A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

An Unfinished Encyclopedia of Scale Figures without Architecture Michael Meredith, Hilary Sample, MOS (Editors) The MIT Press , January 2019 Hardcover | 8-1/2 x 11 inches | 1,256 pages | 1,248 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0262038676 | $85.00 Publisher's Description : Architects draw buildings, and the buildings they draw are usually populated by representations of the human figure—drawn, copied, collaged, or inserted—most often to suggest scale. It is impossible to represent architecture without representing the human form. This book collects more than 1,000 scale figures by 250 architects but presents them in a completely unexpected way: it removes them from their architectural context, displaying them on the page, buildingless, giving them lives of their own. They are presented not thematically or chronologically but encyclopedically, alphabetically by architect (Aalto to Zumthor). In serendipitous juxtapositions, the autonomous human figures appear and reappear...

From Crisis to Crisis: Debates on Why Architecture Criticism Matters Today Nasrin Seraji, Sony Devabhaktuni, Xiaoxuan Lu (Editors) Actar Publishers  and the University of Hong Kong Department of Architecture, August 2019 Paperback | 6 x 9 inches | 280 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1948765053 | $34.95 Publisher's Description : From Crisis to Crisis examines how reading, writing and criticism can address the urgent issues faced by architecture today, including: the role of the architect in the era of specialization; the function of criticism in diverse political, economic and cultural contexts; and, the possibility of architectural education to take on history, theory, civic engagement and political participation. Drawn from an international public symposium organized in the spring of 2017 by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Department of Architecture, the book is comprised in equal parts of focused essays and transcripts of the wide-ranging discussions. From Cr...

Frank Lloyd Wright's Contribution to the Beauty of American Life November 1955 issue (Vol. 98, No. 11) of House Beautiful Hardcover | 384 pages | English | 50¢ (cover price) Publisher's Description : House Beautiful is devoting this entire issue to Frank Lloyd Wright. He has created a new beauty in architecture and a new idea of beauty for our time. He continues to inspire a whole world with his freedom, as he has for 60 years. He has achieved the immortality of influence and universal recognition, and continues to amaze even his admirers with the freshness of his latest work. And now he has designed a whole ensemble of home furnishings, which are being introduced this fall in stores across the country. dDAB Commentary : The other day I was writing something that referenced Frank Lloyd Wright's famous phrase that "the hearth is the psychological center of the home." This sentiment is attributed to him but always without a source, so I tried to quickl...

The Architecture of Closed Worlds: Or, What Is the Power of Shit? Lydia Kallipoliti Lars Müller Publishers , November 2018 Paperback | 7-3/4 x 10-3/4 inches | 360 pages | 300 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3037785805 | $40.00 Publisher's Description : What do outer space capsules, submarines, and office buildings have in common? Each is conceived as a closed system: a self-sustaining physical environment demarcated from its surroundings by a boundary that does not allow for the transfer of matter or energy. The Architecture of Closed Worlds is a genealogy of self-reliant environments. Contemporary discussions about global warming, recycling, and sustainability have emerged as direct conceptual constructs related to the study and analysis of closed systems. From the space program to countercultural architectural groups experimenting with autonomous living, this publication documents a disciplinary transformation and the rise of a new environmental consensus in the...

Beyond Petropolis: Designing a Practical Utopia in Nueva Loja Michael Sorkin, Ana María Durán Calisto, Matthias Altwicker (Editors) Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers , September 2017 Hardcover w/slipcase | 11-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches | 368 pages | 990 illustrations | English/Spanish | ISBN: 978-9881619426 | $50.00 Publisher's Description : Each year, the Graduate Program in Urban Design at The City College of New York travels to a city somewhere in the world that is experiencing a revelatory form of stress. In January of 2006 joined by students and faculty from the Universidad Catolica in Quito and from the architecture and landscape programs at CCNY – the destination of the group was the small town of Nueva Loja in the Amazon basin of Ecuador. At the time, a population of around 100,000 was expanding exponentially. Nueva Loja was the fastest growing municipality in the country. There was one reason for this: the oil boom. Indeed, almost everyone calls the place “Lago Agrio” – Bi...

Carlo Scarpa and Castelvecchio Revisited Richard Murphy Breakfast Mission Publishing, 2017 Paperback | 11-3/4 x 11-3/4 inches | 384 pages | 2000 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1527208902 | £70.00 Publisher's Description : Carlo Scarpa worked on the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona intermittently between 1957 and 1975. It is perhaps his most important project. His work there draws on all his remarkable skills. It demonstrates how to work creatively within a building which already possesses a complex history. It is a magnificent example of his highly personal language of architecture, not least his incredible eye for detail and mastery of the crafting of materials. And it contains a museum exhibition which is as radical and timeless today as the day it opened in 1964 and has served as an inspiration to museum designers ever since. His most extraordinary achievement is where all these themes coincide in the astonishing display of the equestrian statue of Cangrande, perhap...