A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

This year's New York International Antiquarian Book Fair is my third, following the 2022 book fair  and, just days before lockdown,  the 2020 book fair . Three hardly makes me an expert, even in my specialization of architecture books, but it does help with gauging the value given to books on the subject and getting a sense of how architecture books are seen within the wider rare books market. Generally, "rare" equates with "old" first editions that have signatures and, in some cases, limited print runs. The last, in the realm of architecture, points to anything pre-capital-M-modern but also, ironically, architecture books in general, since they tend to have limited print runs compared to fiction — compared to anything but artist books, really — and usually just one printing. But the small print runs of architecture books do not equate to high asking prices, as could be grasped by the smattering of architecture books that I came across at the 2023 edition of the...

Life, they say, throws you curve balls, and that's just what happened last month, when a family emergency had me put this blog on hiatus . This post, appearing on a Friday instead of its regular Monday, does not mean regular weekly posts will resume, as I'll be dealing with said emergency on and off for the foreseeable future. Although reading has been low on my list of priorities under the circumstances, I wanted to take the brief chance I have now to highlight some books released so far this year — a dozen of them, presented in order of date of publication. Even though I haven't made my way through all or most of these books, they are ones that I find important and/or timely and/or beautiful, based on my limited firsthand glances of them as well as what I've gleaned from reviews on other platforms. If you think I left out any worthwhile books published so far this year — and I'm sure there are plenty — please let me know in the comments. The Architecture of Disabi...

Monday is when I would normally post a new book review, but instead, this blog and its related newsletter are going on hiatus indefinitely due to a family emergency. 

Preparing for this post I counted roughly one hundred books in my library that are related to exhibitions. Surprisingly, given that I tend to buy catalogs and other companion books to exhibitions I visit, only a quarter of those hundred are exhibitions I have seen in person. Granted, a fair number of them are classics that predate my existence, such as  The International Style , the book version of MoMA's Modern Architecture: International Exhibition from 1932, or are from exhibitions that happened on the other side of the world, including two of the exhibition catalogs featured here. The fact I have so many catalogs that do not function as souvenirs to exhibitions I visited points to their enduring value: They are permanent records of temporary displays and, as such, expose the research and contents from exhibitions to considerably more people than who attended. Not all books coming out of architectural exhibitions are the same. Many of them function like art catalogs and have a ...

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point I went from disliking interviews — preferring texts written by architects, much of it in the vein of theory — to gravitating to them. Now I find myself opting to read interviews, be they online or in printed matter, over other content; interviews are only below critical reviews in my rankings. I chalk up the switch to a few things: preferring the informal and clear language of interviews over the theory-/archi-speak used my too many architects; a wide prevalence of interviews, especially online; and an appreciation for them after having done a few of them myself . From the reader's perspective it may seem that interviews are easy: turn on the mic, ask some questions, transcribe the interview (or have AI software do it, more likely), lightly edit, publish. But each step of the process has its concerns, from making sure to hit "record" (yes, that happens) and having the right mic in the right location in the right room (A...

On the Duty and Power of Architectural Criticism  edited by Wilfried Wang, published by Park Books and University of Texas at Austin, 2022 ( Amazon  /  Bookshop ) Who Is the City For?: Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago  by Blair Kamin with photographs by Lee Bey, published by University of Chicago Press , 2022 ( Amazon  /  Bookshop ) In her contribution to On the Duty and Power of Architectural Criticism , "Critical Influence: The Influence of the Popular Architecture Critic on Architectural Decision-making," Kristen Harrison starts with a quote by Michael Sorkin: "I don't mean to trivialize either the function or the concept of criticism but — just like architecture — it must also be judged by its effects." I'll address that statement over the course of this post, but first I wanted to point out its origin. Sorkin said those words at the Architectural Association in London in February 2014, on the first day of a two-day symposium,...