Book Briefs #12: Conversations

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages.

Number 12 in this series focuses on some titles in Princeton Architectural Press's Conversations with Students series, slim volumes that focus on a single architect or designer.



1: Tadao Ando: Conversations with Students edited and translated by Matthew Hunter | Princeton Architectural Press | 2012 | Amazon
The most recent installment in the series features six lectures by Tadao Ando at the University of Tokyo in 1998, a time when the Great Hanshin-Awaji Quake hit Kobe. This English-language publication comes a year after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a fact that Ando makes explicit in the preface. In response to both events the architect has planted trees to "create an opportunity for ... spiritual recovery." The last of the six lectures deals with this response to the earthquake that hit Kobe, but the other five give a glimpse into Ando's thinking when he was taking his architecture beyond the confines of Japan. Some of the most valuable passages recall his early days and projects, and how his studio is an example of "living architecture."

2: Conversations with Paolo Soleri edited by Lissa McCullough | Princeton Architectural Press | 2012 | Amazon
Given the name of the series, Conversations, it's pretty clear that the architect in question should be conversing with somebody—an interviewer, students, a room full of people, what have you. But much of the content within the books are one-way. It is much more the case with the Paolo Soleri title than others I've read. There is a short interview with editor Lissa McCullough, but the bulk of the book is made up of writings from Soleri's notebooks, as well as an essay by McCullough and ones by collaborators Marco Felici and Youngsoo Kim. The book is a good introduction to Soleri's ideas on architecture and cities, focused on the arcology concept and its realization outside Phoenix.



3: A Conversation with Frei Otto by Juan Maria Songel | Princeton Architectural Press | 2010 | Amazon
When traveling for two weeks through Europe after a semester in Italy, one of the buildings that I visited was the Olympic Stadium in Munich. The design, of which Frei Otto is usually given top credit, was one of the more impressive pieces of architecture that I experienced, not only for the expressive tensile roof structure but for the way the snaking roofscape worked with the landscape. Frei Otto's contributions to architecture and engineering have typically focused on the former's technological aspects, but the latter is indicative of larger considerations; those are expressed in the essays by Otto and a conversation between him and Juan Maria Songel originally published by GG in 2008.

4: Rem Koolhaas: Conversations with Students edited by Sanford Kwinter | Princeton Architectural Press | 1996 | Amazon
The Conversation that started the series was a lecture and seminar with Rem Koolhaas held at Rice University back in 1991. In the lecture Koolhaas discusses three well-known but unbuilt projects—Zeebrugge Sea Terminal, Bibliotheque de France, and ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology. The seminar, on the other hand, focuses on his thoughts on cities, including Houston, Rice's hometown. The third and last element is Sanford Kwinter's essay "Flying the Bullet, or When Did the Future Begin?" It's a small but solid book on an important architect and thinker. Yet over 20 years later, it might just be time to update Rem's conversations for the 21st century.

Book Brief #11: A Bunch of Journals

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages.



1: MAS Context 14: Communication | MAS Studio | Summer 2012
MAS Context is a quarterly journal created by Chicago's MAS Studio, led by Editor in Chief Iker Gil. The main idea driving the journal is the multidisciplinary responses to a particular topic for each issue. Those responding to issue 14's theme of communication include the Center for Urban Pedagogy, Klaus, Sam Jacob, Craighton Berman, Oriol Tarragó, and a bunch of international curators. Respectively they are coming at communication from civic policy, architectural criticism/cartooning, architectural practice, illustration, sound design, and exhibitions; and that's about half of the issue. Communication is a good balance of text (essays, interviews) and images (illustrations, visual essays) that are well-dispersed throughout the issue to make it a good browse and read. The theme is open-ended enough to invite varied responses from the contributors, but it's also a topic that is timely, what with more (and faster) means of communication at our disposal than ever before. Consensus is hardly to be expected, but the issue illustrates that what we communicate is as important (if not more so) than how.

