A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

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...

Ornament & Identity: Neutelings Riedijk Architects Neutelings Riedijk Architects Hatje Cantz , March 2018 Hardcover | 9-3/4 x 11-1/2 inches | 336 pages | 260 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3775742153 | $85.00 Publisher Description : Ornament and Identity is the successor of the well-received At Work , a publication by renowned Rotterdam based architecture firm Neutelings Riedijk. In their new publication they convincingly demonstrate that buildings with a powerful expression create new local identities in a globalized world. In twelve themed chapters Moiré, Image, Seam, Emblem, Letter, Pattern, Cutout, Ridge, Grid, Lozenge, Relief and Filigree, readers are guided on the exploration of the connection between form, meaning and contemporary ornaments. Images of realized buildings, intriguing scale models, material samples, and unique ornaments designed by Neutelings Riedijk Architects illustrate the craftsmanship and their search for expression and identity. ...

Neighbourhood: Where Álvaro meets Aldo  edited by Nuno Grande and Roberto Cremascoli, published by  Hatje Cantz , 2017. Paperback, 208 pages. ( Amazon ) Of the many countries that participate in the Venice Architecture Biennale, Portugal is one of those that does not have a home in the Giardini. As such, it ventures out into the city for a venue – not necessarily a bad thing, since it spreads out the exhibition beyond the confines of the Giardini and Arsenale and further embeds the exhibition in the city. In 2016, Portugal's contribution to the Biennale was located on Giudecca, the long island that, outside of Palladio's Il Redentore, doesn't see as many tourists as the rest of Venice. Curators Nuno Grande and Roberto Cremascoli did this for a good reason though: they wanted to draw attention to an unfinished work by Alvaro Siza, Portugal's most famous modern architect. [Exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale | Photo: John Hill] Neighbourhood: Wher...

Wiel Arets-Bas Princen edited by John Bezold, published by  Hatje Cantz , 2015. Hardcover, 164 pages. ( Amazon ) The two names in this book's title indicate it is not a run-of-the-mill monograph. Instead, it is as much about artist/photographer Bas Princen as it is about architect Wiel Arets . It follows two other atypical books on the Dutch architect: Stills (2011), which compiles Arets's numerous essays and interviews alongside some photographs of projects; and Autobiographical References (2012), which features mainly interviews between Arets and author/educator Robert McCarter. Those books are heavy on words and theory, perhaps paving the way for this book's almost total reliance on photographs by Princen. Photos in the coffee table book are full-page, with the occasional full-spread photo. To give each photo the utmost attention, the full-page photos are accompanied by a blank white page — as the spreads here attest, there is never another photo to distract....

Candide No. 6 edited by Susanne Schindler, Andres Lepik and Axel Sowa, published by  Hatje Cantz , 2012. Paperback, 144 pages. ( Amazon ) Since its first issue in 2009, Candide - Journal for Architectural Knowledge has followed a format with five distinct sections: "'Analysis' investigates forms of the built environment, looking for the knowledge invested in them. 'Essay' offers space for a personal exploration of one of the grand themes of architecture. 'Project' serves as a forum for practicing architects and their works. 'Encounter' highlights the wealth of experience of famous or unjustly forgotten architects. 'Fiction' appeals to the power of the imagination, which occasionally transports more knowledge than does empirical research." Rather than asking authors to respond to a theme (as is the norm in a number of architectural publications these days), Candide uses the sections as means of exploring architec...

Terunobu Fujimori: Architect edited by Michael Buhrs and Hannes Rössler, published by  Hatje Cantz , 2012. Paperback, 240 pages. ( Amazon ) This book on Japanese architect Terunobu Fujimori was published on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition at Museum Villa Stuck in Munich. Fujimori, known for his quirky teahouse designs, contributed a " trojan pig " on wheels for Villa Stuck, though he changed it to a coffee house, since that drink is more popular in Germany than tea (but less so than beer, which he didn't think would work in a small space). The "walking cafe," as the architect calls it, is one of more than 20 projects collected in this very welcome book on the architect who practiced as an architectural historian for two decades before realizing his first building at age 42. This now well-known past has led to designs that are highly idiosyncratic, neither repeating modernist tactics nor traditional ones. Fujimori actually spells this...

Although most architectural photography would not be considered fine art, buildings and cities are a popular subject by photographers. Documenting an individual building is the typical purview of architectural photography, yet these three books exhibit a tendency to explore particular facets of the man-made environment: Spaces of all sorts of authority (Richard Ross), Asian cities (Peter Bialobrzeski), the derelict industrial structures of the American West (David Stark Wilson). These subjects, outside of their focus on the built environment, could not be any different from each other in terms of subject, yet they all exude an appreciation of their subject that is influenced by the photographers' means of execution. Architecture of Authority  by Richard Ross, published by Aperture, 2007. Hardcover, 144 pages. ( Amazon ) The cover of Richard Ross 's Architecture of Authority makes clear that the book is powerful for what it lacks: people. Here ar...

In the Absence of Raimund Abraham: Vienna Architecture Conference 2010 edited by Peter Noever and Wolf D. Prix, published by  Hatje Cantz , 2011. Paperback, 128 pages. ( Amazon ) Three months after architect and educator Raimund Abraham died in a car crash in Los Angeles, the MAK and University of Applied Arts held the Vienna Architecture Conference 2010: In the Absence of Raimund Abraham. Even though the architect of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York had an obviously strained relationship with his country of birth (born in the Tyrol in 1933, he renounced his citizenship in 2000 when the Freedom Party came into power), a number of people close to Abraham traveled to Vienna to recount stories and celebrate his life, one defined as much by his mustache, hat and cigar as by his drawings and passion for architecture. Transcripts of the conference's round table discussions with Thom Mayne, Wolf D. Prix, Vito Acconci, Kenneth Frampton, Eric Owen Moss, Peter Noeve...

Urban Future Manifestos edited by Peter Noever and Kimberli Meyer, published by  Hatje Cantz , 2011. Paperback, 168 pages. ( Amazon ) As Ulrich Conrads asserts in Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture , "Nearly every important development in the modern architectural movement began with the proclamation of these convictions in the form of a program or manifesto." Yet today, a time of acknowledged social and environmental crises, manifestos seem to be a thing of the past. Rem Koolhaas may have subtitled Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan , but that was back in 1978 and it hardly resembles the calls for action in Conrads's collection, such as "Ornament and Crime" by Adolf Loos and "Futurist Architecture" by Antonio Sant'Elia and Filippo Tomassa Marinetti. Later Koolhaas wrote about "Bigness" and "Junkspace," but these and other writings on architecture ...

Raimund Abraham & the Austrian Cultural Forum New York edited by Andres Lepik and Andreas Stadler, published by  Hatje Cantz , 2011. Hardcover, 128 pages. ( Amazon ) Flow: The Making of the Omega Center for Sustainable Living by Bob Berkebile, Stephen McDowell, Laura Lesniewski, published by  ORO Editions , 2010. Paperback, 120 pages. ( Amazon ) As professed in an earlier review, I'm a big fan of books about individual buildings . Compared with magazines and blogs, books about specific buildings allow more study, attention, and visuals towards worthy designs, be they contemporary or historical. These two recent books on single buildings focus on Raimund Abraham's Austrian Cultural Forum New York (ACFNY) and BNIM 's Omega Center for Sustainable Living ( OCSL ) in Rhinebeck, New York. The former was completed in 2002, and the latter was completed last year for the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. Each building is being celebrated in book form f...