Spatial Installations is a scholarly study examining the relationship between mid-century modern American architecture and sculptural installation. It focuses on public and institutional buildings by prominent postwar architects, including Eero Saarinen, Pietro Belluschi, Philip Johnson, and Gordon Bunshaft, and on sculptural interventions by such artists as Harry Bertoia, Richard Lippold, and Ibram Lassaw. These installations play a definitive role in shaping the spatial and narrative experiences of architectural spaces. Despite the importance of these works, historians know relatively little about the precedents and theories that influenced their production. This study examines the historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts in which artists, architects, and clients conceived their artistic endeavors, focusing on the translation and interpretation of forms and concepts as they move between different media and disciplines.

Alice T. Friedman is the Grace Slack McNeil Professor of the History of American Art at Wellesley College; she has taught architectural history in the Department of Art at Wellesley since 1979. She received her undergraduate degree from Radcliffe College in 1972 with a major in history and literature of the Renaissance and Reformation, followed by a two-year period of study at the Warburg Institute in London, where she received an MPhil in combined historical studies (the Renaissance) in 1974. Her MA and PhD in art history are both from Harvard University (1975 and 1980), with a special focus on Renaissance and Baroque architecture. Her recent work has been concerned with the architecture of the twentieth century. The focus of her studies has always been on interdisciplinary history; she is particularly interested in cultural values and the social history of architecture, with an emphasis on issues of gender, ethnicity, and ideology. Her most recent book, American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture, was published by Yale University Press in 2010.