5 comments about A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams.

1. I love Michael Pollan's books-- I think he's a great researcher and is very good at presenting that information. However, any time he writes about his own experiences this annoying voice and character emerges-- that of a geek, perhaps-- and it's definitely not someone you want to spend a few hours with.
   
   I'm in the architecture/building profession, so many things Michael discovers in this book about architecture and building is not news to me. That said, I LOVE reading about the design process and why clients/architects/contractors make decisions and what ensues from those decisions. I wish there could have been more of this, plus more drawings/photos and pictures. I loved every moment spent with the architect and the handyman/builder. I wish it could have been more of them, less whiny/geeky Pollan. I wish that Pollan had not tried to wax rhapsodic everytime he picked up a hammer or chisel. He tries too hard to build connections with Walden and devotes too many pages to his "knowledge" gleaned from a superficial study of architectural history and theory. (And a bizarre homage to the architectural skills of Thomas Jefferson, which really doesn't fit.) There are really two (or three), disjointed books here. This book could have been better written by the architect.



2. I picked up this book after reading Omnivore's Dilemma. This book is the Omnivore's Dilemma for architecture and building. I found it to give a fantastic overview of the history of architecture, the difficulties in translating the architect's plans into something realistic (paring things down to form over function), and the realities of making a structure from the ground up.
   This book however is not a manual of how to build. If you are interested in building or creating things out of scratch it will be very happy with this book. This might better be titled the philosophy of building.... a place of one's own.



3. I was astonished to see that there are *any* less than stellar reviews for this book, so let me speak in defense of Michael Pollan's sophomore effort: You Must Read This Book!
   
   For those who loved The Omnivore's Dilemma, this book describes the process by which the cradle of that great work was itself brought to life. As a person married to an author, and as a person who himself writes more than the average American, Pollan's process of articulating his own dreams (and fears) for his own writing house literally brought tears to my eyes, so profound his subject and so universal its truths. It is a brilliant synthesis of abstract and concrete--the construction of a physical space *so that* greater mental heights can be imagined and obtained.
   
   For those who celebrate the way that Pollan has helped us restore some measure of our own humanity by helping us reconnect with what is true about food (and by learning how to avoid what is false about edible food-like substances), let only those who are truly roofless cast the first stone against this book! For the rest of us, whether we own, rent, or live more transiently in some sheltering construct, this book teaches the truly multi-dimensional ways that dwellings come to be, and how the manifold relationships that condense into built forms continue to express those relationships, even to those who are not yet born.
   
   For those who love Pollan's ways with words, this book is full of fridge-worthy sentences and page-worthy paragraphs.
   
   For those who enjoyed meeting Joel Salatin in "Part III: Grass" of the Omnivore's Dilemma, in this book we meet the prototype from the building trade, Joe Benney. Indeed, I'd be willing to bet that without Joe's training in the manual arts, Michael would never have made it past the first handshake with Mr. Salatin of Polyface farms.
   
   For those who complain "this book is nothing new", fooey. Yes it was first published more than a decade ago, but as a book I had not read, it was new to me. The new paperback format is far more friendly to me and my traveling lifestyle. And the new preface provides an opportunity for Pollan to complete some factual and cultural arcs that were anticipated by the foundations he laid in 1997. (In that way, every finished building is really the start of a new, unimagined next building.)
   
   So...I loved it, and I suspect that if you have ever dreamed about building a place for your own dreams, you will love it, too!



4. I loved The Omnivore's Dilemna. I've read some of Pollan's essays. So I was excited to see that early in his writing career he had written a book about building his own tiny writing house, particularly since small architectural buildings are fascinating to me.
   
   Well, the book is boring! For the same reasons that The Omnivore's Dilemna was interesting: namely, that he integrates science, reason, knowledge with emotion. In The Omnivore's Dilemna, he explained the science and technology, and gave an in-depth overview of the many ways food gets from nature to your stomach. In contrast, A Place Of My Own is packed with filler consisting of homespun wisdom about the nature of place, or what he calls "what makes a place a place." I would be okay with 5 pages of that, but I'd say this boring discussion takes up most of the book. It infects everything.
   
   For "A Place Of My Own," I was expecting a book similar to Thoreau's chapter "Economy" in Walden. In some ways, it is. But it has a lot of BS. Essentially, Pollan hires a professional architect, who creates what is described as one of the most complicated one-room writing huts imaginable, and Pollan hires assistants, goes through building code processes, pours foundations, etc etc. Far from the process of dreaming up a little writing hut and building it over the summer. He's essentially building a minimal hut for daydreams and writing in a convoluted and commercial way.
   
