Spring 2016: RECORD Selects
A roundup of new books, from Hawksmoor to Scarpa, plus monographs of note.
Opus 81: Carlo Scarpa, Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, by Valeria Carullo, Alba Di Lieto, Paola Marini. Axel Menges, February 2016, 52 pages, $39.90.
During the 1960s, architects worked with museum directors to creatively renovate museums in historic Italian city centers. The masterpiece of the era was Carlo Scarpa’s brilliant and original transformation of the Castelvecchio in Verona. This slim monograph shows how he revitalized the medieval castle, the museum of ancient art, the discipline of museography, and modern architecture in a monument at the heart of an urban UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Vertical Urban Factory, by Nina Rappaport. Actar, April 2016, 460 pages, $64.95.
Rappaport describes the innovations in architecture, engineering, and manufacturing in the early 20th century that freed American factories from rural sites next to water-powered mills so they could rise in cities. The new urban factories created jobs and fostered density, at least until the 1960s, when industry began to move to urban edges, suburbs, and, eventually, overseas. Rappaport also investigates how architects and urban designers, with new technology and the demand for greener industries, today can create urban production facilities to revitalize cities.
The United Nations at 70, by Martti Ahtisaari and Carter Wiseman; preface by Ban Ki-moon. Rizzoli, October 2015, 204 pages, $55.
The glass-walled tower and low-rise structures that rose from 1947 to 1953 along the East River in Manhattan to house the United Nations (founded in 1945) formed one of the most influential office complexes of the day. It was designed by a celebrated international group of architects, planners, and engineers from member governments, led by Wallace K. Harrison (who worked on Rockefeller Center), with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. The United Nations’ new home symbolized the optimism about the future, and now, with a recent restoration, this publication aptly commemorates the promise of that time.
EcoDesign for Cities and Suburbs, by Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley. Island Press, June 2015, 280 pages, $80.
The authors, highly respected and experienced in their field, show how sustainable environments can be created by integrating urban design with environmental conservation using normal business practices’ capital programs and regulations. Barnett, a planner and former University of Pennsylvania professor, and Beasley, the planner who revived Vancouver, explain how to revitalize communities while adapting to climate change, preserving natural systems, minimizing congestion, improving public transportation, and animating public spaces. They show successful examples already under way in numerous cities and suburbs.
Designing TWA: Eero Saarinen's Airport Terminal in New York, by Kornel Ringli. University of Chicago Press with Park Brooks, December 2015, 192 pages, $39.00.
In the mid-20th century, when “rational,” boxlike glass-and-steel skyscrapers dominated the architectural scene, the TWA Terminal at JFK (then Idlewild) Airport appeared on the tarmac, beckoning passengers and symbolizing flight with its birdlike curves and soaring vaults of poured-in-place concrete. More than half a century later, it is still beloved, though it has been out of commission for decades. This complete story about the building of the architect’s posthumously completed masterpiece appears just before the building is finally about to be reborn as a hotel and conference center.
From the Shadows: The Architecture and Afterlife of Nicholas Hawksmoor, by Owen Hopkins. Reaktion Books, January 2016, 304 pages, $40.
History is always written looking in a mirror. Now that individuality and originality are valued again, this gifted, rather eccentric architect, who was admired by T.S. Eliot, James Stirling, Robert Venturi, and Peter Ackroyd, is the subject of this lively new monograph. Though often outshone by Sir Christopher Wren in his own time, Hawksmoor (1662–1736) was involved in the most important projects of the day and designed major London churches, six of which are still in use.
Selldorf Architects: Portfolio and Projects, by Annabelle Selldorf, with an essay by Ian Volner. Phaidon, April 2016, 256 pages, $79.95.
Steven Holl, by Robert McCarter. Phaidon, October 2015, 340 pages, $955.
Hummelo: A Journey Through a Plantsman's Life, by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury. Monacelli Press, May 2015, 400 pages, $50.
Some new additions to a balanced architectural library.
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