A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

2012 Competitions Annual edited by G. Stanley Collyer with Daniel Madryga, published by The Competition Project, 2013. Paperback, 240 pages. ( Amazon ) At the start of the 1990s, Competitions magazine began publishing quarterly issues with notices and results on architectural competitions. In 2011 the publication went the way of many magazines and is now online-only, though its print output has segued to an annual book that collects the results of some prominent competitions. The second edition, covering competitions in parts of 2011 and 2012, features the winners and runners up for 16 competitions. Competitions is based in Kentucky, so it's no surprise that the (now e)magazine tends to focus on the United States, but as the back cover attests: "the majority of competitions for real projects in this volume reflect not only the institutional commitment of foreign nations to this process, but the dire economic straits our governing bodies find themselves in." This ...

AIA Guide to Chicago edited by Alice Sinkevitch and Laurie McGovern Petersen, published by  University of Illinois Press , 2014, Third Edition. Paperback, 568 pages. ( Amazon ) Building Ideas: An Architectural Guide to the University of Chicago by Jay Pridmore, published by  University of Chicago Press , 2013. Paperback, 160 pages. ( Amazon ) Chicagoisms: The City as Catalyst for Architectural Speculation edited by Alexander Eisenschmidt with Jonathan Mekinda, published by  Park Books , 2013. Hardcover, 184 pages. ( Amazon ) Recently I received review copies of three books on Chicago, so it seems appropriate to put them together into one review, discussed in alphabetical order. Having produced my own guide to architecture in New York City , and therefore having researched many guidebooks, one of my pet peeves with guidebooks (architectural or otherwise) is when they are not designed with their use in mind. By this I mean being carried around, h...

So, this is what Castle Hill in the Bronx gets for an EMS Station: [Zerega Avenue EMS Station by Smith-Miller Hawkinson | Photo by Michael Moran/OTTO] But this is what my neighborhood of Astoria, Queens gets: [Hoyt Avenue EMS station made from construction trailers | Photo by John Hill] What's up with that, DDC ?

Here are some photos of Brion Cemetery (1972) in San Vito d'Altivole, Italy, by Carlo Scarpa, photographed by Francesco Maria Gabriele Vozza . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos #archidose

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with short first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages. In this post are six titles published by the University of Minnesota Press . 1: Architecture since 1400 by Kathleen James-Chakraborty | 2013 | Amazon Instead of the traditional discussion of style and analysis of space, the author aims "to reconstruct the story of how environments are created that shape experience and communicate identity through the ways in which spaces are formed and surfaces are decorated." The examples in the book, which moves chronologically and geographically from front to back (starting in China in the early 1400s and ending in the same country in present day), are diverse in terms of place (Asia and South America are ...

Here are some photos of Råå Day Care Center (2013) in Helsingborg, Sweden, by Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter , photographed by Matthew Gribben . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos #archidose

Since starting the " Today's archidose " feature in 2006, when I asked readers to contribute photos of contemporary via Flickr for consideration on this blog, I've done 777 posts. Given that Flickr isn't the primary means for people to share photos online, I've decided (somewhat well after the fact) to open the Today's archidose feature to Instagram. It basically works the same way as the Flickr instructions, but instead of joining a group, just tag your Instagram photos #archidose (I'd link to the tag here, but Instagram only allows clicking on tags that through their app) and I'll dig through them as I consider what to post. It helps that a number of proactive Instagram users have already been using the #archidose tag. To start, here is one of my photos, of SOM's One World Trade Center as seen from West Street: To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute you...

Building as Ornament by Michiel van Raaij, published by  nai010 Publishers , 2014. Paperback, 240 pages. ( Amazon ) Before he took the helm at Dutch website Architectenweb , Michiel van Raaij penned one of my favorite architecture blogs, Eikongraphia (Iconography), which looked at buildings united through their resemblance to other things, things outside architecture. Projects, many not yet built at the time, were given a title that made it clear what sort of building-size iconography was in place: Gherkin, by Foster and Rocks, by Mazzanti , to name just a couple of the built projects. Michiel's comments were always in-depth and insightful, but much of the fun was in seeing the sheer number buildings being designed in such a way. That was 5 or 7 years ago (the posts stopped in the middle of 2010), and today the prevalence of what Michiel calls "building as ornament" is much more widespread. It's hard to go a week without seeing a just completed build...

