A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

When Arata Isozaki died at the end of 2022 at the age of 91, nearly all of the news stories and obituaries mentioned that he was a Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, and  quite a few  also included mention of the Pritzker Prize in the headline. Although the Pritzker has long been likened to the Nobel Prize, the importance of "architecture's Nobel" in coverage of stories involving their laureates also puts it on par with the Academy Awards. "Oscar-winning" is a common phrase in an obituary or other headline involving an actor, director, or producer who won an Academy Award at one point in their life. Mention of Pritzker, Oscar, Nobel, or other prestigious prizes signals to readers not so well versed in architecture/Hollywood/science/etc. that the subject of the story is/was important in their field, just as it elevates the prize within the field, indicating that it is the highest honor that person could garner. Awards like the Pritzker also serve to structur...

Hutong Metabolism: ZAO/standardarchitecture With contributions by Farrokh Derakhshani, Mohsen Mostafavi, Kenneth Frampton, Martino Stierli, Nondita Correa Mehrotra, Zhang Ke, Kristin Feireiss, Hans-Jürgen Commerell, Amanda Ju Aga Khan Award for Architecture / ArchiTangle , September 2021 Hardcover | 6-3/4 x 9-1/2 inches | 288 pages | 150 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9783966800150 |  € 38 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Small stone hutongs, built within a courtyard-and-alley system, are emblematic of Beijing’s traditional inner-city architecture which still contends with modern, cooperate redevelopments to shape the character of the city. In one of the oldest cities in China, the important tasks of preservation and revitalization require particular sensitivity. Captured at the centre of the battlefield between development, conservation and renovation, the hutongs, on the verge of erasure, call into question the paradoxical nature of these paradigms. The Micro Hutong Renewal serie...

Who's Next? Homelessness, Architecture, and Cities Edited by Daniel Talesnik and Andres Lepik ArchiTangle , November 2021 Hardcover | 10 x 12 inches | 272 pages (plus 16-page booklet) | 212 illustrations | English (also available in German ) | ISBN: 9783966800174 | $68.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Homelessness—the state of having no home—is a growing global problem that requires local discussions and solutions. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, it has noticeably become a collective concern.   However, in recent years, the official political discourse in many countries around the world implies that poverty is a personal fault, and that if people experience homelessness, it is because they have not tried hard enough to secure shelter and livelihood. Although architecture alone cannot solve the problem of homelessness, the question arises: What and which roles can it play? Or, to be more precise, how can architecture collaborate with other disciplines in developing ways...

The Kinetic City and Other Essays by Rahul Mehrotra ArchiTangle , August 2021 Hardcover | 6 x 9 inches | 352 pages | 300 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9783966800136 | €45 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : This book presents Rahul Mehrotra’s writings over the last thirty years and illustrates his long-term engagement with and analysis of urbanism in India. This work has given rise to a new conceptualization of the city. Mehrotra calls it the Kinetic City, which is the counterpoint to the Static City, as familiar to most of us from conventional city maps. He argues that the city should instead be perceived, read, and mapped in terms of patterns of occupation and associative values attributed to space. The framework is established in this publication by Rahul Mehrotra’s anchor essay, which draws out its potential to “allow a better understanding of the blurred lines of contemporary urbanism and the changing roles of people and spaces in urban society.” The emerging urban Indian conditi...

Book of Models Manuel Aires Mateus, Francisco Aires Mateus; edited by Camilla De Camilli; photographs by Marco Cappelletti ArchiTangle , March 2021 Flexicover | 9-1/2 x 12-1/4 inches | 224 pages | 200 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3966800112 | 48€ PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : This poetic and minimalist anthology presents 10 years of heritage of AIRES MATEUS design studios at the Accademia di Archittettura di Mendrisio in Switzerland. 100 images of largescale models built by students of AIRES MATEUS are brought together to create a family portrait. Each staged model is pictured with the essential schemes necessary to understand the volumes portrayed. Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus’ many years of experience in pedagogy and the use of models in practice are brought together in a manifesto which precedes the anthology of images. The importance of the model in the formation of architectural ideas and throughout the design process, as well as its potency as a standalone stateme...

Arvo Pärt Centre & Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: A Common Denominator Michael Pärt (Editor) ArchiTangle , February 2021 Hardcover | 11-1/4 x 11-1/4 inches | 212 pages | 110 illustrations | English + Estonian (plus booklet with German + Spanish translations) | ISBN: 978-3966800037 | $68.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : The book embodies a bridge between the dimensions of music, architecture and landscape: the music of Arvo Pärt with the architecture of Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano in the surrounding pine forest landscape in Laulasmaa, Estonia, to form one infused entity. This book is many books. The first takes the reader on a journey throughout the spaces within the Arvo Pärt Centre. The second is a book of words. It reveals quotations from Arvo Pärt’s musical diaries. The third book embraces us with score elements turning into architecture elements. The fourth book is an architecture sketchbook. It contains a graphical description of the whole project from an architectur...