A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

With a major deadline approaching, I'm taking a break from this and my other blogs . Posts will resume the week of April 10th.

Here is a photo of MVRDV's Roosevelta 22 (aka BAŁTYK ) nearing completion in Poznań, Poland. Photographer Przemysław Turlej has many more photos of the project in his Poznan - R22 Flickr set . 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

I have four architectural walking tours in April and May, including a brand new one taking place along 57th Street. Click on the links below to purchase tickets from the 92Y. Saturday, April 1, 11am - 2:30pm Brooklyn G Train Tour Hop on and off the G train from Carroll Gardens to Clinton Hill and Dumbo, taking in townhouses, campus facilities and other buildings along the way. Saturday, April 8, 11am - 1:30pm Columbia University Look at recent additions to the campuses of Columbia University and Barnard College in Morningside Heights, take a sneak peek at Columbia’s expansion into Manhattanville and head up to Inwood to see Columbia’s new athletics complex. Saturday, April 22, 11am - 1:30pm The High Line and Its Environs Trek the High Line taking in the park and the surrounding buildings and step off to get a closer look at select buildings. Saturday, May 6, 11am - 1:30pm 57th Street, River to River This architectural walking tour looks at the changing landscape of ...

Here are some of my photos of Renzo Piano Building Workshop's Lenfest Center for the Arts (2017) on Columbia University's Manhattanville Campus in New York City. The photos were taken during yesterday's press preview of the building, which opens to the public next month. For more photos and information on the project check out my tour at World-Architects . The 8th floor: The 6th floor: The 4th floor: The 2nd floor: 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 a rendering of Zaha Hadid Architects' design for the redesign/extension of Kushner Companies' 666 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan has been making its rounds in many of the usual places . The 1,400-foot-tall tower, if built, would sit prominently on Fifth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets, about a half-block from the Museum of Modern Art. Which made me wonder: Where is Jean Nouvel's 53W53 in the rendering? Now under construction , the 1,050-foot-tall skyscraper will tower over Cesar Pelli's Museum Tower, which is visible to the right of ZHA's tower. So in the interest of seeing how these two supertalls designed by celebrity architects would interact, I Photoshopped a side elevation of Nouvel's tower into ZHA's rendering: Now, does anybody know the mystery of the magic park that appears in front of ZHA's tower?

Here are some of my photos of the  New York City AIDS Memorial  (2016) at St. Vincent’s Triangle in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, by Studio AI Architects . 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

Last week Donald Trump released a proposed budget that would nix the National Endowment for the Arts and other government sources for arts programs. A few weeks before that, with hints that he would be including such cuts, I put together a piece at World-Architects, "25 Reasons to Keep the NEA," in which I waded through about 15 years of architecture-related programs funded by the NEA and found 25 highlights. There are a number of New York-based institutions, such as the Storefront for Art and Architecture (pictured), but also many examples in other parts of the country. Although architecture would not take as big a hit as other arts, many great exhibitions, publications, and programs would not exist without the NEA, whose annual budget is $148 million – or 41 presidential weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago (he's already gone their five times since his inauguration).

On Thursday evening I attended a book launch for Cedric Price Works 1952-2003: A Forward-Minded Retrospective  at the Museum of Modern Art. The event, which took place in MoMA's library, celebrated the release of the huge, two-volume, 1,400-page monograph written and edited by Samantha Hardingham and published by AA Publications and the CCA . Actually calling the book a monograph is far from ideal, since the British architect built very little and the book collects a hefty amount of Price's writings alongside his increasingly influential projects; the descriptors "manifesto" or "biography" might be more accurate. Whatever the case, even though the book is large, it seemed that those speaking on Thursday were in agreement that it would be but the first of a number of overdue publications on Price. In this case, size may equate with importance, but it is does not equal definitiveness. One copy of the book was on display in the library; with only a few...

Gotta love the absurdity of oiio's The Big Bend , a none-too-serious proposal for "the longest building in the world" that happens to look like a synthesis of Rafael Viñoly's 432 Park Avenue and a croquet wicket. [Image: oiio] I'm reminded of Greg Lynn's Stranded Sears Tower , not in terms of form, but in the way each project takes the skyscraper typology (and a specific example of one) and stretches and pulls it into something else. [Image: Greg Lynn / Art Institute of Chicago] (The Big Bend spotted at Dezeen .)

Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction   by Keith Krumwiede, published by  Park Books , 2016. Hardcover, 272 pages. ( Amazon ) [All images courtesy of Park Books] Opening this sizable, almost atlas-sized book from Switzerland's Park Books I didn't know what to expect. Actually I wasn't expecting a whole lot, given the subtitle, "an architectural fiction"; while I appreciate the idea of adding narrative to architecture, most of what I've encountered in the realm of "architectural fiction" has left me wanting. Yet I was pleasantly surprised with Keith Krumwiede's creation, which is more a graphical narrative than an architect's attempt to force a fictional story into an architectural wrapper. His subject, broadly, is the United States and, more specifically, home ownership and the house plans developed by large-scale home builders. These subjects are analyzed and critiqued through a fictional place, Freedomland, whose str...

Here are some photos of the Municipal Museum Abade Pedrosa and International Contemporary Sculpture Museum (2012) in San Tirso, Portugal, by Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura. (Photographs: José Carlos Melo Dias ) 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

Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-Mexico Boundary by Ronald Rael, published by  University of California Press , 2017. Flexicover, 200 pages. ( Amazon ) Networks of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure by Ingrid Burrington, published by Melville House, 2016. Flexicover, 112 pages. ( Amazon ) What's So Great About the Eiffel Tower? 70 Questions That Will Change the Way You Think About Architecture  by Jonathan Glancey, published by  Laurence King Publishing , 2017. Flexicover, 176 pages. ( Amazon ) Recently I received a few books on a diversity of subjects that share one trait: they are small. Of course, small page size does not mean the ideas inside aren't grand. Even though their topics don't overlap in any obvious manner, I decided to review them together. [Border Wall as Infrastructure, Rael San Fratello Architects] The output of architect and educator Ronald Rael is varie...

Here are some photos of the extension of the  Historical Museum Frankfurt  (opening fall 2017) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, by LRO Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei . (Photographs:  Frank Dinger ) 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 Queens neighborhood of Astoria may have some  ugly architecture , but it's got one of the best bridges in all five boroughs. The Hell Gate Bridge, designed by Gustav Lindenthal, was dedicated 100 years ago today. It may not be as famous as the Brooklyn Bridge, or even the nearby Triborough Bridge (now RFK Triborough Bridge), but it's something for the neighborhood to be proud of. And if it looks a lot like the Sydney Harbour Bridge that's not a coincidence; Hell Gate inspired that later, larger span. [Astoria Bridge during 4th of July fireworks] Unlike most NYC bridges though, Hell Gate can only be crossed by train; it was built to connect Penn Station to Boston and other New England cities. This historical tidbit isn't so well known, nor is the way the bridge extends into Astoria for a ways, via some impressive concrete vaults. Unfortunately, the crossings are not always lit up like 29th Street below; I took this photo when an Uma Thurman film was being shot i...