   Along the way, he tries feng shui in an unbearable 5-page ordeal that describes him running down a hill to find the best river of chi. Most of the book reads like that. Countless pages are spent describing concrete, steel, and other products. At page 301, the book ends, and I was shaken. I had given hours and hours to that?
   
   If the book had been cut to a third of its present size, it would have been a lot better.
   
   Until this happens, you may not want to waste your time.



5. I have read several of Michael Pollan's books on food (Ominvore's Dilema, In Defense of Food, Botany of Desire). I thoroughly enjoyed them so I expected the same experience with this book. However, once I started reading it became evident that my enjoyment level would not be the same. This is a re-distribution of a book written early in his career and I suspect it was reprinted based on the popularity of his other, more recent works.
   
   The story itself could have been told with far fewer words. He spends entire chapters discussing windows, roofs, site selection, etc. Very boring.
   
   Buy this book as an aid to sleeping.

5 comments about A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series).

1. This book was recommended to me by one of my professors in college, and it is a really good guide for what certain parts of buildings (courtyards, types of rooms) as well as cities do. I found it particularly helpful in deciding how to improve my designs from some of the book's suggestions. Really a great book.



2. This book provided very valuable insight into the type of home that we wanted to build. We ultimately bought a home that we did not design, but this book helped us to develop values that would assist us in finding a home that would nurture us and our environment.



3. Lent it to a client and of course, never got it back. Bought it originally back in college. Everyone in the design field should be required to read this book.



4. This classic architecture work contains abundant wisdom and practical direction for living for every thinking person. I first read it nearly thirty years ago and used its principles to create a garden that delights to this day. When I found it again, I was eager to read the parts I had skipped over the first time. To my sorrow, the book is no longer relevant to the way most people now live. There is barely any nod to electronic communication or entertainment. If you want to be overwhelmed by how much we have lost, or changed, since this was written, I highly recommend it. I hope that, as with other lost arts, a new generation will be fascinated by the old ways people used to live, and will adopt the good and reinvent human spaces. Big box stores, super highways, multiplex cinemas, malls, security-driven barriers and other structures such as looping airport approaches and chaotic store layout, fractured product placement in retail outlets: all were not thought of in this work. The serenity of the human soul was the overriding value. It is easy to see the world today is organized more like a bandit's trap than a serene living arena. Definitely a deep and thought-provoking read.



5. I love to have this book on hand to refer to when I am thinking about making changes to my living space or when I just want to let my imagine roam. Recently we designed a small cottage and found it invaluable as we worked to create the most livable and economical space.

5 comments about The Architecture of Happiness (Vintage).

1. Spaces change who we are.
   
   This ideas is expressed by de Bottam this way: "belief in the significance of architecture is premised on the notion that we are, for better or for worse, different people in different places -- and on the conviction that it is architecture's task to render vivid to us who we might ideally be."
   
   So we should think carefully about where we spend our time. Intuitively we seem to seek in architecture what is missing in ourselves, or what will balance us, or make us whole.
   
   de Botton quotes German philosopher Novalis who said, "In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through the veil of order". This seems to be an overriding theme of the book, the balance of order and disorder.
   
   Orderly architecture combined with the chaos of daily life is humanizing and pleasing. However, if the architecture is itself disorderly then the addition of life's chaos creates that environment described by de Botton as producing "disorientation and frenzy".
   
   And more generally, "we are drawn to call something beautiful whenever we detect that it contains in a concentrated form those qualities in which we personally, or our societies more generally, are deficient. We respect a style which can move us away from what we fear and towards what we crave: a style which carries the correct dosage of our missing virtues."
   
   We also find beautiful that which is stronger than we are and admire structures of strength and substance.
   
   These are interesting and provoking ideas and de Bottam's writing is for the most part clear and rich, often seemingly unusually enlightened.
   
   How do we test these ideas? I suppose by going into different spaces and seeing how they affect us. I was inspired to look at buildings differently and more directly in the future, and increase the order in my own live.



2. Often when I am in a building, I get a "feeling" about how comfortable I am there, but I could never figure out what about the building made me feel that way. What I love about this book is not Botton's flawless understanding of architecture, which is certainly not the point of this book. What makes this book great are his theories about what gives us that "feeling" about a building, and I found them very insightful. I now find myself able to look deeper into what it is about a building that I find so beautiful or comforting. It is precisely Botton's lack of straight-up archtitectural knowledge that allows him to take a different view, and find the fault in a lot of architecture: not considering the emotion that a building conveys.



