Jose Luis Sert, and Louis Kahn, European immigrants who had a major impact on American architecture. This first extensively illustrated study of his life and work brings to light a remarkably accomplished architect, recipient of the AIA Gold Medal and designer (by his own estimate) of well over 1,000 buildings and projects. Meredith Clausen reveals the enormous power that Belluschi wielded as an arbiter of taste and decision-maker in the 1950s and 1960s; his role in shaping the policy of the State Department in its overseas building program; and his role in securing major commissions for favored architects such as I. M. Pei. Equally important is Clausen's discussion of Belluschi's role in the development of regionalism in the Pacific Northwest and its impact on the definition of modernism as it was emerging in the United States. Clausen examines all aspects of Belluschi's long and produ