2: Candide — Journal for Architectural Knowledge — 5 | Department of Architecture Theory RWTH Aachen | 2012 | Amazon
Candide is a bilingual (German, English) journal that is published twice a year. Unlike MAS Context no theme is given, but within the pages of each issue are five sections: Essay, Analysis, Project, Encounters, Fiction; this has been consistent since the first issue. In the fifth issue, Essay and Fiction feature short texts by a number of contributors. For Encounters, Ian Pepper examines Richard Serra's sculpture appended to the end of Robert Maillart's viaduct in Grandfey, an installation I was not familiar with but wish I knew of before my recent trip to Switzerland. Claire Zimmerman traces "architectural knowledge from Rudolf Wittkower to Reyner Banham," or from "legibility of form" to "memorability as an image." But the highlight for me is Project: Marcus Garvey Park Village, the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies' only realized building. The thorough and multi-faceted history and oral history by Kim Förster reveals not only the commendable architectural design but also the greater intentions of the Institute and other parties (MoMA, UDC). Elsewhere the project might not be deserving of such attention, but it's a fascinating story that also captures New York City and the broader architectural culture in the 1970s.

3: OASE #87: Alan Colquhoun | OASE Foundation and nai010 Publishers | 2012 | Amazon
It's been many years since I've picked up my copy of Alan Colquhoun's Essays in Architectural Criticism (Opposition Books, 1981) to read his takes on modern architecture, Le Corbusier, typology, or Robert Venturi. While those topics rise to the fore among his writings, what I never realized until #87 of OASE was the quality of Colquhoun's architectural output. At the beginning of this journal looking at three sides of the man—architecture, history, criticism—is a short section documenting some of his projects, most with Colquhoun, Miller and Partners. What follows are essays by Kenneth Frampton (who introduced the collection of essays from 1981), Owen Hatherley, Michiel Riedijk, Sanislas von Moos, and others on Le Corbusier, typology, and so forth. The issue ends with the editors interviewing Colquhoun about his career and his views on how criticism, history, and theory have evolved in the last five decades.



4: Journal of International Affairs: The Future of the City | Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs | Spring/Summer 2012 | Amazon
The year 2012 marks the 65th anniversary of Columbia's Journal of International Affairs, which started after World War II as "a forum for exploring topics of global concern." Based on the longstanding belief that "innovative solutions to contemporary problems of international affairs demand interdisciplinary solutions," this issued devoted to the city pulls together architects, sociologists, economists, politicians, and academics of various stripes. Not surprisingly, the writing is quite academic, but a number of interviews (with Rem Koolhaas, Ricky Burdett, Rahul Mehrota, and others) are a plain-spoken alternative to some of the density. The essays and interviews appropriately cover a global context of cities: China, New York, Paris, and Singapore, to name a few. People interested in the future of cities will find much of interest and value in what can ultimately be seen collectively as a positive outlook on urbanism this century.

5: Kerb 16: Future Cities | RMIT University School of Architecture + Design | 2008 | Amazon 
Kerb, "a progressive design journal focused on contemporary landscape architecture issues from an international and national perspective," is celebrating its 20th issue this year. Issue 16, which I picked up recently in a remainder bin, is focused on "future cities," a broad topic that is surveyed by some familiar names (Alan Berger, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Arakawa + Gins, Arup) among others no as well known. While four years old, the issue's essays are still timely, looking at sustainable urbanism, sprawl, density, and other bits of urbanism. Flipping through it takes me back to Urban Design grad school the year before the issue came out. It's a solid collection of contributions that's very on-topic and ambitious in breadth.

Book Briefs #10

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages.



1: Alcatraz: History and Design of a Landmark by Donald MacDonald and Ira Nadel | Chronicle Books | 2012 | Amazon
When I visited San Francisco in the mid-1990s, one of the few touristy things I did was visit Alcatraz, donning headphones and listening to old inmates talk about the place. Of course, the place is so much more than just an old prison, and a visit makes that clear, even as the prison buildings and spaces define much of the experience. So I was looking forward to receiving this history of the island, its architecture, landscape, and nature. Written by Donald MacDonald and Ira Nadel and illustrated by MacDonald, the book is hardly a comprehensive history, but it is not meant to be an academic study of the well-known island. At first I thought the watercolors were too bright for a place that was home to criminals and an American Indian occupation, but the varied formats (perspectives, plans, sections, etc.) do a good job of telling part of the story.