3. This is Diet-Philosophy, entirely without fat and maybe without grey matter too. Anecdotes are narrated competently and there might be an underlying thesis. Something along the lines of "we are fascinated by the design of our immediate surroundings because we unconsciously believe that our immediate environment impacts us: our house will make us a better person, we think". Well, well, this is of course debatable, but not entirely false. Is it interesting and worth your time? If you're stuck in an airport, I'd say, probably.



4. This is a beautiful book---in terms of content, in terms of format, and even as a physical object. Vintage, at least in the paperback edition I purchased, really went the extra mile and printed the text and the numerous photographs on glossy, heavy bond paper.
   
   Near the end of the book, de Botton states that "Bad architecture...is as much a failure of psychology as of design," though what most fascinates him is not bad architecture but good. Consequently, it is from a psychological perspective that de Botton ruminates upon what exactly appeals to us about the physical structures we inhabit and visit.
   
   As it turns out, there are no fixed and steady rules -- though many have tried to establish them, and it is the exploration of others' ideas, and the concomitant psychology which motivated them, that allows de Botton to add his own contribution to a debate that easily shifts from aesthetics to psychology and from science to politics.
   
   The risk with a book of this sort is that it lose focus, but de Botton maintains control from beginning to end, and is as comfortable discussing definitions of beauty as broad as F. Schiller's "beauty is the promise of happiness" as he is formal elements such as order and balance.
   
   Architecture, if we are to understand its great variety and trends, serves to create equilibrium and to fulfill desires, compensating for what we lack: sometimes playful, sometimes simple and somber. De Botton is no relativist, however, and he insists that architecture may still be adjudicated based upon the extent to which it satisfies this need.
   
   Eloquently stated, efficiently organized and wonderfully illustrated. I expected the book to be intelligent; I didn't know that at times it would also be moving.
   
   Highly recommended.



5. After reading the author's travel book, I knew that he would have some great insights to offer for this unexpected combination of subjects. I got this book for a friend who is into philosophy and architecture; they found it quite interesting and enjoyable.

4 comments about Why Architecture Matters (Why X Matters Series).

1. The book was very useful to me as an artist in terms of the power of context and the abstract meanings that can exist in art and music as well as architecture. Goldberg's writing is smooth as silk and very conversational.



2. To our joy, 3 books are recently released by first-rate architectural critics.
   One is the posthumous work of Herbert Muschamp and the rest two are works of
   Paul Goldberger. Critic of New Yorker, his writings flow with delicious flavor.
   
   Child of NJ, studied at Yale, Goldberger's writings grasp what is
   best of American city and suburb and his thoughts hold what is
   best of Yale (intellectually, Vincent Scully's; architecturally, meaning
   of Yale gothic campus). At least, to me personally.
   
   Books like this pays particular examples of great masters of Europe or cities like
   Paris, Rome, or London. Goldberger's writings are valuable because subject
   matter is mostly American.
   
   Buildings like Grand Central and Penn Station in NY are contrastingly reviewed
   to show why one outlived the other and he touches issues of preservation.
   He also compares National Gallery West to East, outlining why John Pope's design
   (though style-wise it was criticized severely by Modernists at the time of erection)
   is better than IM Pei's as a museum.
   
   Stylistically and by personal preference, claims like this could be dangerously partial.
   But, I think that was the very reason his writings as a critic was enjoyable read.
   As a museum, Paul believes west wing was much more exhibition and orientation friendly and
   than Pei's. He explains why good buildings outlive criticism of the day and outlast
   regardless of their style application.
   
   Buildings of Gilded Age receive new edge, Architects 19 century gets
   new spotlight, and the arc of styles (or life of a building) are re-viewed
   with Vincent Scullian insight and sharpness. Particularly, I appreciated so much
   by the fact that Goldberger focused his buildings and cities in America.
   His writings on Yale campus and his child neighborhood are touching.
   His clips from movies and novels add freshness.
   
   I am eager to re-read his New Yorker collections in his another book.
   I hope Goldberger writes at least 10 more books in near future...



3. Opening a book on architecture tends to put me a bit on edge, since I've come to expect that the author, whoever he may be, is going to be highly opinionated and is going to make a lot of pronouncements that seem arbitrary and (worse) that differ from my own arbitrary opinions. This book was a pleasant surprise. Goldberger doesn't spend a lot of time pronouncing certain examples of architecture as appealing or appalling. Instead, he gives a good overview of what some of the issues are and how various architects handle them: "challenge" versus "comfort", for example, to take what's perhaps his best chapter. There are good black-and-white illustrations in the text, and my only quibble is that there could have been more of them provided (fortunately, it's not hard to find images on the internet). Highly readable and accessible.



