A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Just as last week's Places in Time III post featured a trio of books that were initially listed in my earlier  holiday gift books post , two of the three monographs featured here were also on that list. As happened when I wrote this post, each book begins with a rhetorical question pertaining to monographs. This post features the last reviews of the year. A week from today I'll have a year-capping roundup of my favorites from the many books featured on this blog in 2023. An Atlas of Es Devlin  by Es Devlin, edited by Andrea Lipps, published by Thames & Hudson , December 2023 ( Amazon  /  Bookshop ) Is it possible to love a monograph on a designer whose work you're largely indifferent to? Es Devlin is a phenomenally famous artist and designer who is best known for creating the sets and backdrops for U2, Adele, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, and other big-name musicians, and for such events as the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show. Her London studio's designs for these an...

A review of a new book released this week: The Japanese House Since 1945  by Naomi Pollock, published by Thames & Hudson, November 2023 ( Amazon  /  Bookshop ) What makes modern and contemporary Japanese houses so appealing? Much of it stems from the novelty of residential designs, which can be traced to a litany of factors, including a cultural acceptance of demolition and renewal that creates a constant stream of new architecture; a litany of legal requirements pushing architects — both young and established — to be formally creative; and let's not leave out the clients willing to take risks. Most of the houses that spark jealousy in architects outside of Japan are found in Tokyo and other urban areas where money, zoning, and architects converge to fuel unexpected creations. One factor, the country's exorbitant inheritance tax, leads many families to cut up their properties into smaller parcels to pay for the tax; the resulting, awkward pieces of land then require a...

Of the numerous books publishers send me for review — be they requested by me, pitched by them, or arriving at my doorstep unsolicited — the highest percentage of them are monographs. This fact goes against the occasional sirens over the irrelevance and anachronistic nature of monographs in our digital age, with free access ( for now ) to voluminous amounts of information on buildings and architects readily available online. But books, in my opinion, are better archives than websites, offering architects a further level of control over the finished product compared to websites. It's not uncommon today to find architecture firms, no doubt driven by savvy marketing departments and PR firms, merging their brands across platforms, such that their monographs resemble their websites. But in five or ten years time, only the books will retain that expression, thereby making them important archives of architects' work and the means of presenting it. The four recently published monograph...

Interior Design since 1900, Fourth Edition by Anne Massey Thames & Hudson , April 2020 Paperback | 6 x 8-1/4 inches | 272 pages | 229 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780500204603 | $24.95 ( Click here for publisher's description and author bio ) REFERRAL LINKS :       Making America Modern: Interior Design in the 1930s by Marilyn F. Friedman Bauer and Dean Publishers , May 2018 Hardcover | 8-1/2 x 10-1/2 inches | 240 pages | 205 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780983863236 | $50.00 ( Click here for publisher's description and author bio ) REFERRAL LINKS :       REVIEW: Although Amazon's algorithmic categorizations are perplexing at times, and I'm guessing most people find books on Amazon via searches rather than browsing in categories, there is something telling when comparing the top books in the  "Architecture" category  to those in the  "Interior & Home Design" category : they are the same and, accordingly, they are al...

Contemporary House India by Robert Gregory, with photographs by Edmund Sumner Thames & Hudson , November 2021 Hardcover | 9-1/4 x 11-3/4 inches | 272 pages | 355 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780500021330 | $75.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : India has a long, diverse history of remarkable architecture. This stunning overview of contemporary residential architecture in India features over twenty houses from across the country, designed by leading firms such as Samira Rathod Design Associates and Architecture Brio, as well as emerging architects such as Martand Khosla. Beginning with a helpful essay, Contemporary House India is divided into four thematic chapters, each opening with a contextual introduction. Included with each featured home are detailed drawings and plans, specially commissioned photographs of the interiors and exteriors by leading architectural photographer Edmund Sumner, and accompanying text based on interviews with the architects by author Rob Gregory...