A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

At home we, like most people, put our Xmas and other cards on the bookshelf in our living room. With that in mind I thought I'd display a handful of the "cards" I received via e-mail this season. ARX Portugal Arquitectos JDS / Julien de Smedt Architects Leeser Architecture Princeton Architectural Press Super Colossal

In the Chinese City: Perspectives on the Transmutations of an Empire edited by Frederic Edelmann, published by  Actar , 2008. ( Amazon ) Exhibited at the Palais de Chaillot alongside Positions , also produced by the Cité de l'architecture ed du patrimone in 2008, In the Chinese City aims to "cast a new light on architecture and the city in China," due to the rapid pace of change and the concomitant repercussions of practices in the country, most notably innovation, destruction, and pollution. The book collects a number of essays by academics from China and France, organized under broad yet descriptive headings: Garden, Earth, Water, Fengshui, Architecture, Family, Destruction, etc. A plethora of historical and contemporary illustrations and photographs accompany the essays, making the book, like its companion a visual feast that attempts to situate and make...

Petit Bayle in Tarn-et-Garonne, France by Vicki Thornton with MELD architecture Text and images are courtesy Jef Smith for the design of a house by Vicky Thornton with MELD architecture in the Tarn-et-Garonne region of southwestern France. Built on a steeply sloping greenfield site, the house is expressed in two distinct parts: a rubble limestone base containing a bedroom, pottery studio, shower and utility rooms below the main living and bedroom spaces in a chestnut clad timber frame. The inflecting timber forms of the upper level are intended to respond to the approach, landscape and surrounding views [floor plans]. At one end, the high roof of the front porch is angled to look along the access road, the main living area offers expansive views of the surrounding landscape, and the terrace reveals views of the valley. Vernacular materials and elements create a pragmatic aesthetic particular to place. The rubble stone walls are typical ...

Why Do Architects Wear Black?  edited by Cordula Rau, published by Springer, 2009. Cloth, 228 pages. ( Amazon ) Architects wearing black is a stereotype on par with architects wearing black, plastic-frame spectacles . Most architects don't abide by these fashion recipes, but if somebody outside the profession comes across just one architect fitting the Corbusian mold then, alas, all architects must do the same. That Le Corbusier's and Philip Johnson's proclivities for a certain attire has trickled down to numerous enough architects to become a popular stereotype -- and not Frank Lloyd Wright's cane and pork pie hat -- is evidenced by this small book that asks architects, "Why do architects wear black?" Packaged in a small, sketchbook-size format are a hundred or so answers to that question, one response per spread with the original handwritten answer opposite the typed, translated text and the name of the architect, designer or draftsman. Spanning seve...

Posts will be on hold for Xmas with family and friends, resuming in about a week. [santaland at macy's herald square] Happy Holidays!

the podium , originally uploaded by black_celt . The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia by Jørn Utzon, 1973. A view of the podium under construction, photo from Mitchell Library, NSW. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

San Gregorio 02 , originally uploaded by Sam's Notebook . Extension of Sculpture Museum in Valladolid, Spain by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos , 2007. See also: Today's archidose #254 Today's archidose #185 To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Last month the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) released World Class Streets (PDF link), a " report that presents new policies for the function and design of New York's streets. " One is prompted to ask if a study and report was needed to determine, " that the treatment of the spaces between buildings strongly determines a city's character." Much is influenced by the choice of Jan Gehl to lead the study, which also "defines a planning approach that emphasizes walking, creating streets that serve as active public spaces and integrating interesting and attractive design into projects and public structures on city streets. " Of the six sites that Gehl and DOT chose to survey -- centers of activity along key multi-modal corridors -- one of the most illuminating illustrations is for Main Street in Flushing, Queens: The illustration and statistics clearly show how space devoted to population is not weighted correctly. Logically the exis...

Politics at the Airport edited by Mark B. Salter, published by  University of Minnesota Press , 2008. ( Amazon ) The impact of security since September 11, 2001 is most evident and prevalent at airports. As sites that exist primarily for mobility, for transporting people and goods from point A to point B, airports, and those who control them, now strive to restrict and limit that same mobility in the name of security. Combined with airports' reliance on consumption for their continued well-being, these places have become "sites...symbolic of both the opportunities and vulnerabilities of contemporary globalization." The essays here examine airports in relationship to politics, society, and economics, via studies of architecture, surveillance, biometrics, border control, and the means for restricting travel, the infamous "no-fly...

Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal by Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter Text and images (by Graeme Ferguson and Kristin Jarmund, unless noted otherwise) are courtesy Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter . The Norwegian Embassy is built as a freestanding building in the garden of an older villa which previously housed the existing embassy. The site, in the area of Lalitpur, is roughly 4 acres and sits high overlooking Kathmandu. The fall of the site to the north, taken from the highest point down to the entrance area and courtyard, is equivalent to one floor level. The site is surrounded by high walls with neighboring buildings built right up to the property line. The project's aim was to create a representative yet modest building which presents Norway in a modern and quality-conscious way. It was intended that the forming and detailing of the building not be alien to Nepal and that the use of materials should reflect local ways of construction. The new building...

Architecture - A Synoptic Vision: A Prospectus of Developments from 1900 to Today by Adrian Meyer, Susanne Kuhlbrodt and Beat Aeberhard, published by Springer, 2008. Paperback, 22 pages + poster. ( Amazon ) syn·op·tic : affording a general view of a whole . pro·spec·tus : a preliminary printed statement that describes an enterprise . Created as part of a lecture series at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich , this short book and accompanying poster focuses on "the liberation of space from the beginning of modernity to the present day" and the amorphous relationships of architectural styles and movements spanning the same period, respectively. Clocking in at just over 20 pages, the first is carefully packaged with the latter in a printed folder whose cover hints at the large-format timeline within. The short essay presents the liberation of space by exploring three types of spatial organization: the center, the horizontal, and the third dimension. The first...

Archinect has a brand new t-shirt design this year, just in time for Xmas. For those who spend long hours in front of a computer screen filling PLINES with ANSI31, AR-CONC and other hatches -- and if you understand this sentence -- these t-shirts should be mighty appealing.

Congratulations to DeStefano + Partners -- my home for nine years in Chicago before moving to New York City -- for winning AIA Chicago 's 2008 Firm Award. Jurors commented that DeStefano Partners’ projects “showed a high level of attention to design across the board, including technical detailing and the principles of sustainability.” [the D+P gang | image source ] When I started there back in 1997 the firm was about 50 people and growing fast (two other people started the same day as me). By the time I left it was a bit more than double, down a little from the pre-9/11 number of about 140 (if memory serves me right). Recently the office announced it will be moving into the 32nd floor of Mies's IBM Building (now 330 North Wabash) from a loft space near Navy Pier. D+P also received a Distinguished Building Award for the State Emergency Operation Center in Springfield.

Here's a few shots of the recently-opened California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California by Renzo Piano Building Workshop . Photographs are by jiattison . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Studio and Cube: On The Relationship Between Where Art is Made and Where Art is Displayed by Brian O'Doherty, published by  Princeton Architectural Press , 2008. ( Amazon )   Architecture of the Off-Modern by Svetlana Boym, published by  Princeton Architectural Press , 2008. ( Amazon ) The first two volumes in a series related to The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture's FORuM Project, dedicated to exploring relationships among form, politics, and contemporary/urban life, focus on artist's studios and gallery spaces ( Studio and Cube ) and the lasting impace of Vladimir Tatlin's Monument to the Third International ( Off-Modern) . Each essay is short (40 or fewer pages) and heavily illustrated, the exception rather than the rule with other books on theory. ...

Brampton Soccer Centre in Brampton, Ontario, Canada by MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects Brampton is the fastest-growing community in Greater Toronto, with a population nearing half a million. Much of the population is composed of South Asian immigrants, a demographic in favor of soccer rather than, say, hockey, so the decision was made over time to create indoor soccer facilities in the growing suburb. The Brampton Soccer Centre is designed by Toronto-based Maclennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects , a firm with a large portfolio of pools, arenas, and other recreational and community facilities. Their design for the Dixie-Sandalwood area of Brampton skillfully integrates four indoor soccer fields into a building that elevates its suburban context. The pinwheel plan creates a public face visible from the intersection of two busy streets, as well as one for the main entry from the parking lots reached either via Dixie Road o...