Edited by Philipp Meuser, with essays by Ahn Chang-mo and Christian Postho. Berlin: DOM Publishers, 368 pages, two volumes in slipcase, $50. Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, is probably the most isolated city in the world, both physically and culturally. Since there are few ways to learn about the city, a veil of isolation stimulates curiosity. Few publications have addressed the city's built environment; most focus instead on economic, political, and social issues. Architectural Guide: Pyongyang feeds this curiosity to some extent, providing unique information about Pyongyang, including both its architecture and its urban planning history. In an odd

By Andrew Blum. New York: Harper Collins Ecco, May 2012, 309 pages, $26.99. There's a revelatory scene in Terry Zwigoff's film, Crumb, in which the titular artist demonstrates his signature technique for revealing the grittiness of the real— telephone poles, cables, all of the varied rooftop flora of our urban infrastructure—in his cityscapes. When we think of the Internet (and often when we write about it) we generally see it as an ethereal realm of boundary-erasing placelessness. But our data actually makes its way through tangled knots of wire and fiber-optic cable, pulled through subterranean (and suboceanic) depths by workers

By David Adjaye. New York: Rizzoli, 2011, 568 pages, boxed set, $100. This handsome book is a culmination of a series of exhibitions held in Massachusetts; London; Bern, Switzerland; Lisbon; and Tokyo that showcased architect David Adjaye’s photographic survey of Africa’s urban environment. Architect David Adjaye’s new book, “African Metropolitan Architecture,” is a photographic survey of Africa’s urban environment. Click the image above for the slideshow. Six of the seven paperback volumes in this boxed set, edited by Peter Allison, consist of pictures of the diverse architectural forms that exist on the continent. The author, who was born in Tanzania

By Jean-Paul Bourdier and Trinh T. Minh-ha. London and New York: Routledge, 2011, 192 pages, $75. Jean-paul Bourdier, a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, has published several books on vernacular architecture, particularly in Africa. His latest, co-authored by Trinh T. Minh-ha, also a professor at UC Berkeley and a filmmaker, looks at dwellings designed by hundreds of ethnic groups in Africa, with the premise of helping to resolve the tension between Western architects who wish to step away from modernization and non-Western practitioners who need to square traditional building practices with the benefits of technology. Using

By Jean-Louis Cohen. London: Phaidon Press, 2012, 528 pages, $75. Over the last half century, the historiography of the Modern movement has grown increasingly complex. Where the development of Modern architecture was once presented as a coherent linear story, it is now understood to encompass a variety of overlapping and interwoven tendencies. A dominant narrative has been replaced by analysis and interpretation of competing directions, revealing the tensions and controversies that shaped the architecture of the 20th century. With the wide-ranging scholarship of recent years, historians have been challenged to account for a greater number of events, architects, buildings, texts

By Diana Balmori and Joel Sanders. The Monacelli Press, 2011, 208 pages, $50. In Groundwork, landscape architect Diana Balmori and architect Joel Sanders explore the territory between their fields, which is often painted—falsely, they write—as a dichotomy. “An integrated practice of landscape and architecture could have dramatic environmental consequences: the disciplines would cease to have separate agendas and would instead allow for buildings and landscapes to perform as linked interactive systems that heal the environment.” It is tantalizing, despite the hubris behind the idea that people or designers can “heal” nature. Ecologists and biologists maintain that the best way to

Edited by Lukas Feireiss, Introduction by Ole Bouman. NAi Publishers, 2011, 240 pages, $40. This book profiles 30 progressive architectural projects from more than 15 countries in an attempt to demonstrate the productive potential of community-centered design. Editor Lukas Feireiss goes beyond curatorial norms by including the testimonies of people who have interacted with the finished buildings, along with full-page color photos, contextual descriptions, and mission statements. Testify! The Consequences of Architecture, edited by Lukas Feireiss, Introduction by Ole Bouman. NAi Publishers, 2011, 240 pages, $40. These interviews show how the combination of physical intervention and community programs can impact

Edited by Lukas Feireiss, Introduction by Ole Bouman. NAi Publishers, 2011, 240 pages, $40. June 2012 This book profiles 30 progressive architectural projects from more than 15 countries in an attempt to demonstrate the productive potential of community-centered design. Editor Lukas Feireiss goes beyond curatorial norms by including the testimonies of people who have interacted with the finished buildings, along with full-page color photos, contextual descriptions, and mission statements. Testify! The Consequences of Architecture, edited by Lukas Feireiss, Introduction by Ole Bouman. NAi Publishers, 2011, 240 pages, $40. These interviews show how the combination of physical intervention and community programs

Edited and with an essay by Susan Morgan. East of Borneo Books, 2012, 392 pages, $35. Affection isn’t a word often used to describe architecture criticism, but that’s the ruling emotion of Piecing Together Los Angeles, the first collection of the writings of California historian and critic Esther McCoy (1904-89). There’s McCoy’s affection for Los Angeles superstars like Charles Eames, Pierre Koenig and John Lautner when they were young and needed books like McCoy’s Five California Architects (1960) to give their work a backstory—and when they were old, and the world needed a reminder of their talents. (On Lautner: “Instead