A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Spaces of Disappearance: The Architecture of Extraordinary Rendition Jordan H. Carver UR (Urban Research) , September 2018 Paperback | 6 x 9 inches | 264 pages | b/w illustrations | Languages | ISBN: 978-1947198012 | $25.00 Publisher Description : By investigating the sovereign claims of American power and the architectural spaces of secret prisons, Spaces of Disappearance reconstructs the network of black site prisons developed in the early years of the so-called War on Terror. Jordan H. Carver compiles an original archive of architectural representations, redacted documents, and media reports to build a knowingly incomplete spatial history of post-9/11 extraordinary rendition. Framed by an introductory essay by architectural historian and theorist Felicity D. Scott that positions Carver’s work within a longer history of military strategy and state violence against “uncertain” warfare, this book skillfully presents the territorial and political logics of the top-secret CIA...

Le Corbusier: The Built Work Richard Pare; text by Jean-Louis Cohen The Monacelli Press , November 2018 Hardcover | 11-1/2 x 10-1/4 inches | 480 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1580934718 | $125.00 Publisher Description : Le Corbusier is widely acknowledged as the most influential architect of the twentieth century. As extensively researched and documented as his works are, however, they have never been exhaustively surveyed in photographs until now. Photographer Richard Pare has crossed the globe for years to document the extant works of Le Corbusier–from his first villas in Switzerland to his mid-career works in his role as the first global architect in locations as far-flung as Argentina and Russia, and his late works, including his sole North American project, at Harvard University, and an extensive civic plan for Chandigarh, India. Le Corbusier: The Built Work provides numerous views of each project to bring a fuller understanding of the architect’s command of space, som...

NYC Walks: Guide to New Architecture , my fifth book, is being released two weeks from today, on March 12. Published by Prestel, NYC Walks  collects ten architectural walking tours I've been giving since my first book, Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture (W. W. Norton), came out at the end of 2011. To celebrate the release of NYC Walks  I'll be in conversation with Michael Sorkin at Rizzoli Bookstore  (1133 Broadway at West 26th Street) on Thursday, March 14 at 6pm. I'll be signing books after the talk. The event is free, but be sure to RSVP via this link . Details on the March 14 event : Join author, architect, and tour guide John Hill for a discussion with esteemed architecture critic and urbanist Michael Sorkin about his new book NYC Walks: Guide to New Architecture (Prestel, 2019). It can be hard to keep up with New York City’s surge of cutting-edge architecture since the turn of the millennium. NYC Walks is a portable, easy-to-use guide to the...

Unboxing New York ODA New York Actar , November 2018 Hardcover | 8 x 10 inches | 276 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1945150777 | $39.95 Publisher Description : In a city like New York, dominated by regulations and defined by a strong post-recession development boom, the architect is bound by conventions and prescribed parameters. Code, market, and time are words as common in the architect’s vocabulary as context, proportion and light. Consequently, the architect’s power has been pushed away from fundamental qualities of living. Unboxing New York investigates these architecture topics to recover the power to design with quality of life as the number one objective. Unboxing New York is a behind-the-scenes examination of the changing shape of New York City since 2010 -revealing the forces, theories, and histories that have transformed the city, studying the common conventions that architects deal with as a result. In a bind-up of five smaller books with a wide variety of short arti...

Brandscapes: Architecture in the Experience Economy Anna Klingmann The MIT Press , 2007 Paperback (2010) | 7 x 9 inches | 378 pages | 100 b/w illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0262515030 | $31.00 Publisher Description : In the twenty-first century, we must learn to look at cities not as skylines but as brandscapes and at buildings not as objects but as advertisements and destinations. In the experience economy, experience itself has become the product: we're no longer consuming objects but sensations, even lifestyles. In the new environment of brandscapes, buildings are not about where we work and live but who we imagine ourselves to be. In Brandscapes, Anna Klingmann looks critically at the controversial practice of branding by examining its benefits, and considering the damage it may do. Klingmann argues that architecture can use the concepts and methods of branding—not as a quick-and-easy selling tool for architects but as a strategic tool for economic and cultura...

MONU #29: Narrative Urbanism Magazine on Urbanism , October 2018 Paperback | 7-3/4 x 10-1/2 inches | 128 pages | English | ISSN: 1860-3211 | $23.99 Publisher Description : Understanding Urban Narratives - Interview with Cassim Shepard by Bernd Upmeyer; Narrative is the New Black - On the Death of Modern Language by Omar Kassab; Hong Kong Is Land by MAP Office (Gutierrez and Portefaix); Les Grands Ensembles by Pierre Huyghe; Bangkok Domestic Tastes by INDA, Alicia Lazzaroni and Antonio Bernacchi; Talk on the Wild Side: Moving Beyond Storytelling in Cities by Nick Dunn and Dan Dubowitz; Narrating an Analogical Urbanism: Rooms+Cities by Cameron McEwan and Lorens Holm; Storytelling “No New York” by Lorenzo Lazzari; The Grid and the Bedrock by Tiago Torres-Campos; Geostories by Design Earth; Narrating Motherland through Migrating Architectural Objects by Seda Yildiz; Right to the Narrative – Walking Interviews by Amila Širbegovic; Wild Pigeon by Carolyn Drake; Detroit’s Nain Rouge...

Victor Lundy: Artist Architect Donna Kacmar (Editor) Princeton Architectural Press , October 2018 Hardcover | 8-1/2 x 10-1/2 inches | 240 pages | 200 illustrations | Languages | ISBN: 978-1616896614 | $55.00 Publisher Description : If you're looking for something new under the midcentury sun, Victor Lundy (born 1923) is a real find, an important yet underappreciated figure in the history of American architecture. Trained in both the Beaux Arts and Bauhaus traditions, he built an impressive practice ranging from small-scale residential and commercial buildings to expressive religious buildings and two preeminent institutional works: the US Tax Court Building in Washington, DC (now on the National Register of Historic Places), and the US Embassy in Sri Lanka. This first book on Lundy's life and career documents his early work in the Sarasota School of Architecture, his churches, and his government buildings. In addition to essays on his use of light and material, ma...

Modern Forms: A Subjective Atlas of 20th-Century Architecture Nicolas Grospierre Prestel , April 2018 Paperback | 7-3/4 x 9 inches | 224 pages | 176 color illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3791384313 | $24.95 Publisher Description : Both a reference work and a personal exploration of modernist architecture, this fascinating collection of Nicolas Grospierre’s photography covers structures built between 1920 and 1989 in Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia. These images range from iconic buildings, such as the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis and the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific Research and Development in Kiev, to little-known structures such as the Balneological Hospital in Druskininkai, Lithuania or Oscar Niemeyer’s unfinished International Fair Grounds in Tripoli, Lebanon. Derived from his popular blog, A Subjective Atlas of Modern Architecture , and organized by architectural form, this book reveals how modernist architecture is the embodiment of p...