A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

This week's dose features two publications on Louis I. Kahn released in 2022: the revised and expanded second edition of Robert McCarter's monograph on Kahn; and a facsimile edition of one of the architect's first monographs, edited by Richard Saul Wurman and accompanied by a new reader's guide. Be sure to scroll all the way down for a list of other Kahn titles of interest. Louis I Kahn (Revised and Expanded Edition) by Robert McCarter Phaidon , March 2022 Hardcover | 9-3/4 x 12-1/4 inches | 528 pages | 800 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9781838663049 | $150.00 | "A thoroughly updated and redesigned edition of McCarter’s esteemed monograph on the globally-revered modern master – includes Roosevelt Island, Four Freedoms Park, which was completed after Kahn's death" ( click here for publisher's description and author bio ) REFERRAL LINKS :       REVIEW : According to his page on the website of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washi...

Our Days Are Like Full Years:  A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn Harriet Pattison Yale University Press , October 2020 Hardcover | 8 x 10 inches | 448 pages | 347 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0300223125 | $45.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : On a winter day in 1953, a mysterious man in a sheepskin coat stood out to Harriet Pattison, then a theater student at Yale. She would later learn he was the architect Louis Kahn (1901–1974). This chance encounter served as preamble to a fifteen-year romance, with Pattison becoming the architect’s closest confidante, his intellectual partner, and the mother of his only son.   Here for the first time, Pattison recounts their passionate and sometimes searing relationship. Married and twenty-seven years her senior, Kahn sent her scores of letters—many from far-flung places—until his untimely death. This book weaves together Pattison’s own story with letters, postcards, telegrams, drawings, and photographs that reveal Kahn’s inner l...

Souto de Moura: Memory, Projects, Works Francesco Dal Co and Nuno Graça Moura Casa da Arquitectura/ Yale University Press , February 2020 Hardcover | 8 x 10 inches | 432 pages | 800 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780300248654 | $55.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : The architect Eduardo Souto de Moura (b. 1952) has won many accolades, including the 2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Based in Porto, Souto de Moura studied under Fernando Távora and worked under fellow Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza, with whom he continues to collaborate. Souto de Moura established his own practice in 1980, and his wide-ranging influences, including Mies van der Rohe and Donald Judd, can be seen in the stunning variety of his work, from his acclaimed private houses, to the striking Paula Rego Museum in Cascais and the Braga Municipal Stadium, to his work in historical contexts such as the Convento das Bernardas in Tavira.   This beautifully illustrated retrospective provides the most comprehensiv...

Eero Saarinen on His Work: A Selection of Buildings Dating from 1947 to 1964 with Statements by the Architect Aline B. Saarinen (Editor) Yale University Press , 1962 Hardcover w/slipcase | 10-1/4 x 14-1/2 inches | 108 pages | 70 illustrations | English A NOTE ON THIS BOOK : Several years ago, on one of our frequent pilgrimages to Frank Lloyd Wright, Mr. Wright told Eero and me why he was wary of interviewers and writers. "They take the words from your mouth and put them in their own," he said, "and, worse than that, they take the smile off your lips and put it on their own." When, after Eero's untimely death, various publishers and writers approached me about a book on his work, I remembered Mr. Wright's remarks. Eero, unlike Wright, Le Corbusier, and his own father, had never written books, but it seemed appropriate now to record his own words and smiles and to preserve these forever as his. Such a book would be a document which would allow him to spe...

Gordon Bunshaft and SOM: Building Corporate Modernism Nicholas Adams Yale University Press , November 2019 Hardcover | 9 x 11-1/2 inches | 296 pages | 204 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0300227475 | $65.00 Publisher's Description : Gordon Bunshaft’s (1909–1990) landmark 1952 design for Lever House reshaped the Manhattan skyline and elevated the reputation of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the firm where he would spend more than 40 years as a partner. Although this enigmatic architect left behind few records, his legacy endures in the corporate headquarters, museums, and libraries that were built in his distinctive modernist style. Bunshaft’s career was marked by shifts in material. Glass and steel structures of the 1950s, such as New York’s Chase Manhattan Bank, gave way to revolutionary designs in concrete, such as the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University and the doughnut-shaped Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Bunshaft’s collaborat...