A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Apartment Blossom by Li Han and Jin Qiuye Donghua University Press, January 2021 Paperback | 5-1/4 x 7-1/4 inches | 176 pages | Chinese/English | ISBN: 9787566918352 | 79元 BOOK DESCRIPTION : As the second volume of Urban Studies Degree Zero Series , Apartment Blossom is a documentation on various balcony renovations of vernacular apartment buildings in Beijing with a collection of exquisite architectural maquettes. Due to the extreme weather conditions, the balconies in Northern China are usually enclosed by their owners. But by their eclectic approach to enclose the balconies, the owners have also made those balconies the highlights of the boring façades of the apartment buildings that are originally composed by repetitive standard units. The selected balconies in Apartment Blossom are both special and ordinary, which altogether form a brief imagery history of local balcony enclosure in Beijing for the past two or three decades. Apartment Blossom further explores the concept...

Santa Fe Modern: Contemporary Design in the High Desert by Helen Thompson, photographs by Casey Dunn The Monacelli Press , November 2021 Hardcover | 8 x 10 inches | 240 pages | English | ISBN: 9781580935616 | $50.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Santa Fe Modern reveals the high desert landscape as an ideal setting for bold, abstracted forms of modernist houses. Wide swaths of glass, deep-set portals, long porches, and courtyards allow vistas, color, and light to become integral parts of the very being of a house, emboldening a way to experience a personal connection to the desert landscape. The architects featured draw from the New Mexican architectural heritage–they use ancient materials such as adobe in combination with steel and glass, and they apply this language to the proportions and demands exacted by today’s world. The houses they have designed are confident examples of architecture that is particular to the New Mexico landscape and climate, and yet simultaneously evoke t...

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...

Canadian Architecture: Evolving a Cultural Identity by Leslie Jen Figure 1 Publishing , November 2021 Hardcover | 8-3/4 x 11-1/2 inches | 224 pages | English | ISBN: 9781773270388 | $45.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Canadian Architecture: Evolving a Cultural Identity surveys the country’s most accomplished architectural firms, whose work enhances cities and landscapes across Canada’s geographically varied expanse. Author Leslie Jen explores a number of significant projects in urban and rural environments—private residences, cultural and institutional facilities, and democratic public spaces—that profoundly influence our interactions with each other and the communities in which we live. Accompanied by stunning photography, Canadian Architecture is a testament to a thriving, diverse and innovative design culture that continues to play an integral role in shaping our national identity. Leslie Jen is an architecture and design journalist based in Toronto, where her consultancy p...

Inagawa Cemetery Chapel and Visitor Centre Designed by David Chipperfield Edited by Olivia Lawrence Bright, Chinatsu Kuma, Cecilia Sundström Walther König , November 2021 Hardcover | 7 x 9-3/4 inches | 140 pages | English/Japanese | ISBN: 9783960988908 | $45.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Nestled in the steep hillside of the Hokusetsu Mountain Range, the Inagawa Cemetery Chapel represents London-based architect David Chipperfield’s (born 1953) latest architectural work realized in Japan. Conceived as a contemporary place for prayer, the chapel and its accompanying visitor center are constructed of pink-tinted concrete and arranged around a central courtyard. With gently sloping edges and little adornment, the building seems to emerge as an extension of the land around it while simultaneously providing a distinct space in which visitors can step away from the outside world. This volume presents the building through the lens of Japanese photographer Keiko Sasaoka’s camera. Over the...

The Kinetic City and Other Essays by Rahul Mehrotra ArchiTangle , August 2021 Hardcover | 6 x 9 inches | 352 pages | 300 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9783966800136 | €45 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : This book presents Rahul Mehrotra’s writings over the last thirty years and illustrates his long-term engagement with and analysis of urbanism in India. This work has given rise to a new conceptualization of the city. Mehrotra calls it the Kinetic City, which is the counterpoint to the Static City, as familiar to most of us from conventional city maps. He argues that the city should instead be perceived, read, and mapped in terms of patterns of occupation and associative values attributed to space. The framework is established in this publication by Rahul Mehrotra’s anchor essay, which draws out its potential to “allow a better understanding of the blurred lines of contemporary urbanism and the changing roles of people and spaces in urban society.” The emerging urban Indian conditi...