A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

In 2020, the second year for A Daily Dose of Architecture Books, I featured more than 150 books in six day-of-the-week categories:  Monograph Monday  (30 books),  Technical Tuesday  (13),  World Wednesday  (28),  History/Theory Thursday  (28),  Free-for-all Friday  (32), and  Wayback Weekend  (27). Rather than picking one favorite in each category, as I did last year , I'm creating two Top-10 lists from those 158 books: Books published in 2020 Books reviewed this year but published before 2020 Below are the lists, with books in alphabetical order by title and links to my original reviews. With this post I'm taking a two-week break, resuming reviews on January 4, 2021. Happy holidays to all! Favorites published in 2020: Eileen Gray, Designer and Architect edited by Cloé Pitiot and Nina Stritzler-Levine, published by Bard Graduate Center Eyes That Saw: Architecture After Las Vegas edited by Stanislaus von Moos and Martino Stier...

Lunuganga Geoffrey Bawa Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2006 Hardcover | 10-1/2 x 12 inches | 220 pages | English | ISBN: 978-9812618443 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Lunuganga is considered today , as being one of the great private gardens of the Twentieth century. It is now administered by the Lunuganga Trust and can be visited by prior appointment. Lunuganga, is the enchanting creation of the Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa. He transformed an abandoned rubber estate in Southwest Sri Lanka, and created a series of carefully orchestrated, mystical gardens - a place of varying moods and sensations. This book contains a series of stunning black and white photographs, taken by two of Bawa's closest friends - Christoph Bon and Dominic Sansoni. The text in the book is by Geoffrey Bawa himself, offering an exciting insight into this charismatic architect's innovative way of thinking. Geoffrey Bawa was born in Sri Lanka in 1919. In a career which spanned four decades he built s...

Houses for Sale Michael Meredith, Hilary Sample Corraini Edizioni / CCA , November 2019 Hardcover | 8-3/4 x 12-1/2 inches | 126 pages | 128 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-8875707040 | $45.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : In Houses for Sale , architects Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of MOS Architects invite readers on their family’s quest for a new home through the annals of architectural history, exploring details and peculiarities from some of the greatest names in architecture. When they realize that there isn’t any one house that suits them perfectly, they decide to design their own. In doing so, Meredith and Sample come to the conclusion that no building is perfect and that architecture is an exciting, ever-evolving project in which the process of bringing a new building to life through design and construction can be even more satisfying than the final product itself. Published in collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Houses for Sale is a charming...

The Queens Nobody Knows: An Urban Walking Guide William B. Helmreich Princeton University Press , October 2020 Paperback | 5-1/2 x 8 inches | 488 pages | 65 illustrations + 48 maps | English | ISBN: 978-0691166889 | $24.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Bill Helmreich walked every block of New York City—some six-thousand miles—to write the award-winning The New York Nobody Knows . Later, he re-walked most of Queens—1,012 miles in all—to create this one-of-a-kind walking guide to the city’s largest borough, from hauntingly beautiful parks to hidden parts of Flushing’s Chinese community. Drawing on hundreds of conversations he had with residents during his block-by-block journey through this fascinating, diverse, and underexplored borough, Helmreich highlights hundreds of facts and points of interest that you won’t find in any other guide. In Bellerose, you’ll explore a museum filled with soul-searing artwork created by people with mental illness. In Douglaston, you’ll gaze up in awe ...

Mr. Bawa I Presume Giovanna Silva Hatje Cantz , August 2020 Paperback | 8-3/4 x 12-1/2 inches | 160 pages | 125 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3775747141 | $46.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : His home in Lunuganga, sixty kilometers south of Colombo, was his “journeyman work”, and the five-star hotel in Kandalama was one of his masterpieces. In Europe the name Geoffrey Bawa is still only known to insiders, but in the Asian region he has long been one of the most celebrated cult figures in architecture. Anyone traveling through Sri Lanka will find themselves unable to avoid his much-copied architectural style. Bawa developed what is known today as “tropical modernism”: minimalist, reductionist concrete structures that feature traditional craftsmanship and natural materials, while also leaving as much room as possible for nature. Bawa practiced what has now become a global trend since the 1950s: green architecture, environmentally friendly construction. One of his most important...

Apartments for the Affluent: A Historical Survey of Buildings in New York Andrew Alpern McGraw-Hill, 1975 Hardcover | 8-1/2 x 11 inches | 166 pages | English | ISBN: 978-0070013728 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION (from dust jacket) : Lavishly illustrated, this volume portrays more than seventy of Manhattan's most famous apartment houses, from the first one in 1869 through those of the present day. Informative, entertaining, and lively it recounts the fascinating history of "flats" for those with social standing and for those who aspired to make their way into society. The first work to systematically document the development of luxury apartments, the book traces the development of apartment houses, tells about some of their peculiarities, and examines a number of unusual buildings. The buildings represented have been selected either because they are typical of a certain type or because they are unique. The book includes detailed floor plans and contains more than one hu...

Stanford White in Detail Samuel G. White; photographs by Jonathan Wallen The Monacelli Press , October 2020 Hardcover | 7 x 9 inches | 256 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1580935388 | $40.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Once proposed as the “Commissioner of Beauty” for New York City, Stanford White was a master of architecture, interior design, and ornament, fearlessly juxtaposing materials and objects from myriad cultures and times. Drawing on precedents from antiquity and the Renaissance, from Asia, the Middle East, and Europe as well as Colonial America, White created complex surfaces inside and out. Stanford White in Detail examines this innovative and intricate web through lush, tightly framed vignettes of carved wood and marble, metalwork, mosaic, and tile as well as generous overall room views to demonstrate how these are woven together for a unique effect. Samuel G. White , a great-grandson of Stanford White, is a senior partner of PBDW Architects in New York. He is the auth...