A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

American Buildings and Their Architects, Volume 5: The Impact of European Modernism in the Mid-Twentieth Century William H. Jordy Oxford University Press , 1986 Paperback | 6 x 9-1/4 inches | 470 pages | 204 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780195042191 | $15.95 BOOK DESCRIPTION (from back cover) : American Buildings and Their Architects is an ambitious, five-volume study of American architecture. Each volume is designed around a representative group of buildings, which were photographed and studied in detail by the authors. Presented in their social and historical context, these buildings illuminate not only the development of American architecture, but the governing philosophies of America's most prominent architects.  Volume 5, The Impact of European Modernism in the Mid-Twentieth Century , examines the influence of European modernism on American architecture from 1930 to 1960. Beginning with Rockefeller Center, a premier example of the effect of modernism on Beaux-Art...

Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 by Harriet F. Senie, published by  Oxford University Press , 2016. Paperback, 262 pages. ( Amazon ) Before a review copy of Harriet F. Senie's new book arrived in the mail recently, the only book I'd read by the City College art history professor was The Tilted Arc Controversy: Dangerous Precedent? from 2002. That book was a must for a paper I wrote in graduate school on Javits Plaza, which was home to Richard Serra's Tilted Arc  before it was graced by curlicue benches designed by Martha Schwartz ( its latest incarnation was designed a few years ago by Michael Van Valkenburgh). That exhaustively researched book tackles the creation and reception of public art, so it makes sense that just over a decade later she focuses her attention on memorials, what are really another form of public art. The two projects that bracket the book are mentioned in its subtitle: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial  (VVM) in Washington, ...

The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New York by Suleiman Osman, published by  Oxford University Press , 2011. Hardcover, 360 pages. ( Amazon ) The first Historic District created by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission was not Greenwich Village or another section of Manhattan, it was Brooklyn Heights, designated in 1965. Districts in nearby Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and Park Slope followed in the ensuing years, helping to cement a low-scale urban fabric marked by residential brownstones. But the history of these places, now common names but hardly well-defined neighborhoods in the middle of the 20th century, is more complicated than these designations may attest. Moreover this history unfolds in the interactions between gentrification, grass-roots politics, urban renewal, and "a new romantic urban ideal" shared by middle-class people moving to the area. This book by Ge...

Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places by Sharon Zukin, published by  Oxford University Press , 2009. Hardcover, 312 pages. ( Amazon )   A brief history of US urbanism in the last half a century starts with the flight to the suburbs after World War II, moves on to the subsequent deterioration of cities and urban renewal plans that replaced so-called slums with public housing and other "towers in the park," and arrives at the present day with reinvestment in cities and the gradual reintroduction of suburbanites (and other new residents) into the spaces they abandoned. Needless to say, change in cities during that time has been great. The most recent phase includes the retrofitting of industrial buildings to residential uses, among other reconfigurations, but also new construction that reshapes skylines and transforms the lives of longtime residents. As cities like New York find themselves catering to developers that ...

AIA Guide to New York City, Fifth Edition by Norval White, Elliot Willensky and Fran Leadon, published by  Oxford University Press , 2010. Paperback, 1,088 pages. ( Amazon )   Those familiar with previous editions of the indispensible AIA Guide to New York City will notice the similarities and differences present in the fifth edition, the first with Fran Leadon*. The book is still about the size (and weight) of a small brick, though surprisingly, with extra entries from the last ten years of architecture in the city, the book is about the same number of pages and slimmer than the fourth edition. Different paper, thinner but better quality, contributes to this slight difference. The change to a two-column layout from a single column allows for larger photos (the previous edition squeezed most into a narrow vertical sidebar) and more content on fewer pages. The three-color scheme (black and white with brown) is maintained, but graphica...

Crabgrass Frontier by Kenneth T. Jackson, published by Oxford University Press , 1985. ( Amazon ) Redesigning the American Dream by Dolores Hayden, published by W. W. Norton , 2002. ( Amazon ) These two books, both published in the mid-1980s, provide two very different takes on the problem of suburbanization in the United States. Nevertheless the overlap between the two is great, most likely attributed to the breadth of research of each (particularly Jackson's more overarching historical study) and a critical-historical approach (here, stronger in the case of Hayden's book) rooted in the realization at the time that the trend of suburbanization needed re-evaluation.   Jackson's history of U.S. suburbanization ...