A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Wang Shu Amateur Architecture Studio  edited by Michael Juul Holm, Kjeld Kjeldsen and Mette Kallehauge, published by Louisiana Museum of Modern Art/ Lars Müller Publishers , 2017. Hardcover, 240 pages. ( Amazon ) Wang Shu: Imagining the House by Wang Shu, published by  Lars Müller Publishers , 2012. Paperback, 168 pages. ( Amazon ) Like their buildings, books on Wang Shu and Amateur Architecture Studio are a rarity. I own three books on the 2012 Pritzker Prize-winning architect, who runs the studio with his wife, Lu Wenyu; as far as I know there aren't any more. Two of the three books are published by Switzerland's Lars Müller Publishers; one collects sketches on six projects and the second presents nine projects through photographs and coincides with an exhibition of the same at the Louisiana Museum of Art. With its scarcity of color and photographs, Imagining the House  is an architecture book for architects; this may seem meaningless (aren't al...

I have four architectural walking tours in June and July. Click on the links below to purchase tickets from the 92Y. Saturday, June 3, 11am - 1:30pm The High Line and Its Environs Walk the 1.5-mile-long elevated park from tip to tip, learning about the park and the new buildings it has sparked. Saturday, June 17, 11am - 2:30pm Brooklyn G Train Tour Hop on and off the G train from Carroll Gardens to Clinton Hill and Dumbo, taking in townhouses, campus facilities and other buildings along the way. Saturday, July 8, 11am - 1:30pm 57th Street, River to River This architectural walking tour looks at the changing landscape of Manhattan’s Midtown architecture by focusing on the street that has become known as Billionaires’ Row. Saturday, July 22, 11am - 1:30pm Columbia University Look at recent additions to the campuses of Columbia University and Barnard College in Morningside Heights, take a sneak peek at Columbia’s expansion into Manhattanville and head up to Inwood to se...

Here are some photos of the Cascara Bridges at the Madrid Rio project in Madrid, Spain, by MRIO Arquitectos (Burgos & Garrido, Porras La Casta, and Rubio & Álvarez-Sala) and West 8. The concrete bridges feature mosaics by artist Daniel Canogar. (Photographs: Ximo Michavila ) 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

Earlier today I decided to check out the new Amazon Books, which opened a few days ago. The bricks-and-mortar version of the online powerhouse is located in Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. The store makes its presence known only subtly, with signage in the two windows above the BOSS logos on the right: The store is located on the third floor of the building's mall, here seen from the outlook on the second floor: Given the layout of the mall, the store is accessed via a bridge, which features some signage to entice shoppers below to take the escalator up a couple floors: On this Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, there was a line to get into the store. For whatever reason (safety, not going over their occupancy limit, making it feel like an event, who knows?), the store let only ten people in at a time. My wait was about ten or fifteen minutes – more time that I would spend in the store. As has been written about all over the place, one gimmick of the seven-and-cou...

On Tuesday, May 23 I'll be giving a book talk at the Skyscraper Museum in Lower Manhattan. The event takes places from 6:30pm to 8pm and is free. Head to the Skyscraper Museum website to reserve a ticket. Update 05/26 : Video of my talk is embedded below.

MAS Context 30-31: Bilbao Edited by Iker Gil Spring 2017, 456 pages The year 2017 marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Frank Gehry's contribution to the Bilbao effect.  Contribution  is an important word here, since all too often the Bilbao effect is defined solely as the outcome of the architectural icon, ignoring the wider infrastructural improvements and other pieces of architecture added to the Basque city before and since. Even twenty years later, this is the case: Bilbao = Gehry's Guggenheim. This double issue of MAS Context is then a welcome publication on the city, coming at a time when the impact of the building and other urban developments can be gauged. The two issues that fit together side by side to create the double issue are hinged about the year of the museum's opening: one is devoted to what came before and the other to what has followed. This split acknowledges the importance of the museum but shifts the focu...

Yesterday the Graham Foundation announced "over $560,000 in new grants to individuals around the world to support 72 innovative projects engaging original ideas in architecture." On my first skimming of  the list of exhibitions, film/video/new media projects, public program, publications, and research, one award stood out above the rest: Francesco Dal Co's "definitive book on Carlo Scarpa." The Italian architectural historian has authored books on Scarpa already, including his Complete Works (Rizzoli, 1986) and a case study of Villa Ottolenghi  (Monacelli Press, 1998). Yet even with the numerous other monographs on the architect (most recently Robert McCarter's Carlo Scarpa published last year by Phaidon), Dal Co's forthcoming book from Yale University Press sounds very promising. [Brion-Vega Cemetery, San Vito d'Altivole, 1978 | Photo: Francesco Maria Gabriele Vozza] The description from the Graham Foundation website (my emphasis): As t...