Here are a couple photos of Emerson College Los Angeles (2014) by Morphosis Architects , photographed by Riley Snelling . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

While I haven't paid close attention to the fight to save John M. Johansen's Mummers Theater * in Oklahoma City, I'm disheartened to see this photo taken by Timothy Hursley last week of the one-of-a-kind building's demolition: [Click image for larger view | Photo: Timothy Hursley] One year before, Hursley visited the building with his sons: [Click image for larger view | Photo: Timothy Hursley] *Those interested, albeit at this admittedly late stage, should visit the Save the Stage Center Facebook page and The Architect's Newspaper's extensive coverage of Mummers and what will replace it . (Thanks to Tim Hursley for sending along the photos.)

The first installment in Al Jazeera's six-part " Rebel Architecture " series is on Spanish "self-build legend" Santiago Cirugeda :

Here are some photos of Farmville , under consruction in Paredes, Portugal, by AND-RÉ , photographed by José Carlos Melo Dias . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

Book Mountain Spijkenisse: Biography of a Building by Nicoline Baartman and Winy Maas, published by MVRDV/ nai010 Publishers , 2013. Hardcover, 260 pages. ( Amazon ) Book-length case studies of buildings are great for giving more space than a monograph or magazine in explaining the history, design, realization, and in some cases post-occupancy of a particular building. But this type of book begs the question: Who writes it and who is it for? The first could be the architect (the most common), or perhaps the client, or even a freelance writer commissioned by one, both, or neither. And in most cases the answer to the second is "other architects." The answer to the first for this "biography" of MVRDV's Book Mountain in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands, is "all of the above"; and for the second it is "everybody." [Photo: Jonas Klock/Flickr] The library is part of a district in the admittedly unexceptional town of Spijkenisse near Rotterdam...

It seems like it was just yesterday that Harvard Design Magazine (HDM) reinvented itself. Yet taking a look at their back issues makes me realize that the last reinvention took place five years ago. Now starting with its Spring/Summer 2014 issue, HDM has been "reconceived and relaunched with a new editorial and design approach," under the direction of Editor in Chief Jennifer Sigler.  Sigler says in her editorial intro (spread below) to the issue, which was handed out at the vernissage for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale (where I snagged a copy), that the magazine's new direction "invites 'reading' across disciplinary boundaries, and stakes out an expanded arena for architecture and design dialogue." These are boastful words that might ring hollow in today's saturated digital/print marketplace for architectural writing, except I must admit that I really like the new direction. The issue's theme is "Do You Read Me?...

The other day I was wondering what Sean Eden, former guitarist with Luna, was up to. Turns out he splits his time between a number of bands (including Elk City, another band I like), sound design for video games, voice-overs, and music composition for films and other moving pictures . In regards to the last, it was interesting to discover that he scored part of Building a Dream , a half-hour film directed by Ultan Guilfoyle on the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Per Eden on his website : Ultan hired me to do some of the music for the project when the film was already deep into the editing phase and nearing its completion deadline. We recorded and mixed several guitar-based atmospheric tracks in one marathon session, and this particular one was used for the opening sequence, which features some breathtaking shots of the building and its surroundings, and a voice-over by Frank Gehry himself, telling the story of how he came to decide on where exactly to build it. Here is the 2-minute c...

Instead of particular buildings, here are some urban vistas grabbed from the archidose Flickr pool. Barcode project (Oslo), photographed by Wojtek Gurak : La Défense (Paris), photographed by Arno Dumont : Emilli Plater Street (Warsaw), photographed by Krzewi : Financial District (Dubai), photographed by Andrew A. Shenouda : Potsdamer Platz (Berlin), photographed by Gonzalo Mauleón : Chicago (seen from Lincoln Park), photographed by clarkmaxwell : Hong Kong, photographed by Fernando Herrera : Danzig, photographed by krzewi : To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

In my review of Leftunder Rightunder I mention the book's designer, Jerome Daksiewicz, and visiting his site, NOMO, I came across his series of Golf Course Screenprints that include some of my favorite courses I've never had the chance of playing: Augusta National: Pebble Beach: Pine Valley: Having wanted to be a golf course designer myself back in the days before college (I got so far as designing a course on paper, but not one for a real place), these and other courses are the ones I studied and continue to appreciate from a distance. It's always great to come across other designers with similar interests. NOMO has the above and more courses as posters for sale in their online shop .