2: Saving Wright: The Freeman House and the Preservation of Meaning, Materials, and Modernity by Jeffrey M. Chusid | W.W. Norton | 2012 | Amazon
In 1985, Jeffrey M. Chusid moved into the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Freeman House as a tenant of Harriet Freeman. Eventually he became the preservation architect for the textile-block house (one of four in the Los Angeles that Wright designed area in 1923), which he documents in this book. Interestingly, the house was also a canvas for Rudolph M. Schindler, who performed some infill interventions in the 1930s and '40s. Equal parts history, theory, and preservation literature, the book is an extremely thorough documentation of a house overshadowed by Wright's other textile-block houses (Millard, Storer, Ennis). It illustrates, among other things, what is needed to extend an idiosyncratic house designed by a master architect for many more decades. As a laboratory for preservation, the house and book offer lessons for many architects.



3: Urban Intersections: São Paulo edited by Nina Rappaport, Noah Biklen, Eliza Higgins | Yale School of Architecture | 2012 | Amazon
The sixth in Yale SOA's Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Architecture Fellowship Series presents the work of students in Spring 2010 under Tishman Speyer's Katherin Farley and architect Deborah Berke. The balance of real estate and architectural interests is embodied in the fellowship, and the projects exhibit something similar; as juror Claire Weisz mentions in a transcript of one of the crits, the projects "achieve a degree of economy while maintaining a sense of place." To me, the projects resemble those of an urban design studio. To be sure, they are architectural, but they take the greater São Paulo context into consideration, which is also evident in the supplementary essays that preface the projects.

4: Turbulence edited by Nina Rappaport and Leo Stevens | Yale School of Architecture | 2011 | Amazon
Like Urban Intersections above, Turbulence documents Yale SOA studios, in this case three of the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professorships. This, the third title in the series, features student projects under Ali Rahim (Contemporary Architecture Practice), Christopher Sharples, and William Sharples (both SHoP Architects). Rahim's studio is set in Dubai and features, not surprisingly, a number of tall buildings that stand out on Sheikh Zayed Road. Christopher Sharples's studio rethinks airports and envisions designs for "Airport City" in New Delhi, India. The studio of William Sharples goes even farther, designing spaceports for three hypothetical sites in the United States. Interviews with the three architects preface each project section to provide background on their work and methods.

5: Constructing the Ineffable: Contemporary Sacred Architecture edited by Karla Britton | Yale University Press | 2010 | Amazon
This book documents a 2007 symposium of the same name, organized by the Yale SOA with the Yale Divinity School and Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Some big names (Kenneth Frampton, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Richard Meier, Rafael Moneo, Vincent Scully, Stanley Tigerman, etc.) tackle the topic of religious architecture, presented here in three sections: theoretical essays, historical precedents, and "contemporary expressions of the ineffable." This structure allows for the broadest exploration, but it also means there is something for everyone; those not interested in philosophical investigations toward sacred architecture, for example, will still find the case studies valuable. It's an important book in terms of understanding the many definitions of the sacred in the 21st century.

Book Briefs #9: Architecture Briefs

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages.

This ninth edition of Book Briefs looks at Princeton Architectural Press's "Architecture Briefs," a successful series "designed to address a variety of single topics of interest to architecture students and professionals." Previously I've reviewed or featured Building Envelopes by Jenny Lovell, Writing About Architecture by Alexandra Lange, Model Making by Megan Werner, and Ethics for Architects by Thomas Fisher; a review of the latest, Urban Composition: Designing Community through Urban Design by Mark C. Childs, is forthcoming. The four series' titles below have been released in roughly the last twelve months, testifying to the popularity of the books and the range of topics to be presented. Remaining titles of the thirteen to date are focused on drawing, architectural photography, digital fabrication, and philosophy. Depending on their topics, most titles share a structure of theoretical backgrounds followed by case studies, with appendices, such as glossaries, helping them serve the intended audience.



1: Architectural Lighting: Designing with Light and Space by Herve Descottes with Cecilia E. Ramos | Princeton Architectural Press | 2011 | Amazon
One of the strengths of the Architecture Briefs series is having the right author for the right topic. This title on lighting is a case in point, given that Herve Descottes's firm, L'Observatoire International, has one of the strongest portfolios of lighting designers today. The case studies of L'Observatoire projects (The High Line, Kiasma Museum of Art in Finland, the Guthrie Theater) are a highlight of the book, following chapters on visual principles of light (illuminance, luminance, color and temperature, height, density, direction and distribution). The case studies elucidate how these principles are taken into account in design. Charts illustrating how various artificial lights work relative to the principles are particularly handy, additionally reiterating that lighting design is engineering, a means of quantifying what is ultimately a qualitative experience.

2: Material Strategies: Innovative Applications in Architecture by Blaine Brownell | Princeton Architectural Press | 2012 | Amazon
This is Blaine Brownell's fifth book with PAPress, following three Transmaterial titles and the excellent Matter in the Floating World. With his Transmaterial website and series of books, Brownell has become a valuable resource in the architectural community for innovative materials and applications. Material Strategies focuses on the latter, how various materials are applied to create striking buildings. It's no surprise that "disruptive technologies and applications" are an important part of the book. The categorization of materials (mineral, concrete, wood, metal, glass, plastic) echoes other books dealing with the same subject matter, but Brownell only skims the technical aspects to focus on the way certain materials are used formally. Unfortunately many of the images in each chapter overview are too small for understanding, but this is overcome in the case studies.



3: Old Buildings, New Designs: Architectural Transformations by Charles Bloszies  | Princeton Architectural Press | 2011 | Amazon
Charles Bloszies is an architect/engineering working in San Francisco, a city where dealing with historical buildings is paramount. His experience comes through in the discussions of transformations in technical terms, in dealing with controversies arising from reuse, and obviously in the aesthetic possibilities of juxtaposing old and new. But it is also found in his projects inserted amongst higher profile projects by bigger names. Overall the selection of case studies is a varied yet quality mix of small interventions, major additions, repurposed buildings, and none of the above—the author's wording for the four chapters. I'm a huge fan of new and old existing side-by-side, or in some cases inside-outside, so I'm glad to see a book promoting the practice with various theoretical and formal reasons.

4: Sustainable Design: A Critical Guide by David Bergman  | Princeton Architectural Press | 2011 | Amazon
Sustainable design is a topic that alternatively needs to be written about more to better articulate a meaning and position, and is written about so much that the same thing is said over and over again. David Bergman's book lies somewhere in the middle, but closer to the former, thanks to a predilection for the second of his two categories: incremental solutions and innovative ones. Incremental solutions are things like compact fluorescent light bulbs, which are helpful but not enough. Innovative solutions, on the other hand, ask different questions, such that "how do we make a cleaner, more energy-efficient lawn mower?" is replaced with "is there a better way to design the landscapes surrounding our buildings?" Chapters move from the big picture to details: site issues, water efficiency, energy efficiency (passive and active), indoor environmental quality, materials, labels and ratings.

Book Briefs #8

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages.



1: Aesthetic Theory: Essential Texts for Architecture and Design edited by Mark Foster Gage | W. W. Norton | 2011 | Amazon
What is the role of beauty today? When I was in undergraduate architecture school it was an idea that was set aside in favor of more "objective" criteria. But according to Mark Foster Gage, acting assistant dean at Yale University School of Architecture, "the concepts of beauty and visual sensation ... are essential to the emerging worlds of design and architecture in the twenty-first century," because these worlds "are poised to undergo a profound but as yet unarticulated theoretical revolution.This reader collects essays by 20 authors, from Plato to David Freedberg and Vittorio Gallese. In between are familiar heavy hitters: Vitruvius, Alberti, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, Benjamin, Bataille, Sontag, Jameson, among others. While aimed at college students, the collection is handy, since it assembles bite-sized essays by some of the most influential thinkers.

2: Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted by Justin Martin | Da Capo Press | 2011 | Amazon
About ten years ago I read Witold Rybczynski's A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yet reading through Justin Martin's new bio on the larger-than-life figure made me realize that Rybczynski didn't have the last word on Olmsted. Both discuss his varied roles and his magisterial creations, but Martin delves deeper into the details, painting a lovely narrative that transports the reader to the ship Omsted sailed and toiled upon, his Staten Island farm, the Civil War battlefields, and the other places of his incredibly influential life.

3: Otto Neurath: The Language of the Global Polis by Nader Vossoughian | NAi Publishers | 2011 | Amazon
A couple months ago I attended a panel discussion at the Austrian Cultural Forum around Sophie Hochhäusl’s book Otto Neurath – City Planning: Proposing a socio-political Map for modern Urbanism. Her book owes a debt to Nader Vossoughian's earlier title on the multifaceted Neurath -- philospher, sociologist, museum administrator. Appropriately, Nader was on the panel, asserting that Neurath is relevant today in the way he was aware of production, not just consumption; the example of Apple's questionable labor practices in China led Nader to assert "Apple does bad design." His book on Neurath gives insight into what good design (among other things) should aspire to.



4: Tomorrow's Houses: New England Modernism by Alexander Gorlin | Rizzoli | 2011 | Amazon
This book is easily a must-have for lovers of modern residential architecture. Gorlin collects nearly 30 examples of early-to-mid-20th-century houses in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Main, New Hampshire, and Vermont, documented with Geoffrey Gross's beautiful photographs that often cover two pages in this soon-to-be coffee table staple. Modern architecture may bring to mind a narrow aesthetic of expansive glass and planar white walls, but these survivors show that New England modernism is much more varied. The fact that all the houses have been photographed specially for the book is important, pointing to the longevity of the houses (many with renovations), and giving the book a visual consistency that makes it a pleasure to take in.

5: Urban Transformation: Transit Oriented Development and the Sustainable City by Ronald A. Altoon and James C. Auld | Images Publishing Group| 2011 | Amazon
This book from Altoon Porter purports to be "about restocking our weak architectural portfolio of transit facilities with dynamic new models." The presentation of projects by a firm that designs "retail based mixed-use and institutional developments for clients across the globe" points to the pros and cons of TODs: In the case of the former the ability to deal with the complex interaction of transit with other uses is well documented; the latter points to a homogenous, slick aesthetic of late capitalism, devoid of the qualities of place that TODs should foster.

Book Briefs #7

This installment of "Book Briefs" -- an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library -- focuses on some recent monographs, many of them firsts for the respective firms. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages.



1: KieranTimberlake: Inquiry by Stephen Kieran, James Timberlake and Karl Wallick | Rizzoli | 2011 | Amazon
Unlike most architectural monographs that present projects, one after the other, often sectioned off by themes characteristic of the firm, this second monograph on Philadelphia's KieranTimberlake does the opposite. Themes (bending, coupling, filtering, inserting, ...) structure the book but also the contents of each project, so that each building gets "exploded" into the various themes, spread across them and pieced together in the reader's mind; this follows the format of their first monograph, Manual. The structure prioritizes formal concepts, process, and details over the individual works, though the projects are keyed at the back of the book via plans for and page numbers for reference. At first I found this tactic annoying, wanting to learn about each project in its entirety across sequential pages -- the norm -- but then I warmed up to the slow digestion of project information and the elucidation of themes via visual rather than textual essays. Less a monograph than an articulation of ideas and strategies, it's a good approach that teaches the reader about the work of KieranTimberlake, and about architecture in general in the process.

2: Rogers Marvel Architects by Rob Rogers and Jonathan Marvel | Princeton Architectural Press | 2011 | Amazon
When doing research for my Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture, just about any project in the five boroughs by Rogers Marvel Architects was in the running for inclusion. Not only are they extremely good architects, but their work is almost exclusively focused on the public realm, from schools and libraries to housing and even streetscapes. Sure, single-family residential projects are part of their oeuvre, but they are outnumbered by the projects that, even if not open to the public, help shape the public realm through their presence. This first monograph, introduced by Michael Sorkin, splits the projects into three sections: buildings, adaptations, and public spaces. Working primarily in New York City, the second chapter makes a lot of sense, as does the fact that the buildings in the first chapter are mainly found outside the city. The public spaces, such as the security streetscapes in Battery Park City and near the NYSE, respond to the militarization of urban spaces, but they do it simply and beautifully. These and other projects are clearly the result of architects caring for the public, not just considering them.



3: Made to Measure: The Architecture of Leers Weinzapfel Associates by Andrea Leers, Jane Weinzapfel, Joe Pryse, Josiah Stevenson | Princeton Architectural Press | 2011 | Amazon
The name of the first monograph on Boston's Leers Weinzapfel Associates becomes apparent in how the firm categorizes its projects into three sections: “Compacting & Wrapping,” “Weaving & Embedding,” and “Stitching & Fitting.” Bespoke architecture, like a well-tailored suit, is the metaphor of choice here; suited to the client (most are universities) and context but not fashionable, like a passing trend. It is ultimately a fairly traditional monograph covering the firm's 30-odd-year career, with some very solid documentation in words and images. It also includes a foreword by Joan Busquets and an introductory essay by Marion Weiss. (For an in-depth review see Norman Weinstein's review at ArchNewsNow.)

