A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Paul Rudolph: Inspiration and Process in Architecture Eugenia Bell (Editor) Princeton Architectural Press / Moleskine Books , November 2019 Hardcover | 5 x 8-1/4 inches | 144 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1616898656 | $24.95 Publisher's Description : Paul Rudolph (1918-1997) authored some of Modernism's most powerful designs and served as an influential educator while chair of Yale's School of Architecture. His early residential work in Sarasota, Florida, garnered international attention, and his later exploration of Brutalist materials and forms, most famously embodied in his Yale Art & Architecture Building (1963), earned Rudolph both notoriety and acclaim. Many of the dynamic drawings included in this collection--selected from the architect's archive housed in the Library of Congress --illustrate his highly emotive hand and deft drafting skill. They include his designs for Tuskegee University Chapel, Interama, Lower Manhattan Expressway, his analysis of M...

The Fourth Regional Plan: Making the Region Work for All of Us Regional Plan Association, August 2019 Paperback | 8-1/2 x 11 inches | 406 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1642830699 | $25.00 Publisher's Description : RPA’s Fourth Regional Plan is a long-term strategic plan to address the region’s most pressing issues—including housing affordability, overburdened transportation infrastructure, vulnerability to climate change, and failing governance structures. The plan, originally released as a website in late 2017, has now been published as a beautifully designed book, an enduring point of reference for students, planners, community leaders, advocates, government officials, and armchair urbanists. dDAB Commentary : The first regional plan produced by the Regional Plan Association (RPA), Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs , was released in 1929, on the cusp of the Great Depression. The Second Regional Plan  followed in 1968 at a time of great social change ...

Mind in Architecture: Neuroscience, Embodiment, and the Future of Design Sarah Robinson, Juhani Pallasmaa (Editors) The MIT Press , April 2015 Hardcover  (2017 in paperback)  | 7 x 9 inches | 270 pages | 71 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0262533607 | $39.95  Publisher's Description : Although we spend more than ninety percent of our lives inside buildings, we understand very little about how the built environment affects our behavior, thoughts, emotions, and well-being. We are biological beings whose senses and neural systems have developed over millions of years; it stands to reason that research in the life sciences, particularly neuroscience, can offer compelling insights into the ways our buildings shape our interactions with the world. This expanded understanding can help architects design buildings that support both mind and body. In Mind in Architecture, leading thinkers from architecture and other disciplines, including neuroscience, cognitive scien...

Intertwining: Baukultur Alessandro Gattara, Sarah Robinson, Davide Ruzzon (Editors) Mimesis International, September 2019 Paperback | 6-3/4 x 9-1/2 inches | 216 pages | English | ISBN: 978-8869772702 | $26.99 Publisher's Description : We want to move beyond thinking of architecture as an object. Architecture is not separate from us–it is not something to be judged merely by its formal properties, its satisfaction of programmatic concerns or its performance in terms of technical parameters. We are not dismissing the importance of these factors but wish to enrich them, to understand and articulate how architecture can capture and express unseen layers of meaning and purpose. We want to think of architecture as a verb, a mover, a shaper, an active agent in human flourishing. In order to appreciate the potential power of architecture we want to explore the experience of architecture, and the intimately related experience of making architecture. Turning our attention to expe...

a+t 52: Urban Park Strategies - Paradises Aurora Fernández Per, Javier Mozas (Editors) a+t , January 2019 Paperback | 9-1/2 x 12-1/2 inches | 120 pages | Spanish/English | ISBN: 978-8409098804 | 26.00 € Publisher's Description : Increasingly, and at a faster pace, nature becomes culture and as this occurs, so continues the construction of an increasingly artificial and imaginary paradise lost. The paradises of today are those public spaces where multiple spiritual postures fit, where each one is built while experiencing them. Javier Mozas traces a walk in search of paradise, through 5 historical models, starting in the 17th Century and ends at the beginning of the 20th Century. Aurora Fernández Per identifies and analyses within the selected works design strategies and actions with which to create accessible paradises for the citizen. The STRATEGY series, initiated in 2010, defines scalar scopes, evidences disciplinary origins and composes a grid that overlaps th...

The Letters of Colin Rowe: Five Decades of Correspondence Daniel Naegele (Editor) Artifice Press , September 2018 Hardcover | 7 x 10 inches | 560 pages | 14 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1908967534 | $49.95 Publisher's Description : Legendary architect, historian and critic, Colin Rowe taught Architecture and Urban Design at Liverpool University, the University of Texas at Austin, Cambridge University and for another 30 years at Cornell. From the late 1940s through to the early 1960s he wrote a uniquely perceptive series of articles on architecture that remains seminal to the discipline today. His books include The Mathematics of the Ideal villa and Other Essays , The Architecture of Good Intentions , the volume As I Was Saying , and most notably, Collage City , 1978, written with Fred Koetter. The recipient of the profession's highest honours, he was awarded the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education in 1985; and the Gold Medal of the Royal I...