4. prose poetry that matches the poetry with which the author describes different architectual structures. am particularly interested in the different architectural forms found in the Americas and the bearing that architectural structures have on impoverished neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side of New York City.

5 comments about Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan.

1. The author presents in concise fashion his own version of New York City's urban development history.
   
   One may or may not be convinced by his thesis that there is a specific New York City psyche that is reflected over time in a wide variety of constructions.
   
   But one can only be enthralled by his intimate knowledge of the City and of projects ranging from Coney Island to the Empire State Building to the 1964 World Fair.
   
   The surprising and at times bizarre illustrations add to the incredibly rich text. They include for instance a vintage photograph of famous architects actually costumed as their own creations: the Fuller Building, the Waldorf-Astoria, the Squibb Building, the Chrysler Building, etc.
   
   Written over 30 years ago and thus also a reflection of the 1970's, this work is definitely a classic well worth reading today for anyone interested in New York or in cities in general.



2. While "Delirious" has its fair share of archispeak, Mr. Koolhaas pulls off an intelligent, fun and thought-provoking take on the early 20th century building culture of New York.
   
   One of the quirkier (and frankly, awesome/bravadoish) aspects of "Delirious" is Mr. Koolhaas's analysis of Coney Island: an "incubator for Manhattan's incipient themes." As a reader, one initially questions the inclusion of such a trashy place in such a lofty manifesto. However, as the chapter progresses, you start to see Mr. Koolhaas's iconoclastic brilliance. He pays an amazing homage to "the laboratory" that was Coney Island, illuminating the vital role it played in the building philosophies that would emerge later in Manhattan.
   
   Scattered throughout "Delirious," also, are compelling supporting images that Mr. Koolhaas clearly spent a lot of time digging up. In fact, flipping through the book for the images alone makes for a near-equivalent, and fun, learning experience.
   
   However, unlike his tasteful use of images, Mr. Koolhaaas's flamboyant use of scholarly English makes his writing difficult to digest at times:
   
   "It is probably inevitable that a doctrine based on the continual simulation of pragmatism, on a self-imposed amnesia that allows the continuous reenactment of the same subconscious themes in ever new reincarnations and on inarticulateness systematically cultivated in order to operate more effectively..."
   
   Given Mr. Koolhaas's journalism background (and assumed mastery of writing), I suspect he made the conscious decision to remain somewhat inaccessible to preserve his "lofty" image. While such a decision may be understandable, his brilliance as a writer often gets overshadowed by the sheer irritation of trying to understand him.
   
   Ultimately, "Delirious" proves itself to be a very intelligent synopsis---just as delirious and congested the themes Mr. Koolhaas puts forth. For the most part, it's a pleasure to read, and it also reflects the exhaustive research on Mr. Koolhaas's end. Much like Mr. Koolhaas's buildings, "Delirious" is on the cusp of being as grand as it intends to be.



3. through the exhaustive historiography of the phases of congestion coney island brought to manhattan, koolhaas provides a rather cynical view of the Grid as being an ulimatley neutral zoning system of constraining ideas that represent the continual decline of a phantastically realistic civilization, represented as mutated symbols of architecture in the "void" of repeated "pregnancies."
   
   it's really well written. funny. uses, like above, a somewhat inefficient vocabulary but remains in the same vein throughout. it is also a graphic design hubris consuming every page, even the left-justified text, showing off koolhaas's interpretation of the importance to combine scholarship and marketing.
   
   buy it. it's a very good book.



4. A very inventive concept of New York's "culture of congestion" and how people are affected by the architecture they create. It is heavily researched and exhaustive, and after pretty much the third page I agreed with his concept of NY being "totally fabricated by man". What could of been a fascinating article becomes a spastic, heavy-handed read with a sledgehammer effect to your brain. (However,for those of us reading it for school, there are plenty of pictures that fill up the almost devastatingly vast 300+pages quickly.) It will scramble your brain with its thousands of nearly bumper-stickerish statements ("It hides life." "The Mountain MUST become architecture.") written with pretentious glee. However, I believe an independent scientific study has concluded that when pretending to read this book on the train people around you will assume your IQ is 40% higher than truth.



5. koolhaas is a bit over-the-top for me, but this I think is is best work. it's worth checking out if only for the story of coney island. once you get past blisteringly pretentious phrases like "coney island is a fetal manhattan", you'll find it gloriously entertaining as both a narrative and theoretical work.

2 comments about The Function of Form.

1. Where was this book when I was in architecture school? I have to say this is one the most comprehensive books ever written about structures that "generate" form... It's way of illustrating concepts with graphics and drawings are the way ALL architecture books should be written. Correct me if you think otherwise but Farshid Moussavi could become the Louis Kahn of contemporaneity...



