A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Sichtbetontreppe , originally uploaded by mo+ . A concrete stair and unique guardrail in HAUS D in Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany by mo+ messerschmidt | oligmueller | architekten , 2010. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Amazingly, until today, Park(ing) Day was something I only experienced in images, not in person. I like the idea of appropriating spaces from cars for other, pedestrian uses. Yet it seems that most of the "installations" tend to be a patch of grass (real or astroturf), some plants, and a few chairs. Instead of a car being parked in the spot, people are parking their rear ends and relaxing, putting the "park" in park(ing) day, if you will. So I always hoped for more creative uses for these one-day-a-year opportunities, something worth a visit. For the second year, and the first since the opening of Van Alen Books, the Van Alen Institute held the Park(ing) Day Book Exchange at 30 West 22nd Street in Manhattan. The premise is simple: "Bring an architecture or design book (or a few) you’d like to donate, and take a book for your reading pleasure." I brought a few books (one history, one landscape, one monograph) and walked away with one by Blair Kamin. ...

Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center, Reykjavik, Iceland , originally uploaded by Pedro Kok . The Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center in Reykjavik, Iceland by Henning Larsen Architects and Olafur Eliasson , 2011. See Domus 950 online for an article and a video with imagery by Pedro Kok . No doubt the facade is Eliasson's contribution, as it recalls a courtyard "lining" he created for a house by Tadao Ando. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Tomorrow is the start of Urban Design Week , "a new public festival created to engage New Yorkers in the fascinating and complex issues of the public realm, and to celebrate the streetscapes, sidewalks, and public spaces at the heart of city life." Organized by the Institute for Urban Design , the week includes numerous events , the publication of the Atlas of Possibility for the Future of New York (arising from the By the City/For the City competition ), an online discussion , and a blog . Tomorrow's launch party takes place at the BMW Guggenheim Lab . Reserve a spot for the free event here .

In the Absence of Raimund Abraham: Vienna Architecture Conference 2010 edited by Peter Noever and Wolf D. Prix, published by  Hatje Cantz , 2011. Paperback, 128 pages. ( Amazon ) Three months after architect and educator Raimund Abraham died in a car crash in Los Angeles, the MAK and University of Applied Arts held the Vienna Architecture Conference 2010: In the Absence of Raimund Abraham. Even though the architect of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York had an obviously strained relationship with his country of birth (born in the Tyrol in 1933, he renounced his citizenship in 2000 when the Freedom Party came into power), a number of people close to Abraham traveled to Vienna to recount stories and celebrate his life, one defined as much by his mustache, hat and cigar as by his drawings and passion for architecture. Transcripts of the conference's round table discussions with Thom Mayne, Wolf D. Prix, Vito Acconci, Kenneth Frampton, Eric Owen Moss, Peter Noeve...

European Architecture Since 1890 by Hans Ibelings, published by SUN Architecture, 2011. Paperback, 240 pages. ( Amazon ) Hans Ibelings, editor of A10 new European Architecture , asserts in his latest book that histories of modern European architecture are actually history of Western European architecture. Even without Mr. Ibelings' extensive background, it's safe to agree with this assertion, as this predilection for the architecture of Western Europe permeates even general or international histories. It's also easy to agree that an all-encompassing history of the continent's architecture is therefore needed, to give exposure to buildings of the East and South that have been left out of the spotlight and to remedy polemical histories that trace Modernism directly from pockets of Western Europe to the United States and elsewhere. But even a quick flip through this book's lavishly illustrated (735 photos) account of 120 years of architectural prod...

1617 North Wolcott in Chicago, Illinois by Studio Dwell Architects, 2009 Photographs are by Marty Peters, courtesy Studio Dwell Architects Wicker Park and Bucktown on Chicago's northwest side are popular neighborhoods with an epicenter at the three-way intersection of North, Damen, and Milwaukee Avenues. A few blocks to the east of the intersection, and a half-block north of the excellent Quimby's Bookstore , sits this narrow four-story residence designed by Studio Dwell Architects . The popularity of the area is evident in the house itself but also in Ranquist Development 's larger Urban Sandbox of which it is a part. This fairly cohesive modernist streetwall includes houses to the north also by Studio Dwell and and a multi-family project on the south designed by the Miller Hull Partnership . The four-story house at 1617 North Wolcott locates the main living space above the ground-floor's four-car garage (off the rear alley), work/studio spaces and the fro...