A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

"Many people think that in order to be a good architect it's also necessary to have a philosophy of one's own. I don't think it's necessary, but I know the ease with which a journalist 'helps' an architect by pushing him to take a philosphical position. I've been able to observe this time and again and if you ask me today I'd surely reply that I don't have a complete philosophical vision. I think it's something dangerous, an obstacle to natural and architectural understanding, a distancing from reality, an intellectual edifice that ages all too quickly and might make us lose contact with the world we live in right now. Architectural philosophy can all too easily turn into something one becomes attached to in order to safeguard one's own vision, a pillow on which one can sleep soundly." - Arne Jacobson, in a lecture on the occasion of the awarding of the 1963 Fritz Schumacher Prize, quoted in Synchronizing Geometry (2006), by Borja ...

This image is a detail of a NASA-generated map that attempts to show how common lawns are across the country, particularly in and around urban areas, as well as their impact on water and carbon cycles. The amount of lawn in Long Island is just amazing, looking about the same as the diagonal swath of lawn in New Jersey. The scientists who generated the map contend "that more surface area is devoted to lawns than to any other single irrigated crop in the country. For example, lawns appear to cover more than three times the number of acres that irrigated corn covers." While none of this is a huge shock to any American (or foreigner, for that matter), the power of maps to help people see the scope and impact (more the former than the latter, in this case) of something makes this image worth sharing. "This color-coded map shows satellite-derived estimates of the fractional turf grass (lawn) area across the United States in shades of green. Areas where a large fraction of th...

Flow , originally uploaded by ludd . "Flow" pot for Serralunga , designed by Zaha Hadid , 2007. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Today sees the launch of the Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2007 , featuring "101 of the world's most exciting architects" from 35 countries. The periodic table-like layout is pretty easy to navigate. Just click the blue arrows to scan the different parts of the page, click on the boxes to see the firms listed for each country, and click the blue arrow in that box to see a separate page on the architect. Lots to keep me (and you) busy!

One thing I've noticed about architecture firms' web pages is the increase in photos of the office, of the people involved. Given this trend, I thought I'd showcase some of these photos and see how they are similar or different from each other, and what they say about the firm. The first of this ongoing feature is the serious lot at REX , the OMA offshoot led by Joshua Prince-Ramus and Erez Ella. Image by Jason Schmidt The two leaders are prominently located in the foreground of a New York loft with the 30-odd employees dispersed behind them and some foam models. Perhaps the more senior ones are closest to the camera and the young ones at the back, meaning if the latter leave the firm they don't have to keep reshooting this photo as they're faces are too small to be distinguished. This raises the paradox of these sorts of photos: their role in illustrating the important role individuals play in the production of architecture, a role that can be seen cynically as int...

"From the perspective of the environmental crisis of our time, I think we have to add to [Thomas] Hardy's remarks* [from The Woodlanders ] a further realization: if the land is made fit for human habitation by memory and 'old association,' it is also true that by memory and association men are made fit to inhabit the land. At present our society is almost entirely nomadic, without the comfort or discipline of such memories, and it is moving about on the face of this continent with a mindless destructiveness, of substance and of meaning and of value, that makes Sherman's march to the sea look like a prank." *"Winter in a solitary house in the country, without society, is tolerable, nay, even enjoyable and delightful, given...old association -- and almost exhaustive biographical or historical acquaintance with every object...within the observer's horizon." - Wendell Berry from A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural (1972), excerpte...

This last weekend found me spending some time in Washington D.C., my first ever trip to the nation's capital. Numerous things struck me about the place, though I thought I'd recount some observations that are perhaps a bit more atypical than the usual commentary about the street layout, architecture, or landscape of the place. These five observations apply primarily to the area in and around the Mall. 1. Aircraft With the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport located a couple miles south of the Mall on the Potomac's western edge, commercial planes are an almost constant presence. On the three days I was in D.C. planes took off to the north and west, flying low over the Jefferson Memorial (above), the western edge of the mall, and Arlington Cemetery. These three areas are home to monuments, places of remembrance and reverence, so I was surprised to almost always have the sound of engines overhead, be it planes or helicopters. 2. Inscriptions Much of the Mall is devoted t...