Lawrence Kocher

The book offers a new conceptual and historical framework for the study of Kocher's body of work that relocates it within the history of American modern architecture.>Kocher's ideological position and his continuous eagerness for experimentation transformed him into an atypical practitioner. While many of his contemporaries were purely design focused, he established a very avant-garde symbiosis among his three main endeavors: his work as an educator, as a scholar, and as a practitioner. Some of his architectural works can be seen as manifestos that would later further develop in the articles of Architectural Record. Some others are the direct and material demonstrations of industrial systems and materials previously explored in his articles. Even other works are conceived and executed as part of a pedagogical activity. It is rare to find an architectural design in Kocher's body of work that does not demonstrate a multitude of interconnections among his pedagogy, his editorial work, and his scholarship.