A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Experience Music Project in Seattle, Washington by Frank Gehry, 2000 Architecture has officially reemerged into the public spotlight. TV's Frasier discovers his true love due to a mutual belief in Bilbao's ugliness (Mr. Gehry's Guggenheim Museum is now known solely by the city also) and a recent "Law and Order", in which a lawyer defended his client's (a successful architect) lack of wealth saying, "My client is no Frank Gehry!". Yes, architecture is now part of the media circus and Mr. Gehry, the world's most famous architect, is the profession's celebrity. His recent hyped building, the Experience Music Project , is almost guaranteed to continue his rise of fame. The Experience Music Project, or EMP, is a music museum "combining interactive and interpretive exhibits to tell the story of the creative, innovative and rebellious expressi...

Città: Third Millennium in Helsinki, Finland by Pasi Kolhonen, 2000 The following images and text are Pasi Kolhonen's entry to the Venice Biennale's online competition – “Città: Third Millennium” (with awards assigned by a Committee made up by François Barré, Peter Cook, Massimiliano Fuksas, Frédéric Migayrou, Paul Virilio, James Wines, Greg Lynn), one of three honorable mentions in the professional architect category. FROM ENGINEER'S AESTETHICS TO ECONOMIST'S AESTETHICS The photos I sent represent a global condition in which graphic information is taking over the cityscape. The upper half of the image is a snapshot of an everyday street in Helsinki; the lower half is the same picture with everything that is not an ad, a sign or a logo removed. What is left is a layer of commercial urban wallpaper that most often passes our eyes unnoticed. Similar pictures can be produced from almost any contemporary...

Peckham Library in London, England by William Alsop & Jan Störmer, 2000 Located in one of London's less desirable neighborhoods, Peckham, the new library by William Alsop & Jan Störmer is one of three elements (as well as the Peckham Arch and the Health and Fitness Centre) defining Peckham Square, created to regenerate the area. I do not know the designs for the arch or the health club but if they approach public space similarly to the library then the chances of success are definitely increased. The library is basically an "L"-shaped building, though instead of the "L" standing upright, as would be expected, it is turned 90 degrees to create a covered, urban space. A row of thin, tubular columns fall at different angles to support the cantilever and further define this outdoor space. The change in column angles hints at the playfulness the architects continued inside, as well as pro...

Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy Although the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been barely standing for over 800 years, recent threats to the tower's stability, demanding a mixture of old and new engineering, warrant its inclusion on this page. The tower has begun to lean so far that a computer model cannot replicate the real tower's actual position (5.5 degrees off perpendicular) because the model collapses at 5.44 degrees. Due to this drastic situation relatively new methods are being implemented at a fast pace; mainly removing portions of the earth under the tower's north end (the tower leans toward the south). The diagram at left illustrates the stages in the tower's construction. Each stage represents an awareness of the tower's leaning, the most obvious being the opposite lean of the belfry. With each delay the structure's weight was able to compress the loose soil and clay which it sits upon...

Barragán Residence in Tacubaya, Mexico City, Mexico by Luis Barragán, 1947 The following text and images are taken from René Burri's photographic essay on Mexican architect Luis Barragán, luis barragán , published by Phaidon Press. The words are Barragan's and the images are his residence in Tacubaya, Mexico City, completed in 1947. A perfect garden - no matter what its size - should enclose: nothing less than the entire universe. Beauty - the invincible difficulty that the philosophers have in defining the meaning of this word is unequivocal proof of its ineffable mystery. How can one forget joy? I believe that a work of art reaches perfection when it conveys silent joy and serenity. A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy. There is no fuller expression of vulgarity than a vulgar garden.