A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

This third and most likely last installment in the inadvertent "Places in Time" series looks closely at three books: the first about Chicago from the Great Depression to the mid-1980s; the second one about the broader American built landscape over roughly the same period of time; and the third jumping to Switzerland and tracing the urban development of Schlieren, near Zurich, over a 15-year period this century. All three of the books were in my roundup of holiday gift books a couple of weeks ago. The first two Places in Time posts looked at Detroit/Chicago/St. Louis and  Paris/Indonesia/Flanders . Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City  by Thomas Leslie, published by University of Illinois Press , June 2023 ( Amazon  /  Bookshop ) In my holiday gift books roundup a couple of weeks ago, I wrote that, of the four pieces in the subtitle to Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986 — "technology, politics, finance, and...

Peter Zumthor: Therme Vals Peter Zumthor (Editor); Photographs by Hélène Binet Scheidegger & Spiess , 2007 Hardcover | 9-1/2 x 12 inches | 192 pages | 123 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3858817044 | $110.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Peter Zumthor Therme Vals , the only book-length study of the mountain spa, features the architect’s own original sketches and plans for its design, as well as Hélène Binet’s striking photographs of the structure. Annotations by Zumthor elucidate Therme Vals’s symbiotic relationship to its natural surroundings, and an essay on such topics as Artemis/Diana, Baptism, and Spring by architectural scholar Sigrid Hauser draw out the connections between the elemental nature of the spa and mythology, bathing, and purity. This lavishly illustrated volume about the spa that catapulted a remote Swiss village onto the international architecture scene will entrance all enthusiasts of contemporary design. Peter Zumthor , born 1943, works with his Atelie...

Eyes That Saw: Architecture after Las Vegas Stanislaus von Moos, Martino Stierli (Editors) Scheidegger and Spiess , August 2020 Paperback | 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches | 504 pages | 175 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3858818201 | $49.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Published in 1972, Learning from Las Vegas was an almost instant—yet controversial— classic. Born of a design and research studio led by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and graduate student Steven Izenour at the Yale School of Architecture in 1968, its exploration of the signs and urban form of Las Vegas revitalized the architecture discourse of the 1970s and a key reference for postmodernism in architecture, urban design, visual art, and history more broadly. It remains influential for architects, urbanists, and design theorists to the present day. Five decades after the legendary Las Vegas studio, Eyes that Saw: Architecture after Las Vegas offers a richly illustrated collection of essays investigating the signi...

City Lust: London Guangzhou Lagos Dubai Houston Charlie Koolhaas Scheidegger & Spiess , April 2020 Hardcover | 8 x 11-3/4 inches | 412 pages | 354 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-3858818041 | $59.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : City Lust is a timely dialogue between words and images about a crucial moment in our recent history: the apotheosis of globalization and its current unraveling.  In this book, Charlie Koolhaas—an artist, photographer, and writer—takes us to London, Guangzhou, Lagos, Dubai, and Houston, cities in which she has either lived or worked. Her personal and humorous account explores the rapid changes taking place in these culturally vastly different metropolises that are being united by the influences of global trade and the evolution of a shared global culture. A captivating combination of photographic documentary and written testimony, City Lust portrays a global landscape that contradicts the current pessimism—to reveal unexpected creativities...

A Feeling of History by Peter Zumthor, Mari Lending, published by  Scheidegger & Spiess , 2018. Paperback, 80 pages. ( Amazon ) Swiss architect Peter Zumthor finishes buildings so sporadically that the presence of each in various strands of architectural communication lasts years rather than days or weeks. It was five years, for instance, between two recently completed works: the Steilneset Memorial (2011) and the Allmannajuvet Zinc Mining Museum (2016), both in Norway. When I saw Zumthor speak with Paul Goldberger at the Guggenheim in February 2017, these were the two projects Zumthor focused on. In general, discussions around these and other Zumthor projects unfold over time, unlike projects by prolific firms such as BIG or Kengo Kuma Associates, where lots of attention follows an opening, only to give way quickly to the next project's completion. In turn, Zumthor's slowness invites interviews — but ones that play out over time rather than ones that take place in o...