A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Here is the next installment of  "Book Briefs,"  the series of occasional posts featuring short first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that publishers send to me for consideration on this blog. Obviously, these briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than those that end up as long reviews. Ambiguous Territory:  Architecture, Landscape and the Postnatural edited by Cathryn Dwyre, Chris Perry, David Salomon, Kathy Velikov | Actar Publishers | August 2022 | 6-1/2 x 10 inches | 320 pages | $39.95 |  Amazon  /  Bookshop Ambiguous Territory began as a symposium and exhibition at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning in fall 2017, with the exhibition traveling to three other schools of architecture in Virginia and New York over the next two years. The Ambiguous Territory  book features the 40-plus projects from the exhibition as well as close to...

AIA Guide to Chicago by American Institute of Architects Chicago, edited by Laurie McGovern Petersen University of Illinois Press , June 2022 Paperback | 5 x 10 inches | 648 pages | 580 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780252086731 | $42.95 | "The new fourth edition of the acclaimed guidebook" ( click here for publisher's description and author bio ) REFERRAL LINKS :       Architectural Guide Chicago: A Critic's Guide to 100 Post-Modern Buildings in Chicago from 1978 to 2025 by Vladimir Belogolovsky DOM Publishers , August 2022 Paperback | 5-1/4 x 9-1/2 inches | 280 pages | 745 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9783869224183 | €38 | "This book looks at Chicago through the prism of Post-Modernism — under the premise that this style did not cease to exist sometime in the 1990s, but is, in fact, still with us today." ( click here for publisher's description and author bio ) REFERRAL LINKS :       REVIEW : Full disclosure: I wrote a g...

When Eero Met His Match: Aline Louchheim Saarinen and the Making of an Architect by Eva Hagberg Princeton University Press , September 2022 Hardcover | 6-1/4 x 9-1/2 inches | 232 pages | 35 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780691206677 | $33 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Aline B. Louchheim (1914–1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. She would become his wife and the driving force behind his rise to critical prominence. When Eero Met His Match draws on the couple’s personal correspondence to reconstruct the early days of their thrilling courtship and traces Louchheim’s gradual takeover of Saarinen’s public narrative in the 1950s, the decade when his career soared to unprecedented heights. Drawing on her own experiences as an architecture journalist on the receiving end of press pitches and then as a secret publicist for high-end architects, Eva Hagberg paints an unforgettable portrait ...