French Encounters with the American Counterculture 1960-1980

Caroline Maniaque-Benton is associate professor at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture Paris-Malaquais where she teaches the history of architecture. She received her doctoral degree from University Paris-VIII. She is the author of Le Corbusier and the Maisons Jaoul (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009). She has received a Fulbright Scholarship and a Fellowship of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

• Contents: Preface; Introduction; Framing the debates around technology; Discovering the alternative scene: from Sausolito to Drop City; Documenting the architectural counterculture; Exhibiting vernacular structures and marginal architecture in France; Publication networks in the United States: from the Whole Earth catalog to Shelter; Counter culture à la française: self-build, publishing, teaching and research {XE 'culture alternative'}; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

'A marvelous cross-cultural trip, Caroline Maniaque-Benton's new book authoritatively traces the quixotic excursions of the American counterculture into "alternative architecture" from the transatlantic perspective of France. Based on interviews with many of the protagonists and vividly illustrated, the author explores the juncture of do-it-yourself aesthetics, radical politics, and ecological consciousness. The book is all the more timely at a moment when the nascent environmentalism of the 1960s is coming to full fruition around the world.' Joan Ockman, Columbia University, USA 'The book also constitutes a remarkable visual document, as Maniaque-Benton has managed to gather photos from personal albums, as well as bits of ephemera the survival of which is nothing short of miraculous. Covers and illustrations from obscure journals such as La face cachée du soleil, and Icosa are beautifully reproduced in French Encounters... Maniaque-Benton convincingly sets up the encounter between French and American experimental architecture as a prelude to the contemporary scene, offering much historical and ideological material on which to meditate in assessing the mandate of 'sustainable design'.' H-France 'Maniaque-Benton’s careful primary research (she visited many iconic sites and interviewed key American protagonists, such as Steve Baer), her command of the most current cultural and architectural scholarship on the counterculture and her lively prose combine to make this book a significant contribution to the scholarship of American counterculture and alternative architecture. The numerous accompanying images are superb, and include travel photographs imbued with a wonderful immediacy and energy, beautifully reproduced magazine covers, and views of exhibition displays.' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians