by Jonathan Barnett. Routledge, 2011, 248 pages, $54 (paperback). Jonathan Barnett is a believer (as am I) that architectural ideas have had a vital role in shaping cities. To bolster his assertion he lays out in City Design a rich history of the styles, movements, and ideas that have shaped cities from the Renaissance forward. He puts in context everything from “garden cities” to “megastructures” and places these movements in the broader arc of civic history. Particularly interesting is Barnett’s interweaving of landscape design and architecture, since few books have looked at the interdependence of the two fields and their
by Joseph Rosa and Robert Elwall. Edition Axel Menges, 2012, 108 pages, $68. This exquisite oversized book of Turner’s abstract black-and-white photographs spans 35 years (1974-2009), demonstrating how she has been able to expand a language developed for crisp geometric structures to a variety of modern buildings and enabling the reader to see them anew. Turner first became known for the book Judith Turner Photographs Five Architects (Rizzoli, 1980), which depicted the “white architecture” of the 1970s of Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk, Michael Graves, Richard Meier, and Charles Gwathmey. Her photographs, like the buildings of those architects at that time,
by Shashi Caan. Laurence King Publishing, 2011, 192 pages, $30 (paperback). In the arc of an architecture or interior-design student’s education, she may encounter the image of Abbé Laugier’s “primitive hut” a dozen times. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but if you’ve ever sat in a darkened lecture hall and wondered, “Is that all there is?” then Shashi Caan’s Rethinking Design Interiors: Human Beings in the Built Environment is for you. Caan is the former chair of interior design at Parsons The New School for Design in New York and a founder and principal of the architecture, interiors,
by Tracy Metz and Maartje van den Heuvel. Rotterdam: NAi publishers, 2012, distributed in the U.S. by D.A.P), 296 pages, $45. You can open Sweet & Salt to a photo of torrential water ripping through the streets of a medieval town or a golden-hued painting of a peaceful ice-covered pond just after the chilly sun has set. Is this a history, a guidebook, a cautionary tale of climate change, a dike-designer’s handbook, or an art book? In the hands of Tracy Metz, a long-time contributor to Architectural Record, and art historian Maartje van den Heuvel, it is all of the
The Eyes of the Skin is the "gentle manifesto" that grew out of the Finnish architect, teacher, philosopher, and designer Juhani Pallasmaa's concern about the "dominance of vision and the suppression of other senses in the way architecture was taught, conceived and critiqued."
Goldman Sachs shapes the spaces around its NYC headquarters. Photo courtesy Preston Scott Cohen A glass-and-steel canopy by Preston Scott Cohen covers an alley between the Goldman Sachs headquarters by Pei Cobb Freed and the Conrad New York, a collaborative design effort. Anyone looking for a dream career in architecture—without having to practice—could do worse than to emulate Timur Galen, who, after receiving his M.Arch. at the University of Pennsylvania, noticed, he says, “a real deficit in the world of clients.” (Who hasn't?) In his current job as global head of corporate services and real estate for Goldman Sachs, Galen
David Chipperfield looks for common ground at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. Almost by definition, the Venice Architecture Biennale is a wildly uneven affair. It combines a main exhibition overseen by a major architect, critic, or curator with a scattered collection of separately organized national pavilions. And it seems to get bigger and flashier with every edition, as ancillary exhibitions, press conferences, and Bellini-soaked parties in rented palazzi sprawl across most of the city of Venice. The odds that these diverse elements will come together to offer a compelling message about architecture, architects, buildings, or cities would seem close to
Why isn't sustainability a hot issue on the campaign trail? Illustration by Brian Stauffer Those fast-payback, high-efficiency lights you just specified? Job-killing. The daylighted, naturally ventilated workplace you've created that delights your client and decreases sick days? A drag on the economy. When it comes to sustainability, the political debate of 2012 relies on misinformation—if those issues are addressed at all. In many places the term "global warming" can't be uttered in polite company. The building industry has recognized the urgency of embedding sustainability deeply in product development, design, standards setting, and construction. A broad range of public and private
Image courtesy Andropogon/Riverlife The steep banks and industrial history of the Allegheny River pose challenges to ecological restoration. Railroad tracks, the site of an 1877 strike, run along the river to the Strip District, a landmark marketplace on the river’s southern shore. An early plan by Andropogon for the Allegheny Riverfront Green Boulevard proposes strategies for stabilizing the failing riverbank and slowing stormwater runoff. The scheme calls for a continuous 95-foot setback for public use. A proposal by the Buncher Company for a mixed-use development on a 55-acre site that is part of the area covered by the boulevard plan
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