A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Last night, one day after MAD Architects' Ma Yansong unveiled his conceptual design for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Chicago Tonight hosted a panel with Lynn Becker, Peter Exley and Edward Keegan to get some feedback on the design and its next steps. Below is an embed of the 12-minute video, but it can also be watched on WTTW11's website . With only three renderings made public, and as many reservations as the above trio, I am excited about the design. For one, I like the way it departs from Chicago's two primary conditions – the vertical (skyscraper) and the horizontal (the landscape, the low-rise city around the Loop) – to propose something in-between, something that rises like a mountain and appears to be more landform than building. The coming weeks will certainly be host to more debate on the design, which still needs city approval to move forward.

Constructing Europe: 25 Years of Architecture edited by Diane Gray and Fundació Mies van der Rohe, published by  Actar , 2013. Hardcover, 308 pages. ( Amazon ) In 2013 the Mies van der Rohe Foundation celebrated the 25th anniversary of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award. Twenty-five years – one quarter of a century – is a typical milestone, but in the context of the prize it might seem a little odd, given that it happens every two years. So while the book, exhibition, and related events celebrate 25 years, it only 13 cycles of the prize happened in those years; the inaugural run happened in 1988 and the first of the new millennium took place in 2001, hence the shift from even- to odd-numbered years. A small and trite point to make, to be sure, but more importantly the decade-and-a-half time frame allows the prize organizers to reflect on the changes and important buildings that occurred in that time. Graced by a cloud rath...

Here are some photos of the Fo Shou villa (2012) at the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing, China, by Mansilla & Tuñón , photographed by Trevor Patt . With David Adjaye's Light Box in the distance: To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos #archidose

Architectural Drawing by David Dernie, published by  Laurence King Publishing , 2014 (second edition). Paperback, 208 pages. ( Amazon ) In addition to the author's own drawings, the first 30 pages of David Dernie's inspirational and practical guide to architectural drawing features a watercolor by Steven Holl, a computer rendering by Zaha Hadid Architects, one of Coop Himmelb(l)au's closed-eye sketches, a Lebbeus Woods hand rendering, and a photomontage by Eric Owen Moss, among others. The variety evident in these pages, which encompass the introduction and part of the first chapter, Lines, prepares the reader for the rest of the book, which does not elevate one form of drawing over another (hand drawing over computer rendering, for example). Instead, Dernie embraces the multitude of techniques today to "explore the fluidity and continuity of drawing as a creative process of 'materializing thoughts'." The second edition of Architectural Drawing , ...

Here are some photos of the Fondation Louis Vuitton (2014) in Paris by Gehry Partners, photographed by C D _Fr . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos #archidose

On Tuesday I tooted my own horn , and today I vent some steam – Facebook steam. If, like me, you have or administer a Facebook fan page, you probably know that the number of people who see your posts on their walls is at the mercy of Facebook's algorithms. In late 2013 Facebook implemented a change to the algorithm that determines what content appears on people's walls, greatly affecting fan pages. Cynically, it can be seen as a ploy to get more money through post-boosting (paying for more eyes to see the posts), but at the time it was said to be directed at getting more "news" on people's walls over "viral memes," which were seen by Facebook honchos as shallow and unappealing. What the above tweaking did to my archidose fan page , which can't really be considered news and is hardly a page that sells anything and therefore can't afford to boost posts, was to make its "reach" (number of people seeing posts on their walls) plummet – f...

Here are some of my photos of Situation NY by Jana Winderen and Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY now at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. See a dozen more photos of the installation in my Situation NY Flickr set . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos #archidose