A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession Reinier de Graaf Harvard University Press , October 2019 Paperback | 6 x 9 inches | 528 pages | 70 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0674976108 | $22.00 Publisher Description : Architecture, we like to believe, is an elevated art form that shapes the world as it pleases. Four Walls and a Roof challenges this notion, presenting a candid account of what it is really like to work as an architect. Drawing on his own tragicomic experiences in the field, Reinier de Graaf reveals the world of contemporary architecture in vivid snapshots: from suburban New York to the rubble of northern Iraq, from the corridors of wealth in London, Moscow, and Dubai to garbage-strewn wastelands that represent the demolished hopes of postwar social housing. We meet oligarchs determined to translate ambitions into concrete and steel, developers for whom architecture is mere investment, and the layers of politicians, bureaucrats, con...

Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition Sigfried Giedion Harvard University Press , February 2009 Paperback | 7 x 9-1/2 inches | 960 pages | 550 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0674030473 | $53.50 Publisher Description : A milestone in modern thought, Space, Time and Architecture has been reissued many times since its first publication in 1941 and translated into half a dozen languages. In this revised edition of Sigfried Giedion’s classic work, major sections have been added and there are 81 new illustrations. The chapters on leading contemporary architects have been greatly expanded. There is new material on the later development of Frank Lloyd Wright and the more recent buildings of Walter Gropius, particularly his American Embassy in Athens. In his discussion of Le Corbusier, Mr. Giedion provides detailed analyses of the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, Le Corbusier’s only building in the United States, and his Priory of La Tourette near ...