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In 2011, the Kunsthaus Bregenz mounted an exhibition of the art and architecture of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

By Brian Lutz. Pointed Leaf Press, November 2012, 224 pages, $85. This is a book on the model of Marilyn and John Neuhart’s The Story of Eames Furniture (Gestalten, 2010). It shares with that two-volume set an agenda—an emphasis on process and manufacturing—and a large size (14.2 by 11.8 inches) that does neither the reader nor the illustrations great service. Eero Saarinen: Furniture for Everyman, by Brian Lutz. Pointed Leaf Press, November 2012, 224 pages, $85. First, the agenda. Lutz, a former Knoll associate, argues in his introduction that Saarinen’s furniture has never attracted the same scholarly interest as his

EcoArchitecture: The Work of Ken Yeang, by Sara Hart. John Wiley & Sons, 2011, 272 pages, $75. WOHA: Selected Projects, Volume 1, by Patrick Bingham-Hall. Pesaro Publishing, 2011, 280 pages, $65. In the present environment of instant communications and global architectural practices, the swirl of influences between East and West is as dynamic and complex as the trade winds that blow between continents. This pair of publications, EcoArchitecture, The Work of Ken Yeang, by Sara Hart, and WOHA: Selected Projects Volume 1, by Patrick Bingham-Hall, captures the complexity and promise of this moment. WOHA: Selected Projects, Volume 1, by Patrick

Emily Talen, Co-editor, Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustainable City Readers: Michael Sorkin sounds tired, and who can blame him? This master of critique has made a career out of eviscerating buildings, architects, fellow writers, and anyone who rubs him the wrong way. How unexpected of him to now propose a why-can't-we-all-get-along harmony when so many are already lying dead on the Sorkin battlefield. We too would like to move on from this old and distracting debate. Unfortunately, while Mr. Sorkin tries to reinvent himself as the great peacekeeper, billions are wasted on efforts to ruralize the city.

A recent book by New Urbanist authors revives an old battle with Landscape Urbanism. Photo © Iwan Baan The High Line in New York, designed by James Corner Field Operations with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is criticized by Andres Duany for being too expensive and over-designed. It's hard to keep up with the musical deck chairs in the disciplines these days. The boundaries of architecture, city planning, urban design, landscape architecture, sustainability, computation, and other fields are shifting like crazy, and one result is endless hybridization–green urbanism begets landscape urbanism, which begets ecological urbanism, which begets agrarian urbanism–each “ism” claiming

  Image courtesy Leon Krier In all his writings I only encountered one instance when James S. Russell lost his natural cool, notably when reviewing my book on the architecture of Albert Speer. “Gushing, swooning, sputtering ,“ his words for qualifying my writing, apply perfectly to his own uncharacteristic outbursts. Related Links: James S. Russell Reviews Albert Speer: Architecture 1932–1942 The problematic and censorious reception of the book by modernist critics has, with very rare exceptions, been uniform around the world and unchanging for 27 years [editor’s note: when it was first published]. It was Robert Lister’s dissertation about this

Projects from mobile markets to full-on farms are greening America's food deserts. Photo © Will Crocker Students at Tulane's design-build program converted a former New Orleans golf course into the 4-acre Grow Dat Youth Farm, which includes a 6,000-square-foot education center made from shipping containers. In a section of Seattle's Delridge neighborhood, residents who rely on public transportation face a daunting choice: take two buses to get to the nearest grocery store–or trek up a large hill. “What we found was that most people were either going to the grocery store much more infrequently, or they were becoming heavily dependent

By Leon Krier. Monacelli Press, 2013, 272 pages, $75. Designing the First Axis of Evil Leon Krier would like us to look at the Nazi architecture of Albert Speer in a detached manner. But he starts painting himself into a corner on the very first page. He decries the widespread opinion that Nazi architecture is “worthless, however well-designed.” Click the image above to see more photographs from the book. Let's stipulate that Speer, Hitler's architect and also the Third Reich's minister of armaments and war production, manipulated scale, proportion, columns, and entablatures with great facility—not to mention prodigiousness—and that the

By Phyllis Lambert. Yale University Press, 2013, 320 pages, $65. Aiming High The era in which it seemed possible to regard the work of Mies van der Rohe as a product of pure geometry untouched by mortal concerns on its journey from his brain to physical reality has happily passed. Never, though, has a single work been examined in such intricate and fascinating human detail as is his iconic New York tower in Phyllis Lambert's Building Seagram, a comprehensive account of the building's inspiration, design, construction, and preservation. Photo courtesy Yale University Press Phyllis Lambert oversaw the work of Philip

Edited by Stefan Al. Hong Kong University Press, 2012, 216 pages, $25. Where All Your Stuff Comes From Open this book and you cannot help but think of Great Leap Forward, the 2001 tome generated by Rem Koolhaas and his colleagues at the Harvard Design School Project on the City. Both books are university-based, research-driven, essay-enhanced, muddy-photography-filled studies of urbanism in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), the manufacturing center of China. The dozen years between Great Leap's “initial overview” and this “critical evaluation” have been filled with enormous progress (or, some say, regress). In Factory Towns of South China, editor