A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Louisiana Museum of Art's Louisiana Channel has made some of my favorite interviews* with artists, architects, filmmakers and other creative folks. Today they posted a one-hour interview with Peter Zumthor at his studio in Haldenstein, Switzerland that is well worth watching. *See also their interviews with Norman Foster , Steven Holl and Wim Wenders .

I'm not sure which is funnier: the $550,000 price tag of Peter Eisenman's 40-year-old "iconic" House VI in Cornwall, Connecticut (it was $1.4 million two years ago); this photo that accompanies the listing... [Photo: Screenshot from New York Times listing ] ...or the listing description itself (my emphasis): A once in a generation opportunity to own one of the most important modernist houses in the Northeast has come to the market for sale. House #VI created through a collaboration of renown international architect Peter Eisenman and the original owners for over 40 years is being put up for sale in beautiful Cornwall Connecticut. This iconic masterpiece of design is one of a limited number of residential properties created by Mr. Eisenman in this serial design. Mr. Eisenman is best known for his industrial and city designs which are featured in cities through out the world. As art relates to culture, Peter Eisenmens [sic] work on House #VI is a broad stro...

Here are some of my photos of the Elephant House at the Zurich Zoo by Markus Schietsch . 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

BBC Culture has posted a short, four-minute video going inside Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City with Iker Gil, architect and editor of MAS Context . Gil lives in one of the corn cob towers and has documented the building and its occupants through an exhibition (with Andreas Larsson) and here in a tour through other parts of the tower, including the storage floor between the parking and apartments. Click the screenshot below to watch the short video, " What’s it like to live in a skyscraper? "

Here are some of my photos of Nova (2015) by SOFTlab , on display across the street from the Flatiron. 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

Today, the fine folks at CLOG sent out an email blast with the subject "CLOG Sells Out," reiterated at their website , which is now down for all but a splash page: CLOG sells out After fourteen issues in its current format, CLOG is changing course. In celebration, CLOG is holding a one-time, fourteen day sale, after which the fourteen issues published to date will no longer be available for purchase through CLOG's website.  The sale will run from Friday, Nov. 27th until Thursday, Dec 10th, culminating in a holiday party on Friday December 11th in New York at XXXI Gallery located at 411 E 9th Street. Throughout the fourteen day sale, each in-print issue will be $15, and one copy of each out-of-print issue will be available by raffle. Raffle tickets are $5 and can be purchased all fourteen days of the sale. The out-of-print issues will be signed by the editors of CLOG. Raffle winners will be announced on December 11th. We'd like to thank all of our contributors and...

I heard a few months ago that Apple would be shuttering its store on North Michigan Avenue... [Google Street View] ...and heading south to a site next to the Chicago River: [Google Street View] Now some details on the move have been released by Blair Kamin and a colleague at the Chicago Tribune , who  scooped some renderings of a glassy pavilion designed by Norman Foster that eats up part of Pioneer Court, the plaza in front of the Equitable Building. [Looking south across the plaza] Like other high-profile Apple stores that have been built since the first Chicago store in 2003, the proposed store takes up two floors, with a glass box popping above the plaza to serve as an entrance. Just think of the cube in New York , the cylinder in Shanghai , and the Foster-designed store in Istanbul . [Aerial rendering] Yet the most remarkable thing about the design is the way it addresses the river. This is not a store buried under a plaza; it is one that visually opens it...

Here are some photos of the Église du Sacré-Cœur (1930) in Casablanca, Morocco by Paul Tournon, 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

Open City: Existential Urbanity: The Architecture of the City Studio 2001–2014 by Diane Lewis, published by  Charta , 2015. Hardcover, 368 pages. ( Amazon ) As Peter Schubert states in one of his contributions to this collection of thirteen years of fourth-year "Architecture of the City" studios at the Cooper Union in New York, the first studio represented "coincided with the destruction of the World Trade Center." He admits that "the memory of that event is ever-present" and that he and others are "grappling with the human tragedy" and how it has "affected definitions of civic identity in the United States." I bring up his quotes (found on page 132, a third of the way through book) because the book's publication and celebration (see the bottom of this post for information on some events happening later this week) coincide with the attacks in Paris . Although the scale and architectural implications of these two events fourteen...

I'm in Zürich for work, so posts will resume next week. [Wall inside new Kalkbreite building designed by Müller Sigrist Architekten]

Public Natures: Evolutionary Infrastructures by Weiss/Manfredi, published by  Princeton Architectural Press , 2015. Hardcover, 376 pages. ( Amazon ) In previous posts on this blog I've contended that the choices made when laying out architectural monographs reflect on the priorities of architects. Whether they like it or not, monographs function like other books, in that they have a beginning, middle and end, even if they don't have overt narratives like novels. Readers – at least this reader – experience monographs in a similar way, moving from front to back and thereby piecing together a story in their minds based on this linear movement through the pages and projects. Due to this innate way of reading printed books, the beginning is almost always given over to essays that introduce the work; the middle is often occupied by the most important project at the time of the book's writing; and the end is where a project indicative of the future course is located. This is ...

Here is a potpourri of photos of buildings with curves. Click on the photos for information on the buildings and photographers. 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

The Function of Style by Farshid Moussavi, edited with Marco Ciancarella, Jonathan A. Scelsa, Mary Crettier and Kate Kilalea, published by  Actar / Harvard GSD / FunctionLab, 2015. Flexicover, 600 pages. ( Amazon ) Those familiar with the first two "Function of" books – The Function of Ornament (2006) and The Function of Form (2009) – will recognize the consistent format that architect/professor Farshid Moussavi and her FunctionLab at Harvard GSD have created with the third installment: hundreds of projects are explored in two-page spreads, with a computer rendering on one side and diagrams and text on the other side. This consistency allows projects to be compared and contrasted, and it enables the main functions – or effects – of a project to be grasped quickly. It's a book by students that, I'd say, is produced for other students. Practitioners might find some value with so much information packed into one book, but what is presented is elementary – the b...