4: Building Community: The Work of Eskew + Dumez + Ripple | ORO Editions | 2011 | Amazon
During the AIA Convention in New Orleans in May this year, Eskew + Dumez + Ripple hosted a party that highlighted the city -- out the window of their top-floor office downtown -- the city's food, and the firm's architecture. Like other architects, the drawings, models, and photos found throughout the office illustrate their work, but not as well as the office itself. The space is raw yet well tailored throughout; the custom yet inexpensive furniture is accompanied by surprises like walls of corrugated cardboard. In this first monograph on the 32-year-old firm, the numerous projects -- most of them institutional or educational --  are accompanied by essays by Reed Kroloff, Alex Krieger, and Lawrence Scarpa, on, among other things, their role in community building and their ability to tap into a sense of place, that place being New Orleans and other parts of the South. Their contemporary contributions to this context are illustrated through the usual sketches, drawings, and models, but it's the large-size photographs (most by Timothy Hursley) that really convey their design sensibilities, ranging from the smallest details to the grand gestures.

5: Bing Thom Works by Bing Thom Architects | Princeton Architectural Press | 2011 | Amazon
Before starting his eponymous firm, Bing Thom worked for "his instructor and mentor" Arthur Erickson. This relationship is evident in the grand spaces and formal exuberance of BTA's work in Western Canada. before starting his eponymous firm. In this first monograph on the Vancouver-based firm's output, large-scale photos predominate, suitable for the spaces of their arts and civic projects. Essays between projects explain their projects in terms of jazz improvisation, being influenced by where they live and work, and other qualities; the book also includes a foreword by Fumihiko Maki.

Book Briefs #6

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages.



1: Ethics for Architects: 50 Dilemmas of Professional Practice by Thomas Fisher | Princeton Architectural Press | 2010 | Amazon
Book series come and go, many not taking off according to early (optimistic) plans. PAPress's Architecture Briefs series, on the other hand, is effectively churning out titles on "single topics of interest to architecture students and young professionals." These include model-making, lighting, materials, and even philosophy. Thomas Fisher tackles ethics, a topic with a potential for a big yaaaawn. But unlike the AIA Guide to Professional Practice, these 50 dilemmas are highly readable, providing an understanding through realistic scenarios across a broad range of obligations. Cross-referencing of the dilemmas and an index would have been helpful, but Fisher gives architects plenty to consider, even if the initial response is disagreement with his recommendations.

2: Journeys: How Travelling Fruit, Ideas and Buildings Rearrange Our Environment edited by Giovanna Borasi | Actar | 2010 | Amazon
The super-small niche of "architectural fiction" continues (see also Beyond) in this collection of essays accompanying the recent exhibition of the same name at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Fiction is used to tell the stories of various migrations, many with memorable titles, like "When a cucumber is not a cucumber: an E.U. tale of customs and classifications." These stories follow 80 pages of relevant imagery culled from the exhibition. While not all of the contributions can be considered fiction (narrative non-fiction is more appropriate for many), the ones that take the plunge are very rewarding. The cucumber piece is one of the good ones, a vivid and humorous story that creatively gets across the difficulties and absurdities of government bureaucracy.

3: 21st Century London: The New Architecture by Kenneth Powell | Merrell | 2011 | Amazon
Closer in size to a coffee table book than a portable guide, this book collects over 150 recent buildings in London organized by building type and mapped for reference. High-profile projects (Millennium Dome, 30 St. Mary Axe, Tate Modern, etc.) are found alongside more obscure ones that range in size from small pavilions to large developments. Buildings on the horizon, such as the Shard and other skyscrapers, are also found in the book, mapping the continued evolution of London. A good selection of projects illustrated with many color photos as well as drawings make this a handsome collection.



4: Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods | Rizzoli | 2011 | Amazon
This coffee table book on the photography of the late Julius Shulman (also the subject of the 2009 documentary Visual Acoustics) is full of many pleasant surprises. Many people, like me, probably associate Shulman's photographs with the mid-20th-century houses in Los Angeles; his iconic photo of Case Study House #22 is one of many he created. Yet houses comprise only one of five chapters in this book, the other four comprising the surprises for me: LA's urban landscape, blooming developments, life in all its mundane glory, and workplaces, be they offices or industry. We see a city captured at a time of great change (like the rest of the country), but also a photographer with a diverse portfolio (unlike many pros today) and an insatiable appetite for capturing life around him.