2. THE FUNCTION OF FORM is a 'must' for any serious college-level arts collection. It proposes a new theory of form based on repetition and differentiation, offering a way for function in built forms to be conceptualized as a transversal process. Architecture and arts libraries will find this a technical, comprehensive analysis of the parts of forms that interact and reciprocate, going beyond text to pack pages with finished designs offset by pages of diagrams and explanations.

5 comments about Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises.

1. A great book put together by a great organization (Architecture for Humanity). After 2 introductions by the founders of Architecture for Humanity the book is made up of profiles of numerous projects from basic shelter to schools, bridges and city planing. Most projects are built work, some are conceptual. The book profiles work by many organizations all over the world. Inspirational and creative. This is a great book for anyone interested in humanitarian aid, design activism, low cost housing, public planing and policy etc.



2. I've skimmed through this. It has beautiful pictures along with specific info on what is involved in the projects. It doesn't go too overboard on the typology- (or is it typography-)masturbation like some design books.



3. I love Architecture for Humanity and I keep up with their work. This book is very interesting and worth having.



4. 
   Book Review: Design Like You Give a Damn
   
   Design Like You Give a Damn seeks to transport design from the elite realm where it primarily exists to the realm of humanitarianism, where it is most needed. This book, edited by the non-profit, globally focused group, Architecture for Humanity, ambitiously takes on the most severe problems currently plaguing the human race, including lack of access to clean water, proper sanitation, and decent housing. The book presents a range of different possible solutions grouped into the sections of housing; community; water, energy, and sanitation; and politics, policy, and planning. The book is interdisciplinary and includes ideas from architects and designers, planners, engineers, politicians and others. It is primarily a collection of schematic ideas and projects with a little room left also for essays by the founder of Architecture for Humanity and a few others.
   The ideas presented are not meant to be seen as westerners attempting to `fix' the third world and all its many problems. Rather the ideas attempt to be culturally sensitive and many are created by designers from the site or project location. In addition, many of the projects included community input by polling residents on what types of amenities they would appreciate being brought into their communities or involving them in other ways in the design process. For example, the Favela-Bairro Projects, located in Rio de Janeiro and designed by Jorge Mario Jauregui Architects, attempted to alleviate a very dangerous environment. The favelas consisted mostly of squatters and many did not even have formal streets. However they housed nearly 1/3 of the city's population and contained a vibrant community life. The community was involved in the actual design process as well as the decision of programming the building. Many communities did not necessarily want an all-purpose `recreation center' but opted instead for such buildings as a communal laundry, a salsa hall, a daycare center, and a venue for hosting Rio de Janeiro's soccer championships. As stated by the architect, Jorge Mario Jauregui, these buildings usually become `monuments' as soon as they are built because it indicates to the community that they are no longer being ignored by their government, that they have a right to design not to mention proper sanitation and housing that meets building codes as much as residents of the `formal city.'
   This project is a good example of the spirit of the book. There is a belief that good design can be applied to serious problems not just aesthetics and that it does not have to be trivial. Although on the hierarchy of needs food and shelter are obviously much more basic than an environment which promotes beauty and functionality, the book also indicates that design dignifies. The projects do more than present people with a bare minimum meeting of their needs. They seek to go beyond this and provide housing, schools, community centers, and other things which will raise the level of hope in the community and show that things can be better than they currently are; change is possible. This book was very refreshing because it is representative of a `silent majority' of the population, both in the United States and other western countries as well as elsewhere, which is often ignored in terms of designers. Whitney Young once famously rebuked AIA members for their "thunderous silence and complete irrelevance" in the area of civil rights, a charge that could probably be shared by many related professions. This book attempts to reverse this trend and bring urban planning as well as architecture and engineering to work on the world's most difficult problems by approaching them in such a way that emphasizes not their grandeur only but the fact they can, if not be solved, at least be made better for our own and future generations.



5. This was a mother's day gift from my husband. I am a 3-d artist and as I have been "into " the topic of shelter and portable housing for years, this book was right for me. And that the book deals with the human condition, and especially about helping the Quality of life through design, makes the book very interesting to read. If you are into web sites like" Instructables "or" eco- geek" you will love the book.

5 comments about Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books.

1. Fun concept for a book but alas none of these architects really draw my attention, except Stephen Holl, and I already have a pretty good collection of his books. I guess what is probably the most interesting aspect of this small book is seeing who these architects turn to when they are not reading about architecture, as one peruses the spines. Eisenman singling out Light in August was an interesting choice, as I didn't imagine him having much interest in Southern literature, but then maybe he regarded Faulkner as post-modern. Anyway, you can see the project at Urban Center Books, or leaf through the book at Yale University Press website.



