A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

The China Lab Guide to Megablock Urbanisms Jeffrey Johnson, Cressica Brazier, Tat Lam (Editors) Actar Publishers / Columbia GSAPP , November 2020 Paperback | 7 x 9-3/4 inches | 408 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1940291161 | $49.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Superblocks are the basic unit of China’s urban development, but they are also spatial instruments with social, cultural, environmental, and economic implications, operating between the scales of architecture and the city. These redefined ‘Megablocks’ then become laboratories for the consequences, opportunities, and potential global proliferation of Chinese urban models, reconsidered through the filters of ecology, economics, and ethics. In The Guide to Megablock Urbanisms , the Columbia GSAPP China Lab aims to document a wider conversation on the policies and collective experiences of large-scale development and advances of China’s urban future. Jeffrey Johnson  is the director of the School of Architecture at the University o...

The Revolution Will Be Stopped Halfway: Oscar Niemeyer in Algeria Jason Oddy Columbia Books on Architecture and the City , September 2019 Paperback | 9 x 11 inches | 208 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1941332504 | $35.00 Publisher's Description : Of all of the Brazilian modernist Oscar Niemeyer’s many built works, his Algerian projects are among the least well known. Beginning in 1968, Algeria’s President Houari Boumediene commissioned Niemeyer to build two universities and an Olympic sports hall, as well as a series of large-scale, never-realized projects across Algeria, in an attempt to forge a modern, independent nation. In 2013, Jason Oddy produced an in-depth photographic survey of these buildings as they exist in Algeria today. The Revolution Will Be Stopped Halfway collects those images alongside archival documents and Oddy’s further research into Niemeyer’s Algerian work in order to explore the revolutionary politics that inspired and formed these buildings. dDAB C...

Biennials/Triennials: Conversations on the Geography of Itinerant Display Léa-Catherine Szacka Columbia Books on Architecture and the City , August 2019 Paperback | 5-1/2 x 8 inches | 176 pages | 62 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1941332559 | $18.00 Publisher's Description : In the forty years since the first iteration of Venice Architecture Biennale, the field of architecture has seen a remarkable change in the role played by exhibition-making. While architecture and display have long been intertwined practices, a rapid proliferation of large-scale perennial exhibitions—particularly in the twenty-first century—has resulted in the biennial / triennial becoming an integral part of our discipline, a new geography of itinerant display that has profoundly altered the contours of architectural thought. Between format, space, and content, what are the various agencies and effects of these events? Biennials / Triennials asks these questions and others of a range of curator...

Space Settlements Fred Scharmen Columbia Books on Architecture and the City , July 2019 Paperback | 5-3/4 x 8 inches | 416 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1941332498 | $24.00 Publisher Description : In the summer of 1975, NASA brought together a team of physicists, engineers, and space scientists—along with architects, urban planners, and artists—to design large-scale space habitats for millions of people. This Summer Study was led by Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill, whose work on this topic had previously been funded by countercultural icon Stewart Brand’s Point Foundation. Two painters, the artist and architect Rick Guidice and the planetary science illustrator Don Davis, created renderings for the project that would be widely circulated over the next years and decades and even included in testimony before a Congressional subcommittee. A product of its time, this work is nevertheless relevant to contemporary modes of thinking about architecture. Space Settlements examines t...

Abstract 09/10 Scott Marble (Editor) with Jordan Carver and Jason Roberts Columbia GSAPP , December 2010 Paperback w/slipcase | 7-1/2 x 11 inches | 316 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1883584689 | $X.00 Publisher Description : Abstract is the yearly publication of student work from Columbia University’s GSAPP. The catalog is produced through the office of Dean Mark Wigley. The archive of student work, containing documentation of projects selected by faculty at the conclusion of each semester, is utilized in the making of Abstract. dDAB Commentary : As mentioned in my review of the most recent Abstract from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), the annual publication of student work has taken a different form depending on the dean. Both Bernard Tschumi (dean from 1988 to 2003) and Amale Andrao (dean since 2014) use(d) consistent formats, with the former relatively slim and modest by today's standards and the latter mark...

Abstract 2018 Amale Andraos, Shannon Werle (Editors) Columbia GSAPP / Actar , April 2019 Spira-bound paperback | 8 x 11 inches | 372 pages | English | ISBN: 978-1941332511 | $35.00 Publisher Description : Abstract is the yearly publication of work and research from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). Produced through the Office of the Dean Amale Andraos, the archive of student work contains documentation of exceptional projects, selected by faculty at the conclusion of each semester. dDAB Commentary : If any architecture school gives an excessive amount of attention to its year-end presentation of student work and the goings-on of the school, it's Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, best known as GSAPP ("Gee sap"). Long called Abstract , the publications this century are bold in format and design, each one different, or slightly different, from its predecessor...