5: Revolution of Forms Updated Edition: Cuba's Forgotten Art Schools by John A. Loomis | Princeton Architectural Press | 2011 | Amazon
Twelve years after its first edition, John Loomis gladly and surprisingly reports that his book had the unintended consequence of the preservation and restoration of the Escuelas Nacionales de Arte designed by Ricardo Porro, Roberto Gottardi , and Vittorio Garatti. A history of the schools is followed by extensive illustrations of the buildings through photographs and drawings. One chapter focuses on the acknowledgment of "other modernisms," something echoed in a recent A/N commentary by Carlos Brillembourg. The book is clearly a labor of love, which, it should be noted, has a companion website.

Book Briefs #5

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than can find their way into reviews on my daily or weekly pages.



1: Pamphlet Architecture 30: Coupling: Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism by InfraNet Lab / Lateral Office | Princeton Architectural Press | 2011 | Amazon
The 30th book in the Pamphlet Architecture series collects six infrastructrual projects by InfraNet Lab ("a research collective probing the spatial byproducts of contemporary resource logistics") and Lateral Office (founded by Lola Sheppard and Mason White in 2003). Five essays by the likes of Charles Waldheim and Keller Easterling are interspersed among the projects; gone are the days when pamphlets presented a single project by a single voice. The projects, ranging from the Salton Sea to the Arctic are beautifully presented.

2: A Peripheral Moment: Experiments in architectural agency. Croatia 1990-2010 edited by Ivan Rupnik | Actar | 2011 | Amazon
This collection presents recent work by four architecture practice in Croatia -- 3LHD, Njiric+, Randic-Turato, and STUDIO UP -- alongside observations by Kenneth Frampton, Aaron Betsky, Stefano Boeri, and others. The book works like four intertwining monographs, where the ordering of projects prizes theme over any particular practice. The book ends with discussions of and between the architects. The book is a great snapshot of a time of dense architectural experimentation.

3: Richard Meier by Philip Jodidio | Taschen | 2009 | Amazon
Subtitled "White is the Light," this pamphlet-sized monograph (96 pages) features 21 of Meier's distinctive projects, from 1967's Smith House to the Perry and Charles Street towers completed last decade. Given the size of the book and the number of projects, content on each is short, with a couple paragraphs of text alongside a few photos and the occasional floor plan. Jodidio's relatively lengthy introduction covers the evolution of Meier's architecture in the time frame of the projects presented.



4: Public Architecture: The Art Inside by Curtis Fentress and Mary Voelz Chandler | ORO Editions | 2011 | Amazon
This monograph on Fentress Architects is told in words of Curtis Fentress "in conversation with Mary Voelz Chandler," making it a conversational journey through the architect's numerous buildings. The projects in this rather big book are structured in chapters on various building types: airports, convention centers, museums, commercial, community, civic + government, courts, education + laboratories. At the end of each chapter is an essay relevant to the preceding projects but often rooted in art more than architecture; acknowledgments of inspiration alongside his architecture.

5: Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment edited by Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen | Yale University Press | 2011 | Amazon
This retrospective on the career of Kevin Roche accompanies an exhibition of the same name, held at the Yale School of Architecture, which also organized a symposium around the architect. It presents a portfolio of five decades of architectural production, but the bulk of the book is devoted to four essays on his architecture, including one by the editor that shares the subtitle of the book. Relative to Roche, the phrase "architecture as environment" makes me think of the masterful Ford Foundation in Midtown Manhattan; the atrium's modernism softened by lush landscaping is a good precedent for green architecture today, an urban greenhouse unlike any other.

6: BarberOsgerby by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby | Rizzoli | 2011 | Amazon
Edward Barber and Jay Osbergy run an admittedly multidisciplinary practice, combining art and design in projects ranging from industrial design to pieces of buildings. Most of their output, or at least what jumps off the pages of this coffee table book, falls in the realm of furniture. It's hard to pinpoint an overriding thread or approach in their work, as it is simple yet diverse, as if each problem deserves its own unique solution. The Filo Sofa is probably my favorite piece of furniture by the duo; a simple wooden frame is draped with quilts, becoming what they call "a deconstruction of the traditional sofa."