1 comments about Architectural and Perspective Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives).

1. I bought this book because the Bibiena family were such a profound influence on the spatial perceptions of Piranesi. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this single family, from Northern Italy, created a series of increasingly ingenious stage designs for, especially, the Hapsburgs. Much of what they created was deliberately perishable and is now lost, although the great theater in Mantua survives. This book gives the plates from Giuseppe's book on architectural designs. They are extraordinary, really the culmination of a great Baroque tradition. Particularly effective are the interior designs, which use elaborate perspective in order to suggest infinite space. The presentation of the plates in this book is not especially polished, but still pretty good.

No comments about Guide to Kansas Architecture.

No comments about Ordering Space: Types in Architecture and Design (Architecture Series).

No comments about Confessions: Principles Architecture Process Life.

1 comments about ECO-TEC: Architecture of the In-Between - Book 3 (Storefront Books).

1. "Eco-Tec: Architecture of the in-Between" is an unusual book in the category of ecological concern. It does surprise and enlighten aspects of ecological perspectives that would have become far too stereotypical. The book is a collection of diverse texts by philosophers, artists, architects, botanists and climatologists,all giving us their latests research and thoughts concerning particular angles of our environment. Take Felix Guattari's last published essay before his death in 1992, it sounds like his testament and it creates a new word with an upmost importance: ecophilosophy, an ethics of socio-ecology that wants to go to new roots and new beginnings.

   Manuel De Landa's difficult elaboration of a concrete, multilevel, quasi

   geological history of cities and their development, is in its effort an absolutely unique perspective on how cities grow and function; If De Landa is aware of Deleuze-Guattari or Jane Jacobs on his study of the culture of cities, he hypothesies a whole new paradigm from which to study and observe the never ending evolution of urban culture. He proposes original concepts of cities as 'heat islands' or "self organizing winds".

   Criticism of the whole idea of 'ecology' and indeed of 'recycling', even

   if such a concept never entered the discussion of te other authors and one presume of the discussion of the original conferences from which the

   book is built from, Mark Wigley digs older histories of 'ecology' within

   architectural discourse of the xx century, and he resurrects the controversial work by John McHale, author of "The Future of the Future" and "The Ecological Context". McHale, Wigley writes, was fascinated by prosthetic attachments, as recours to defects. Thus his vision is an amplification of the human organism via a discourse whre the ecologist does not talk about "plant life, food chains, mineral resouces, atmospheric condition", but it is artificial ecology that achieves center stage position. Even 'language" is assumed by McHale as a the first prosthesis.

   No less critical is Mark Dery's essay on the "persistence of industrial memory" and our incapacity of thinking a truly post mechanical paradigm.

   Echoing McLuhan's 'rear view mirror' assumption for any culture in prognosticating the future, Dery pokes irreverently at every aspect of contemporary culture and its eccesses. He sees the parallel between the disappearance of an industrial, mechanical world with the challenge of men's masculinity. The soft information economy replaces the hard penetrating devices of the industrial era. Dery is very clever in weaving Freudianism and McLuhanism in a cyberdance of ideas.

   The counterpoint to those views are found through the equally stimulating work by internationally wel known artist Mel Chin. His notoriety rose with his projects on detoxification of heavy metals from experimental lands in America and Europe with the use of appropriate plants capable of absorbing these dangerous levels of toxicity. His overall multimedia approaches always touch sociological as well as natural ecology in forms and shapes that remain surprising and critical.

   One can add the importance of James Wines, who writes in the book that "As the world enters the new era of the age of information and ecology, ECO-TEC offers a forum on relevant issues facing the next decade. It was

   in this same spirit over sixty years ago that another theoretical discouse defined the principles of modern design, beginning with an eventful symposium known as the 'Athens Charter'". The presence of Neil Denari is also pivotal in the understanding of the unique and sometimes strange combination of partecipants and authors, who give in the end an exceptional outlook of the isses on ecology and technology and let us fill the hope that innovative, yet significant, new fresh approaches to issues are here on hand.

   Review by Massimo Consoli

3 comments about Architectural Composition.

1. Krier's treatise covers the lost art of building urban space as few other architecture books currently in print do. Any student hoping to understand the fundamentals of urban design will benefit from this valuable and highly accessible study.



2. This book covers many areas of architectural composition often not adequately addressed in architecture school.



3. whel actualy am looking for proporstion jogement to our my repor

No comments about Gert Wingardh, architect.

2 comments about Sore Sites.

1. Crudely alluring illustrations aside, Will Self remains one of Britain's most keenly astute observers of modern life, a writer for whom satire is never merely a means to an end. Articulate and frequently downright funny, he dissects societies many foibles like a 21st century version of Jonathan Swift, only a bit nastier. In his latest book of non-fiction Sore Sites, a collection of 60 pieces from the weekly trade publication Building Design, Self plunders the breadth of architectural monuments and monstrosities to be found around England and the world, leaving no cobble stone unturned. His knowledge of the `built environment' as he calls it, is strangely compelling and gives a subject that might otherwise be sterile and dull, especially culled from a niche magazine such as Building Design, a new dimension that is both hilarious and insightful. Self, as our slightly demented tour guide, traverses the various Millennium buildings in and around London including the Millennium Dome, a project spearheaded by Tony Blair. We wind our way through the crumbling housing districts of Manchester, while Self muses upon the demise of British cities due to the loss of municipal housing. Expansive public pools, the Thames river, the Tower of London, vernacular architecture in Northern Ireland, all get the once over, and, Self even manages to question the integrity of such egregious structures like Seattle's Space Needle, where an over priced lunch can be had while you spin endlessly, taking in the grand views. Particularly Selfesque obsessions manage to rear their loveable ugly heads as well; preoccupations with scale, made all the more apt when put in the context of architecture, the freeways and roadways around England including the M25 and, of course, drugs, which he manages to argue, quite persuasively, are interconnected with, even predicated upon, the aesthetics of architecture. One of Self's literary heroes, J.G. Ballard even manages to sneak into the collection by way of his novel High Rise, and, well, you can guess the rest. Although not as eclectic, or thoroughly engaging as Self's first collection of journalism, Junk Mail, Sore Sites is a fast, enjoyable read that manages to put architecture in the context of a larger social, cultural landscape. These short pieces allow the reader to ingest the vast history of the `built environment' and understand just how meaningful it is in daily life besides merely being a marvel or an eye sore. So, grab this handy travel sized edition, throw it into the breast pocket of your jacket and take it along with you as you explore the incredible architecture of Rome, or contemplate the desert tray in a spinning restaurant atop Seattle.



2. Crudely alluring illustrations aside, Will Self remains one of Britain's most keenly astute observers of modern life, a writer for whom satire is never merely a means to an end. Articulate and frequently downright funny, he dissects societies many foibles like a 21st century version of Jonathan Swift, only a bit nastier. In his latest book of non-fiction, Sore Sites, a collection of 60 pieces from the weekly trade publication Building Design, Self plunders the breadth of architectural monuments and monstrosities to be found around England and the world, leaving no cobble stone unturned. His knowledge of the `built environment' as he calls it, is strangely compelling and gives a subject that might otherwise be sterile and dull, especially culled from a niche magazine such as Building Design, a new dimension that is both hilarious and insightful. Self, as our slightly demented tour guide, traverses the various Millennium buildings in and around London including the Millennium Dome, a project spearheaded by Tony Blair. We wind our way through the crumbling housing districts of Manchester, while Self muses upon the demise of British cities due to the loss of municipal housing. Expansive public pools, the Thames river, the Tower of London, vernacular architecture in Northern Ireland, all get the once over, and, Self even manages to question the integrity of such egregious structures like Seattle's Space Needle, where an over priced lunch can be had while you spin endlessly, taking in the grand views. Particularly Selfesque obsessions manage to rear their loveable ugly heads as well; preoccupations with scale, made all the more apt when put in the context of architecture, the freeways and roadways around England including the M25 and, of course, drugs, which he manages to argue, quite persuasively, are interconnected with, even predicated upon, the aesthetics of architecture. One of Self's literary heroes, J.G. Ballard even sneaks into the collection by way of his novel High Rise, and, well, you can guess the rest. Although not as eclectic, or thoroughly engaging as Self's first collection of journalism, Junk Mail, Sore Sites is a fast, enjoyable read that manages to put architecture in the context of a larger social, cultural landscape. These short pieces allow the reader to ingest the vast history of the `built environment' and understand just how meaningful it is in daily life besides merely being a marvel or an eye sore. So, grab this handy travel sized edition, throw it into the breast pocket of your jacket and take it along with you as you explore the incredible architecture of Rome, or contemplate the desert tray in a spinning restaurant atop Seattle.

No comments about The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space.

No comments about Young Italian Architects.