Plain Modern: The Architecture of Brian MacKay-Lyons by Malcolm Quantrill, Glenn Murcutt, Kenneth Frampton

Plain Modern: The Architecture of Brian MacKay-Lyons by Malcolm Quantrill, Glenn Murcutt, Kenneth Frampton

The austere beauty of the Nova Scotia landscape serves as an integral part of the architecture of Brian MacKay-Lyons. The work of this native son responds to this unique topography and to the vernacular building traditions that define its communities. His houses, nestled along the Atlantic coast, combine regional forms with local materials, technologies, and building practices to create works that are linked to their environments.

In recent years, as MacKay-Lyons's practice has rapidly expanded to include institutional work on an international scale, the architect has pushed the classifications of critical regionalism and cultural sustainability to new extremes. In this book, historian and critic Malcom Quantrill crafts a telling portrait of MacKay-Lyons, elucidating the "peculiar regionality" of his firm's work and the methodology it employs, which has enabled it to transcend national bounds.