Edited By: Chris Chiei, Julie Decker
Hardcover: 176 pages
Dimensions: 8.3″ x 7.4″ x 0.9″
ISBN-10: 1568985193
ISBN-13: 978-1568985190
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press (December 31, 2005)
Purchase through Anchorage Museum.
An unexpected architectural phenomenon (something like a halved tin can turned on its side) swept across the American landscape after World War II: the Quonset hut.
Originally designed during the war for use as makeshift housing and temporary prefabricated shelters for soldiers and their families around the world, the seemingly ubiquitous Quonset hut housed a rapidly expanding nation in the 1940s and ’50s both at work and in play.
From recording studios (a Quonset hut was responsible for the birth of the ‘Nashville sound’) to auditoriums featuring the wrestling wonders of Gorgeous George and Andre the Giant and the musical revelry of James Brown and Little Richard, to the 1948 congressional campaign headquarters of Gerald Ford, to an endless variety of incarnations including bars, movie theaters, classrooms, supermarkets, restaurants, and houses of worship, the Quonset hut was the shape of a nation in need of affordable, easy-to-build shelter.
Quonset Hut: Metal Living for a Modern Age is a fascinating look at a surprising architectural sensation and offers a refreshing, revealing, and untold story of a true American icon. The publication accompanied a traveling exhibition of the same name, which opened at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art on October 16, 2005. For more details, see the Quonset Hut: Metal Living for a Modern Age website.
Quonset: Metal Living for a Modern Age is a publication of Princeton Architectural Press in association with the Alaska Design Forum, the Anchorage Museum of History and Art and the Anchorage Museum Association.
Other Ways to Purchase
Quonset Hut: Metal Living for a Modern Age is also available through the Anchorage Museum of History and Art or Princeton Architectural Press.
