A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Not really a rumination, but a diversion until I can obtain some more information and images for the next post. This is a video of developer Ian Schrager discussing 40 Bond, from its design, its location, its amenities, to its architects. Obviously done before construction, it should be interesting to see how the finished work compares to his vision in later posts. "It's as if someone took a skeleton and dipped it in a bowl of wet sugar and pulled it out" - Ian Schrager

Malmö Eastern Cemetery , originally uploaded by jmtp . The Chapels of St. Knut and St. Gertrude, 1935-43, at Malmö Eastern Cemetery by Sigurd Lewerentz. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Organizing for Change: Integrating Architectural Thinking in Other Fields edited by Michael Shamiyeh and DOM Research Laboratory, published by Birkhäuser , 2007. ( Amazon ) According to its web site, the DOM Research Laboratory , based at the University of Arts and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria, is "a sort of independent think tank [that] attempts to define early relevant topics, to show the need for action, and to formulate a set of future actions" in the fields of urbanism, architecture and design. These aims are tackled via research, education, and conferences, the last of which are documented in a series of books. The most recent book is for the third and most recent conference held at th...

Montjüic Pavilion and Garden in Barcelona, Spain by Federico Calabrese Located on the same Montjüic Mountain as the Barcelona Botanical Institute featured on this page last week, this pavilion and garden by Federico Calabrese illustrates the strong embrace of architecture and landscape by the city and its inhabitants, something that extends from streetscapes and other features of urban design and the city scale to a small two-room building and its adjacent garden. The project is a renovation and conversion of the 1970s Miramar building. As new construction is severely limited on the mountain site, this provided a rare opportunity for the architects, who created a glass and steel bar pavilion on a teak deck overlooking the Mediterranean, and a small garden at a lower level adjacent to a restaurant occupying that portion of the old Mir...

As promised a few weeks ago, when I presented some pre-visit images of Mike Nelson's installation, titled A Psychic Vacuum , at the old Essex Street Market at Essex and Delancey in Manhattan's Lower East Side, here's some of my own images of the spaces, as well as some of my thoughts on the experience. One enters from Delancey Street into an old restaurant that appears to be a found ruin, as if the artist barely touched the space. Visitors before me were enthralled with the detritus to be found in the front room and kitchen area, though I found it essentially to be a transition between the street and the installation itself. The view back to the entry above was especially nice, with the blacked-out windows, green neon framing, and glowing portal. Once through a door at the back of the storefront restaurant, one entered the realm of A Psychic Vacuum . Immediately this is apparent as the spaces are much smaller than the albeit small restaurant, even much smaller than a typic...

Need a primer on the most famous and prolific architects working today? If so head on over to concierge.com and flip through it's Visionaries in Style + Design feature on eleven (twelve if you count Herzog & de Meuron as two, and too many to count if you start to consider employees) international architects. Admittedly geared to travelers, the piece gives a brief lowdown on why they're so famous, followed by a project "on the horizon," such as Frank Gehry's New World Symphony Hall in Miami Beach, pictured above. For many it may not offer anything new, but for others it helps get 'em up to speed on the big names in the bizness right now. The list includes: 1) Norman Foster: :: Claim to Fame: Reichstag dome, Berlin :: On the Horizon: Terminal 3, Beijing Airport 2) Diller Scofidio + Renfro: :: Claim to Fame: Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston :: On the Horizon: The High Line, New York 3) Frank Gehry: :: Claim to Fame: The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao :: On t...

This is the first in a series of posts on 40 Bond , the residential building in Manhattan's NoHo neighborhood designed by Herzog & de Meuron and developed by Ian Schrager. It is one of the most celebrated new buildings in New York City that I can think of in recent memory, even though it isn't yet complete. It's been on display for a multitude of admirers (including me ) for a while, most recently the lobby, ground floor "screen", and the townhouses behind it. Walking by the other day -- the first time since mid-summer -- what strikes me is that the apparent novelty of the whole thing is in fact a high-end update on numerous ideas that have been implemented in various ways by various people in the past. With an ultra-high budget and an aggressive housing market for the super rich living, and wanting to live in Manhattan, the building is able to appear new, while being ultimately a collage of pre-existing ideas executed in the Swiss duos notably artistic mann...