A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Interrupted Projections: Another Global Surface, or Territorial Recodings on the WorldSheet Neil Denari TOTO Publishing , September 1996 Paperback | 8-3/4 x 11 inches | 87 pages | Japanese/English | ISBN: 9784887061422 | 1500¥ EXHIBITION DESCRIPTION : GALLERY MA featured the work of the young Las Angeles architect Neil M. Denari in a show titled "INTERRUPTED PROJECTIONS." Denari has won wide acclaim for his various projects, such as his radical entry in the Tokyo International Forum Competition for which he received Honorable Mention. While not quite breaking free from the constraints of tradition and standards, Denari seems to challenge the conservatism of contemporary "architecture," always making viewers conscious of the essence of architecture and its latent potential. For Denari, contemporary architecture exists within a society filled with a mixture of coded images that trancends the concrete "thing" itself. Denari seeks to discover the possibil...

Graphic Anatomy by Atelier Bow-Wow, published by  Toto , 2008. ( Amazon ) Most architectural monographs favor photographs and computer-generated renderings over the architectural drawings that make the finished building possible. Ironically, where photographs tend to remove people from their idealized compositions, renderings in the age of Photoshop do the opposite, but rarely in the manner in which a space will be used; People are used as scale figures rather than an influence on the design of the spaces. What's surprising, and amazing, about the latest book from Japan's Atelier Bow-Wow is the way it gives architectural drawings the appeal of renderings, by giving them the depth of perspectives and populating them in a way that it is clear considerations of the space's -- as well as the construction's -- function are of the utmost. ...

Tadao Ando 1: Houses and Housing by Tadao Ando, published by  Toto , 2007. ( Amazon ) Looking for Tadao Ando books at Prairie Avenue Bookshop yields 23 titles, four more than today's most celebrated and well-known architect, Frank Gehry. Not only are Ando's buildings amazingly photogenic, and not only is his production prolific enough to warrant almost continuous publication by various publishers, but his buildings are the type that make other architects drool. They make other architects jealous of his skill, gained not by professional training but by travel and exposure to places and buildings. It's as if books on Ando can provide a secret to his magic, making the purchase of them hard ...

A Guide to Contemporary Architecture in America: Volume 1, Western U.S.A.   by Masayuki Fuchigami, published by Toto . ( Amazon ) Coming after the author's three-volume guide to contemporary architecture in Europe, this first of three for the United States tackles these western states in three separate sections: California and Hawaii; Washington, Oregon, and Nevada; Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Given the wide expanses and few metropolises, California makes up a great deal of the book, the Los Angeles area in particular comprising a good chunk. Using LA as an example, the selections included in this travel guide are a mix of the obvious (Gehry's Disney Concert Hall) and the lesser-kn...