A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Being the Mountain PRODUCTORA (Carlos Bedoya, Wonne Ickx, Victor Jaime, Abel Perles) Actar Publishers /IITAC Press, May 2020 Hardcover | 6-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches | 96 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1948765510 | $34.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : The result of research PRODUCTORA initiated as winners of the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize for Emerging Practice at Illinois Institute of Technology, Being the Mountain examines the relationship between architecture and the ground it occupies, an interaction so obvious—a building must touch the ground—that it often remains underexplored. Richly illustrated contributions by Carlos Bedoya, Frank Escher, Wonne Ickx, Véronique Patteeuw, and Jesús Vassallo revisit significant moments in architectural history that cast new light on the techniques and legacies of modernism, especially in settings like Mexico and California, where architects such as Ricardo Legorreta and John Lautner incorporated dramatic natural topography in their agendas. Addition...

Noguchi in Paris: The UNESCO Garden Marc Treib William Stout Publishers /UNESCO Publishing, 2003 Hardcover | 8 x 10-1/4 inches | 148 pages | 87 illustrations | English | ISBN: 0970973144 | $45.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : The garden for the UNESCO House in Paris marks a pivotal point in Noguchi's evolution as an environmental artist. Here he defines his vision of space rather than form as the essence of design. This is the first book to present an in-depth study of this important garden. Marc Treib  is professor of architecture emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and a noted landscape and architectural historian and critic. REFERRAL LINKS :   dDAB COMMENTARY : This last Monday I featured the revised edition of Christian Tschumi's monograph on Japanese garden designer Mirei Shigemori. A few years ago I was fortunate enough to come across and buy the first edition when I was writing 100 Years, 100 Landscape Designs , which includes Shigemori's Tōfu...

DIY City: The Collective Power of Small Actions Hank Dittmar Island Press , June 2020 Paperback | 5-1/4 x 8 inches | 166 pages | 25 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1642830521 | $30.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Some utopian plans have shaped our cities —from England’s New Towns and Garden Cities to the Haussmann plan for Paris and the L’Enfant plan for Washington, DC. But these grand plans are the exception, and seldom turn out as envisioned by the utopian planner. Inviting city neighborhoods are more often works of improvisation on a small scale. This type of bottom-up development gives cities both their character and the ability to respond to sudden change. Hank Dittmar, urban planner, friend of artists and creatives, sometime rancher, “high priest of town planning” to the Prince of Wales, believed in letting small things happen. Dittmar concluded that big plans were often the problem. Looking at the global cities of the world, he saw a crisis of success, with gentrificatio...

Eyes That Saw: Architecture after Las Vegas Stanislaus von Moos, Martino Stierli (Editors) Scheidegger and Spiess , August 2020 Paperback | 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches | 504 pages | 175 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3858818201 | $49.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Published in 1972, Learning from Las Vegas was an almost instant—yet controversial— classic. Born of a design and research studio led by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and graduate student Steven Izenour at the Yale School of Architecture in 1968, its exploration of the signs and urban form of Las Vegas revitalized the architecture discourse of the 1970s and a key reference for postmodernism in architecture, urban design, visual art, and history more broadly. It remains influential for architects, urbanists, and design theorists to the present day. Five decades after the legendary Las Vegas studio, Eyes that Saw: Architecture after Las Vegas offers a richly illustrated collection of essays investigating the signi...

Transformations in Classical Architecture: New Directions in Research and Practice Victor Deupi (Editor) Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers , December 2018 Hardcover | 7-1/4 x 9-1/4 inches | 412 pages | 420 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1946226228 | $65.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : A quiet revolution is unfolding in the realm of classical architecture today, as the environmental, technological, and economic demands of contemporary practice require levels of efficiency that were never previously expected. This new wave of modern classicism reflects a progressive approach, addressing the pressing needs of the present and future fabric of our cities, towns and landscapes. This book examines how classical - and traditional - architecture can evolve in relation to new paradigms of research and practice (digital media and fabrication, sustainability, ecology, and emerging economies). Based on recent work by leading figures associated with the University of Miami School of Architectu...

Mirei Shigemori - Rebel in the Garden:  Modern Japanese Landscape Architecture Christian Tschumi Birkhäuser , August 2020 (2nd revised edition) Hardcover | 9-1/2 x 13 inches | 204 pages | 350 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3035621754 | $57.99 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Mirei Shigemori had a major impact on the development of Japanese landscape architecture in the twentieth century. Active from the 1920s, he founded the Kyoto Garden Society in 1932. In 1939 he designed his own first masterpiece, the garden at the main hall of the Tôfuku-ji temple. From then on he designed 240 gardens all over Japan until his death in 1975; amongst the most famous are the Tenrai-an tea garden (1969) and the Matsuo Taisha garden (1975). The main characteristic of his gardens is that they respect tradition and, at the same time, depart from conventional paradigms by opening up to the influence of Western modernism with its own language. The first part of the book covers Shigemori’s life and fac...