'What is it about architects-or architecture-that resists the biographer's pen? What would a seasoned biographer like Isaacson or Caro do with an architect's life?'

摘要

Paul Goldberger's new biography of Frank Gehry, Building Art, published by Knopf in September, is currently No.1 in Amazon's "Books on Individual Architects and Firms" category. But it's unlikely that it will equal the success of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs (Simon & Schuster), which was Amazon's top overall seller in 2011. This is no reflection on Goldberger's writing; architectural biographies are rarely bestsellers. It's true that the general reading public is not knowledgeable about architecture, but that could hardly be the reason; one of the most acclaimed biographies of modern times, Robert A. Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Power Broker (Knopf, 1974), a life of Robert Moses, dealt with the arcane minutiae of municipal politics and public works.