A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

In 1939, Otto Neurath's  Modern Man in the Making was released by Alfred A. Knopf. Neurath was director of the International Foundation of Visual Information and used the Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education) system to "teach through the eye."  A recent article describes Modern Man in the Making  as a "pictorial statistical history of human technological adaptation and social cooperation [that] addressed a modern audience searching for optimistic narratives amid an economically, politically, and socially volatile era." The book is a classic, and for someone like me who veers toward arguments made in a combination of words and images, it is a book I should probably have — at the very least, I should know more about it. Although it was released as a trade book, can be found cheaply in b/w reprints, and is freely available on the Internet Archive,  first editions of Modern Man in the Making  go for hundreds and thousands of dollars . Thi...

When Eero Met His Match: Aline Louchheim Saarinen and the Making of an Architect by Eva Hagberg Princeton University Press , September 2022 Hardcover | 6-1/4 x 9-1/2 inches | 232 pages | 35 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780691206677 | $33 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Aline B. Louchheim (1914–1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. She would become his wife and the driving force behind his rise to critical prominence. When Eero Met His Match draws on the couple’s personal correspondence to reconstruct the early days of their thrilling courtship and traces Louchheim’s gradual takeover of Saarinen’s public narrative in the 1950s, the decade when his career soared to unprecedented heights. Drawing on her own experiences as an architecture journalist on the receiving end of press pitches and then as a secret publicist for high-end architects, Eva Hagberg paints an unforgettable portrait ...

Piranesi Unbound by Carolyn Yerkes and Heather Hyde Minor Princeton University Press , September 2020 Hardcover | 9 x 11-1/2 inches | 240 pages | 193 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780691206103 | $65.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : A draftsman, printmaker, architect, and archaeologist, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78) is best known today as the virtuoso etcher of the immersive and captivating Views of Rome and the darkly inventive Imaginary Prisons. Yet Carolyn Yerkes and Heather Hyde Minor argue that his single greatest art form—one that combined his obsessions most powerfully and that he pursued throughout his career—was the book. Piranesi Unbound provides a fundamental reinterpretation of Piranesi by recognizing him, first and foremost, as a writer, illustrator, printer, and publisher of books. Featuring nearly two hundred of Piranesi’s engravings and drawings, including some that have never been published before, this visually stunning book returns Piranesi’s artworks ...

Where Are the Women Architects? by Despina Stratigakos Princeton University Press , April 2016 Paperback | 5 x 8 inches | 128 pages | 15 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780691170138 | $19.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : For a century and a half, women have been proving their passion and talent for building and, in recent decades, their enrollment in architecture schools has soared. Yet the number of women working as architects remains stubbornly low, and the higher one looks in the profession, the scarcer women become. Law and medicine, two equally demanding and traditionally male professions, have been much more successful in retaining and integrating women. So why do women still struggle to keep a toehold in architecture? Where Are the Women Architects? tells the story of women’s stagnating numbers in a profession that remains a male citadel, and explores how a new generation of activists is fighting back, grabbing headlines, and building coalitions that promise to bring about...

A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences by Shannon Mattern Princeton University Press , August 2021 Paperback | 5 x 8 inches | 200 pages | 47 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780691208053 | $19.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration—promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know about a city. A City Is Not a Computer reveals how cities encompass myriad forms of local and indigenous intelligences and knowledge institutions, arguing that these resources are a vital supplement and corrective to increasingly prevalent algorithmic models. Shannon Mattern begins by examining the ethical and ontological implications of urban technologies and computational models, discussing how they shape and in many cases profoundly limit our engagement with cities. She looks at the methods and underlying assumptions of...

Things Fall Together: A Guide to the New Materials Revolution by Skylar Tibbits Princeton University Press , June 2021 Hardcover | 5-1/4 x 8 inches | 224 pages | 42 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780691170336 | $24.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Things in life tend to fall apart. Cars break down. Buildings fall into disrepair. Personal items deteriorate. Yet today’s researchers are exploiting newly understood properties of matter to program materials that physically sense, adapt, and fall together instead of apart. These materials open new directions for industrial innovation and challenge us to rethink the way we build and collaborate with our environment. Things Fall Together is a provocative guide to this emerging, often mind-bending reality, presenting a bold vision for harnessing the intelligence embedded in the material world. Drawing on his pioneering work on self-assembly and programmable material technologies, Skylar Tibbits lays out the core, frequently counterintuit...

Architectural Styles: A Visual Guide Margaret Fletcher, Robbie Polley Princeton University Press , December 2020 Hardcover | 7 x 9 inches | 288 pages | 600 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0691208077 | $29.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Architectural Styles is an incomparable guide to architectural styles across the centuries and around the world. Modeled after an architect’s plein air sketchbook, the volume features hundreds of detailed drawings by esteemed architectural illustrator Robbie Polley alongside incisive and informative descriptions. This unique guidebook takes readers from Europe and the Americas to Egypt, China, and India. It covers a host of historical and contemporary architectural styles, from ancient and classical to Pre-Columbian, Romanesque, Renaissance, Palladian, art nouveau, Brutalist, and biomorphic. It describes the histories and characteristics of the building traditions of each era and region of the world, and looks at key architectural elements su...

The Queens Nobody Knows: An Urban Walking Guide William B. Helmreich Princeton University Press , October 2020 Paperback | 5-1/2 x 8 inches | 488 pages | 65 illustrations + 48 maps | English | ISBN: 978-0691166889 | $24.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Bill Helmreich walked every block of New York City—some six-thousand miles—to write the award-winning The New York Nobody Knows . Later, he re-walked most of Queens—1,012 miles in all—to create this one-of-a-kind walking guide to the city’s largest borough, from hauntingly beautiful parks to hidden parts of Flushing’s Chinese community. Drawing on hundreds of conversations he had with residents during his block-by-block journey through this fascinating, diverse, and underexplored borough, Helmreich highlights hundreds of facts and points of interest that you won’t find in any other guide. In Bellerose, you’ll explore a museum filled with soul-searing artwork created by people with mental illness. In Douglaston, you’ll gaze up in awe ...