A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

"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 blog. This installment focuses on a few recently published journals, some academic and some independent. 1: New Geographies 06: Grounding Metabolism edited by Daniel Ibanez, Nikos Katsikis | Harvard GSD | 2014 | Amazon In architecture, the word "metabolism" typically brings to mind the short-lived Japanese Metabolist movement that has seen a resurgence in recent years through a book and exhibition . But the term – both as a natural/scientific process and a metaphorical trope – has more wide-ranging applications, and it's clear from the sixth issue of Harvard GSD's New Geographies that students and faculty in academia are trying to decipher metabolism relative to...

A classic: Here are some photos of the Nova Office Building (2014) in Jaworzno , Poland, by Pracownia 111 , photographed by Sebastian Deptula . 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

[Looking west at the Whitney from Gansevoort Street | All photographs by John Hill] The Whitney Museum of American Art opens on Friday, May 1, nine years after the institution announced it would be moving to the Meatpacking District adjacent to the southern end of the High Line . That same year, 2006, construction started on turning the disused railway into an elevated park (phase 1 opened in 2009), which accelerated the area's transformation from its industrial namesake to a popular area for retail, fashion houses, restaurants and offices. The Whitney will surely have a substantial effect on the area's continued evolution, but one sign of the changes hit me on the way to the museum last week for a press preview. [The Gansevoort Market] There, in an unassuming storefront on Gansevoort Street, one block east of the Whitney and High Line, is a new food hall with pastries, a Greek yogurt bar, a taco bus, and an outpost of Sushi Dojo . Open since October 2014, the Gansevoo...

Over at World-Architects, I put together a list of 15 buildings built in Chicago in the last 15 years. The piece was spurred by the Chicago Architecture Biennial and its theme of The State of the Art in Architecture , as well as a book I'm writing on contemporary architecture in Chicago (more on that at a later date). So head over to World-Architects to see the buildings that sum up The State of the Art in (Chicago) Architecture . [Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) - El Centro, JGMA]

A classic: Here are some photos of the Ricola Storage Building (1987) in Laufen, Switzerland, by Herzog & de Meuron , photographed by Trevor Patt . 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

Although I'm not sure if the title is a statement or a question, here's a heads up on an event taking place on May 14 at Cooper Union. Details on the free event are below and at Eventbrite . WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN IN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN BOOK PUBLISHING Thursday, May 14, 2015 from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM (EDT) Herb Lubalin Study Center 41 Cooper Square New York, NY There are many important changes and challenges rippling through the world of architecture and design book publishing. This program will consist of a panel of top editors and executives from leading publishing companies talking about the changes they see coming (or would like to see coming) in how architecture and design books are conceived, created, designed, and sold. Panelists include: Will Balliett , President and Publisher of Thames & Hudson Inc. John Donatich , Director of Yale University Press Pamela Horn , Head of Cross-Platform Publishing at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Mu...

My write-up of the new Whitney Museum of American Art, opening May 1 in the Meatpacking District, is still to come. For now, here is a slideshow of the building with photos I took during yesterday's press preview. (If you don't see the slideshow below, click here to see it on Flickr .)

Today was the press preview for the Whitney Museum of American Art, opening on May 1 in its new location at the southern end of the High Line. I'll have photos and words on the building before the opening, but for now I'd recommend watching a short video from Architectural Record with Renzo Piano explaining how the building works. It's worth it, if anything, for the last few seconds, where Piano is either jubilant because the interview is over or because the building is finally finished.

Here are some photos of the Towada City Plaza (2015) in Aomori, Japan, by Kengo Kuma and Associates , photographed by Ken Lee . 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

Lighting Design & Process by Office for Visual Interaction, published by  Jovis , 2014. Hardcover, 216 pages. ( Amazon ) I'll admit that when it comes to light, I veer toward books that focus on natural light, such as titles like Henry Plummer's Nordic Light and Mary Ann Steane's The Architecture of Light . As an architect I understand the important of artificial lighting for interiors and exteriors, even though I believe the best buildings exploit natural light's qualities to their fullest. People cannot exist today without artificial lighting, and therefore it should be an integral part of the design process. One problem for me is that books on lighting design, rather than those on natural light, tend to be overly technical, with an emphasis on general conditions rather that specific applications. This is the case with a book by ERCO I featured five years ago , but a book by Herve Descottes of L'Observatoire International, which I briefly reviewed three ...

Last Is More: Mies, IBM, and the Transformation of Chicago by Robert Sharoff, photographs by William Zbaren, published by  Images Publishing , 2014. Hardcover, 160 pages. ( Amazon ) Mies by Detlef Mertins, published by  Phaidon , 2014. Hardcover, 560 pages. ( Amazon ) Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, New and Revised Edition by Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, published by  University of Chicago Press , 2013. Hardcover, 512 pages. ( Amazon ) Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) is one of the triumvirate of 20th century architects (the other being Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright) who continue to be the subject of books long after their passing. They are the most influential architects of the modern age, with each afforded the occasional reassessment due to exhibitions, preservation battles and other contemporary happenings (Le Corbusier's recent labeling as a " militant fascist " is an example on the negative spectrum of this). Even ...