2. 
   As I've been a fan of cut-down trees all my life 'Unpacking my library' would seem the ideal addition to add to my shelves in the book jacket and design section. Architects are the obvious choice as the book's subject, by their nature they are tidy folk and the professional and personal titles they own are sure to be in a photogenic format. The only other creative people I can think of who could be the subject of a similar book are graphic designers, artists in their studios would probably have books scattered everywhere.
   
   The ten featured architects are all presented in the same format: a general shot of their library (oddly these are all in black and white) and a nice touch, I thought, were captions about the shelving dimensions, manufacturers, materials and the number of books. Bernard Tschumi has the most at six thousand. An interview follows, which I found mildly interesting then close-up color photos of some books on the shelves so spines can be read by turning the book sideways. These shots are number keyed into the black and white overview photo. Finally the ten nominate their Top Ten Books, presented on a spread as cover thumbnails and what is the only book that pops up five times: Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, so no surprise there.
   
   Reading the spines reveals no great surprises either, a mixture of architectural titles (several have a copy of 'S,M,L,XL') and culture. (Are the real revealing titles in another room?) Liz Diller and Ric Scofidio share a copy of 'Jocks & nerds', books on cars and highways. Bernard Tschumi has a copy of Philip Nobile's 1974 'Intellectual skywriting' and quite few movie and photo related titles and obviously copies of his own books. Stan Allen has 'Facts about Finland' and 'Mart Stam's trousers'. Peter Eisenman has 'The Sun Records collection'. Should I be pleased that I found a handful titles that I have on my shelves, well, maybe.
   
   Overall a quirky and fun book about books. The landscape format works well as does the design which was by Pentagram. Could the next book be 'Unpacking my library: novelists and their books'?
   
   ***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.



3. This little book is deceptive. It's lovely to look at, and to feel as if you can snoop within the libraries of Michael Graves and Diller & Scofidio, but it's also a strong statement of personal taste, of professional position, and of someone's inner life. It makes you want to buy and read more books, and it celebrates the declining art of book collecting.



4. Architects are surely the most deliberately illiterate of the legacy professions, disdaining "book learning" at every turn in favor of holy-writ drawings (backs of envelopes once the most stupid of conceits, now topped by Gehry's iPhone scribblings) while producing vanity volumes by the ton to promote their excresences to a public unable to understand architecture if not explained to them in dumbest of texts or waved blared as signature-designer property investment.
   
   Wright, Le Corbusier, indeed all the giants of modernism, and those who learned from them, ground out simple-minded textual guides to their work with lavish illustrations. A few of today's self-proclaimed gargantua have issued inscrutable texts with their highly burnished images to pretend profundity, pitiful Eisenman knows not the depth of his ignorance.
   
   This obsequious volume should foster benign neglect of books on architecture, by architects and deep-thinkerers decoratively displayed for visitor impressionability.
   
   Pondering architects' libraries may be the most disinformative initiative ever of the bloated Urban Center which has swelled its shelves with dwelling porn and promotional bloviate.



5. If you are one of those people who stears clear from the small talk at dinner parties and instead heads straight for your hosts' library to nose your way up and down the shelves, then this book is for you. Jo Steffens had the opportunity to peek into ten famous, largely New York-based architects' libraries - ranging from 750 to over 6000 volumes - and filled a book with snapshots from some of their shelves, short conversations about the meaning of books in their practice, and a top ten list of each.
   
   The experience is predictably labyrinthine. No surprise that we often bump into the likes of Corbu, Mies, Loos and Kahn. A strong showing, also, of key (proto-)postmodernist thinkers (as opposed to builders): Benjamin, Foucault, Derrida, Bataille, Deleuze. Rem Koolhaas' S M L XL is probably one of the few books to show up in all libraries, although it never makes it to the top 10 (his Delirious New York does, once). Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction is another fixture of the postmodern architectural scene. There is not an awful lot that refers back to older, pre-modern architectural practices (Michael Graves' library is an exception). And surprisingly little in terms of monographs on contemporary European colleagues (I don't think I saw anything referring to work by Rodgers, Piano, Herzog & De Meuron, ...). There is, on the other hand, quite a bit of fiction on those shelves - a lot of which reminds us of the fractured, the layered, the tectonic: Finnegan's Wake, Gravity's Rainbow, Moby Dick, The Man Without Qualities all figure in top 10 lists. Then again very few poetry books. Only one - Celan's Last Poems - show up, in Steven Holl's final selection.
   
