A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

This week's dose features two publications on Louis I. Kahn released in 2022: the revised and expanded second edition of Robert McCarter's monograph on Kahn; and a facsimile edition of one of the architect's first monographs, edited by Richard Saul Wurman and accompanied by a new reader's guide. Be sure to scroll all the way down for a list of other Kahn titles of interest. Louis I Kahn (Revised and Expanded Edition) by Robert McCarter Phaidon , March 2022 Hardcover | 9-3/4 x 12-1/4 inches | 528 pages | 800 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9781838663049 | $150.00 | "A thoroughly updated and redesigned edition of McCarter’s esteemed monograph on the globally-revered modern master – includes Roosevelt Island, Four Freedoms Park, which was completed after Kahn's death" ( click here for publisher's description and author bio ) REFERRAL LINKS :       REVIEW : According to his page on the website of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washi...

Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture by Robert A. M. Stern, with Leopoldo Villardi The Monacelli Press , March 2022 Hardcover | 7-1/2 x 10 inches | 520 pages | English | ISBN: 9781580935890 | $60.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : For more than fifty years, Robert A. M. Stern has designed extraordinary buildings around the world. Founding partner of Robert A. M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), Stern was once described as “the brightest young man I have ever met in my entire teaching career” by Philip Johnson and recently called “New York City’s most valuable architect” by Bloomberg.   Encompassing autobiography, institutional history, and lively, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, Between Memory and Invention: My Journey in Architecture surveys the world of architecture from the 1960s to the present and Robert A. M. Stern’s critical role in it. The book chronicles Stern’s formative years, architectural education, and half-century of architectural practice, touching on a...

Over at World-Architects, I put together a list of 15 Summer Reads for the Newsletter I edit there, a newsletter that goes on summer break as of today. In lieu of a review on this blog this week, I'm linking to that summer reading list , which features short, first-hand descriptions of the books. In the coming weeks and months, many of these books will receive longer reviews on this blog. If you don't feel like clicking over to read my commentary on the books, here are the 15 books, presented from S to XL (counterclockwise from top-left in the image), with links to them on Amazon: Vitruvius Without Text: The Biography of a Book by André Tavares Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture by Andrew Witt Outdoor Domesticity: On the Relationships between Trees, Architecture, and Inhabitants by Ricardo Devesa Densification of Urban Landscapes: Post-War Housing Developments Between Preservation and Renewal by Anke Domschky, Stefan Kurath, Simon Mühlebach and Urs Primas Tru...

Here is the next installment of  "Book Briefs,"  the series of occasional posts featuring short first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that publishers send to me for consideration on this blog. Obviously, these briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than those that end up as long reviews. Accumulation: The Art, Architecture, and Media of Climate Change  edited by Nick Axel, Nikolaus Hirsch, Daniel A. Barber, Anton Vidokle | e-flux Architecture | February 2022 | 7 x 10 inches | 272 pages | $30 |  Amazon  /  Bookshop The old saying goes that if you want to know the weather just stick your head out the window. But what about climate? If you want to understand climate and how it has changed over time, "media is necessary," the editors of this volume of 22 essays contend. Usually such media takes the form of charts, graphs, maps, and other visualizations of data, showing how climatic...

Post-pandemic Urbanism Edited by Doris Kleilein, Friederike Meyer Jovis , December 2021 Paperback | 5-3/4 x 8-1/4 inches | 192 pages | 50 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9783868597103 | $28.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Working from home, online shopping, undertourism: the disruptive upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic challenge architecture and urban planning. New spaces for action are opening up, but are they being utilized? From dividing traffic space fairly to urban food policies, from new places for work and recreation to the question on how communities can be oriented towards the common good: Post-pandemic Urbanism envisions a near future and discusses how cities and their transformative power can help to handle this current crisis and those to come. REFERRAL LINKS :       REVIEW : It was November of last year when Jovis sent me a copy of Post-pandemic Urbanism , arriving when Covid cases worldwide were averaging around a half-million every day but w...

In lieu of a new review this week (I have deadlines keeping me from doing one), below are links to three book reviews I wrote this year for World-Architects. Click the titles to read the separate reviews. Celebrating Public Architecture: Buildings from the Open Call in Flanders 2000–21  edited by Florian Heilmeyer (Jovis, 2021) Interventions and Adaptive Reuse: A Decade of Responsible Practice  edited by Liliane Wong and Markus Berger (Birkhäuser, 2021) Strange Objects, New Solids and Massive Things  by Winka Dubbeldam / Archi-Tectonics, edited by Julia van den Hout / Original Copy (Actar, 2021)

Hutong Metabolism: ZAO/standardarchitecture With contributions by Farrokh Derakhshani, Mohsen Mostafavi, Kenneth Frampton, Martino Stierli, Nondita Correa Mehrotra, Zhang Ke, Kristin Feireiss, Hans-Jürgen Commerell, Amanda Ju Aga Khan Award for Architecture / ArchiTangle , September 2021 Hardcover | 6-3/4 x 9-1/2 inches | 288 pages | 150 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9783966800150 |  € 38 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Small stone hutongs, built within a courtyard-and-alley system, are emblematic of Beijing’s traditional inner-city architecture which still contends with modern, cooperate redevelopments to shape the character of the city. In one of the oldest cities in China, the important tasks of preservation and revitalization require particular sensitivity. Captured at the centre of the battlefield between development, conservation and renovation, the hutongs, on the verge of erasure, call into question the paradoxical nature of these paradigms. The Micro Hutong Renewal serie...