   The overlaps fascinate, but so do the differences. Stan Allen betrays himself as a systems thinker, Michael Sorkin as a political activist. Tschumi's kinetic, cinematographically oriented aestheticism contrasts with Holl's more quiet, contemplative disposition. Eisenman, as an arch-postmodernist, provides a counterweight to Michael Graves' penchant for solidity and monumentality. And then there is the way in which these architects arrange their books, the types of shelves they choose, the kinds of ordering they impose. I love Henry Cobb's classic, meticulously designed embedded bookcases. But I am also mesmerised by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's home library, where books, in no particular order, are surrounded by mysterious objects.
   
   The conversations are very short and serious and point to graver questions about the nature of the architectural practice in a world that is dominated by the computer, the virtual. Graves: "I want to know where we've come from. And I see students now being excited by the way they can make an object turn in space, inside out and upside down, using the machine. That in itself has become the moment of discovery. But it doesn't engage human concerns, or the myths and rituals of the origins of architecture. I don't see the interest in books and literature, not necessarily books, but the literature of architecture, as I once did."
   
   Inevitably, one cannot escape the temptation to peruse this book as a kind of catalogue, disclosing significant tracts of unknown bibliographic repertoire. But this requires patience. There is no index of all the books shown, nor is there the ease of automated search as Amazonians are used to. The only accommodation is that his little book can be easily turned to 90 degrees so as to facilitate the navigation of this fascinating and comforting landscape.

5 comments about Learning from Las Vegas - Revised Edition: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form.

1. I admire and respect Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown for their great career and contribution to architecture, which has yet to be fully assessed. The depth of their thinking, the vigilant efforts to achieve their aesthetic vision, their desire to overcome modernist dogma, which had mutated into marginalized elite uncivic abstraction, falsely denying vibrant areas of life...how can one argue with the importance and value of such work?
   
   Let me try.
   
   To me, this book represents one of the most interesting turning points of an architectural career, very similar to Rem Koolhaas' essay on Bigness in S,M,L,XL.
   
   Both texts are attempting to give themselves an elite artist's alibi for co-opting the corporate machinery's unself-conscious production. Here, both artists (VRSB and OMA)attempt to escape into pop art, just like their friend Andy Warhol, thumbing his nose at the self important abstract expressionists.
   
   There's just one problem with this; they are architects, not just artists.
   And this places them in significantly different political territory. Architects build in the public sphere, and therefore have a powerful civic impact. They enable some political forces, and, by physical default, suppress others. If they were artists, their voice is a singular one, an unsponsored comment, to be entertained or dismissed. Architecture cannot be waved away.
   
   So, being architects, is 'Learning from Las Vegas' and 'Bigness' an elite artist's manifesto, or a cynical architect's effort to solicit clients from the bloated and most lucrative areas of commerce? The ambiguity is disturbing, because ultimately it has proven out not to matter what their intention. Both Venturi and Rem Koolhaas have been most useful tools for the most egregious excesses of our runaway imperial corporate world.
   
   And this is a sad legacy for two brilliant architectural careers. No matter what their aesthetic accomplishments in the way of rarified architectural thought, the more brutal reality is that architects seeking fame cannot also speak truth to power. This gravely undermines their civic responsibilities.
   I am reminded of William Morris' quote, a sad retrospective look at his career, saying that ultimately, his work "only served the swinish luxuries of the rich." A bitter realization for a socialist, one who chose to retreat into archaic craft, instead of trendy pop.
   
   Pop architecture is not a game. It is an insidious symptom of the polarization of wealth, a symptom that Venturi and Koolhaas cheerfully enable, both with their particular form of dissociating irony. They can play with it as a theory, but it has wrought disastrous consequences in the physical and political landscape. Same thing happened to Frank Gehry, another symptomatic starchitectural monster, who apparently doesn't need to theorize. Hard to say when the deal went down exactly. I just don't know.



2. this book is extremely condensed into a multitude of thumbnails or panoramas and text that never fails to reiterate its point. i mean, these two architects really understand the idea of symbols, suggestions, and sheds but after a dozen pages on one idea, you already get the point.
   
   the images are really helpful in exemplifying the amount of criticism for or against the city ("idea") of las vegas.



3. This is a quite unusual and offbeat treatise on architectural theory, as applied to the world's greatest architectural monstrosity - Las Vegas. This analysis from the early 1970s is obviously outdated because Las Vegas hadn't yet become the monument to megalomania and excess that it is today, but it was already well on its way. The authors analyze Vegas' unique usages of space, lighting, placement, transportation, and building design for the purposes of communication and promotion. Strange chapter titles give a clue to the left-field analysis in store, and the authors have a clear sense of irony, underhandedly implying that Vegas presents the worst in architecture while they appear to be praising its uniqueness. Unfortunately the narrative gets bogged down in dense professor-speak terminology like "Brazilianoid" and "neo-Constructivist megastructures," along with a general overload of obtuse theory. Add to that the poor-quality and under-elaborated illustrations and you have a book that sacrifices insight and readability in favor of pedantic attempts to impress the authors' colleagues. [~doomsdayer520~]



4. Read this book to learn what you shouldn't do as an architect!

   This book follows Venturi's "Complexity and Contradiction", where you can learn how cynically to use casement windows in housing for the elderly where the elderly will happily put their plastic flowers in the windows, but *you* secretly know these are not really hormal casement windows, since they are out of scale (like fascist architecture's lack of scale?).

   This book will tell you about ducks and decorated sheds, but it will tell you nothing about building spaces which nourish creative human community. Try Louis Kahn (e.g., John Lobell's lovely little book "Between Silence and Light"). My postmodernist teachers at Harvard said Kahn's writings were incomprehensible, which says more about them than about him.

   Read Lobell's book and learn why, e.g., a city might deserve to exist. Remember: Only *you* can get beyond postmodernism!




5. Robert Venturi's study of the Las Vegas signage phenomena and it's impact on "architecture" is brilliant in it's scope. While written almost twenty five years ago, this book gains more and more pertinence as we as a society progress further into a "reality" of symbols, reproductions and representations. These words and thoughts are basically essential to the understanding of any city anymore, not just Las Vegas. Where this book misses the mark though is in the execution, as shown in Venturi's work, of these ideas. The projects put forth seem to pale in comparison to the implications the text actually has. These notions of architecture are by far some of the most relevant and important in modern theory today, it is unfortunate that their full potential could not be realized in these projects.... but maybe that is for you and I to do.

5 comments about Robert Venturi: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.

1. This book is less a manifesto than it is a very interesting look at how architecture has evolved over the last 2000 years. Venturi evocatively shows that there was no straight line approach to architecture, but rather an ever-changing and ambiguous path that Modernists chose to make short cuts through. In this sense, Venturi really does capture the complexity and contradiction in architecture in that there are many lessons to be learned, making this book as valuable today as it was in 1966 when it first appeared.
   
   Being one of the early "gray" architects, Venturi inspired a movement that eventually became characterized as "Post Modern." His early architectural work left a lot to be desired, since it seems less inspired by the many historical examples he favored, like Frank Furness, in this book and more by the banal trends in contemporary architecture at the time, eventually leading to Learning from Las Vegas (1972), where the concept of a building being a "duck," or a decorated shed, emerged.
   
   This book's most appealing aspect is that it is immediately accessible. You don't have to be an architect to understand where Venturi is coming from, much less a grad student working on a dissertation. Venturi avoids all that senseless jargon that characterized architectural theory at the time and later came to engulf Po-Mo talk as well.



2. Didn't even open this book but if you are an architectural major this might be a great book.



3. "I like complexity and contradiction in architecture." That's how Robert Venturi starts this superb book. No great proclamation. It was an age tired of great proclamations. Instead, Venturi takes us through an impressively learned tour of his favorite things, a grand overview of great architecture, with acute formal analysis of facade and plan composition, sectional variety, and an accumulating realization that complexity is an inevitable force in the tumult of human, urban life.
   Postmodernism has come and gone, but modernism looks as it does today because of this book.



4. Now that the bottom of postmodernism has actually fallen out and is being dragged along the street by the chains of American capitalism, it's "alright" for students of architecture to return to that misjudged canonical textbook of post-modernism, C+C by Venturi. While not as engaging as his other main work "Learning from Las Vegas", this book still leads the reader into a meticulous analysis of the physical composition of major pieces of architecture, and the composition of the thoughts that made them. After reading it, I found myself unconciously applying it's main dichtomy of complexity and contradiction to much of the architecture around me, if that is any testament to its power.



5. I had to read this book for a class specifically regarding Robert Venturi and the postmodernism movement that he became a leading proponent of. However, this book is NOT a manifesto for a postmodern vacabulary- rather, this book looks at all architecture from the Parthenon to the common family home. Let me say that I have read many architectural theory books, but nothing that really inspired me to look at a building and really see what the architect intended like Complexity and Contradiction. This book really focused my attention on the possibilities for great architecture on any level- from museum to treehouse. I feel that anyone with an interest in appreciating architecture should certainly read this book. Because of my studies of Robert Venturi and his contemporaries, I have pursued a degree in architecture and certainly plan to incorperate his ideas and philosophies into my work.