5 comments about Architecture as a Translation of Music: (Pamphlet Architecture 16).

1. I picked this book up for some fun reading two years ago, and wow! Did I get more than I expected! As an educated individual I knew a lot about the new directions in contemprary music, and I often dreamed of uniting my love for physics and architecture with my musical talents. This book is a fascinating and well designed introduction to the kind of developments in contemporary architectural/musical circles. These projects discussed in PA-16 are some of the first of their kind, and something I am excited to follow up on in my own lifetime. And it's dedicated to John Cage! I reccommend this book to anyone who is at all curious about architecture or contemporary music. It is always refreshing to learn about people who are pushing the boundaries of our imaginations, whatever the topic.

   "New music will be answered by the new architecture- work we have not yet seen --only heard." (John Cage).




2. Read simultaneously Marc Trieb's 'Space Calculated in Seconds' with Liz Martin's PA16. Both books are elegantly written and designed for those willing to delve-in and consider the possibilities.



3. In the begginning i was impressed by the title but disappointed by the quality of its material besides the font is very bad and hard to read , very small sketches hard to see , and the ideas exploration is not accomplished ,so never start with this book for this subject ....



4. For me, this is a thoughtful 80-page booklet touching, with a big broad-brush stroke, on some very intuative and evocative ideas on interdisciplinary work framed around ideas of time and space. To expect a book in the successful Pamphlet Architecture series to be an end all exhaustive study of any given subject is like looking at Time or Granta magazines renowned fiction writings and comparing it to a 500-page Dostoevsky novel - both are equally valid views of the world, but to compare them is like comparing apples to oranges.

   To cover such an intensive topic in a paperback series format with the aim of bringing interest to a subject that is not explored by many in contemporary theory; to have a current look at an age old topic for students to use as a springboard for research; and for over five years to be rated #18 on amazon.com's bestseller list is quite an accomplishment. I encourage all to keep thinking and writing - taking a chance.

   Hats off to the young authors the Pamphlet Architecture series supports!




5. As the title suggests, I was hoping for a book with a thorough symbolic analysis of the connection between architecture (the design of elements in space; or the configuration of space) and music (the design of elements in time; or the configuration of [the experience of] time). Instead, this book offers some mostly affectatious studies on obscure ideas. If your goal is to find a book which presents ideas as of how to explore the architecture+music marriage, I personally would recommend you look elsewhere.

   Some of the projects are intriguing, granted, but perhaps I expected the kind of book which is yet to be written. In any event, this one was not worth the money.

5 comments about Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture. ( Twentieth Edition ).

1. I purchased this book for my daughter as a Christmas gift. She works for an architecture firm and specializes in historic preservation. She has wanted this book for years but it is pricey and she did not feel she could purchase it for herself. She is extremely pleased with book and would recommend it to anyone that is interested in the history of architecture.



2. Without a doubt, this text is the Quintessential Gold Standard for introductory Western Architecture. A must have for anybody who is serious about learning about how Western Architecture has evolved over time, and with little if any bias. Its only weak area is with architectural development in Asia and South/Central Meso America. Other than that, this is my third copy of the text and it just keeps getting better. Believe me when I say, this is one book you may never want to loan out, for it may not get returned. I know, it's happened to me once already.



3. Mine is a new 1975 edition (which was a small fraction of the new price). It is as much a history of the world--and an incredibly detailed one--as a history of architecture. It opens each of its 40 chapters with a discussion of a civilization or era, then describes the buildings very matter-of-factly. Sometimes opinions emerge: Louis Kahn is cited as an example of a flash-in-the-pan; FLLW's Guggenheim is criticized as impractical.
   
   The photos are top quality B/W, often very old. Its real strength is early architecture; by chapter 35, it is only finishing up the Renaissance. The authors are so knowledgeable, the writing so polished after 18 editions, all others pale by comparison.
   
   I don't think there's much of a market for these books outside of libraries, but those who read it will marvel at its erudition.



4. For over a century, this has been THE classic study of the history of architecture. It is a work of art in it's own right and worth owning simply for the joy of hefting it's not inconsiderable weight and browsing once in a while - even as a layman. The text is extraordinarily readable and the illustrations are a delight. It's so packed full of information - believe me, even if you have only a limited interest in architecture you will learn a great deal that will surprise you from this book! Enthusiasts for classical and other older branches of architecture may wish to consider purchasing second-hand copies of older editions - they're somehow nicer, and devote less space to the debased modern form of the art. (Yes, I'm biased and proud of it!:) Of a reasonable collection of architectural history books, (including several larger-format, beautifully-illustrated coffee-table books in the modern style)this book is easily my favourite. It has class, style and above all, character. Buy it!



5. If there ever was a book on the history of architecture this is it! So very well documented with numerous pictures and chronologies. Wow! the mother of all architecture books-well worth the price.

3 comments about Carlo Scarpa--Layers.

1. This book does a terrific job focusing on several of Scarpa's notable projects and does so with detail including text descriptions, critiques, photographs, and architectural drawings. Excellent!



2. Carlo Scarpa is an architect's architect - a master of composition and juxtaposition with a love of materials and craft. Many coffee table books are filled with his drawings and photos of his projects, yet very few have made any attempt to dig under the surface. Anne-Catrin Schultz rises to the challenge of analyzing Scarpa's buildings and the architect himself - his Venetian context, his influences and how he worked. Her analysis and photos help us understand the method behind Scarpa's genius and let us see in a fresh light the works we thought we knew so well. A wonderful example of true scholarship and a fitting tribute to one of the masters of 20th century architecture.



3. I have not received this product yet so can't possibly review it. A VERY DISSATISFIED customer.
   
   Eric Engstrom

No comments about The U.N. Building (United Nations).

No comments about Roman Baroque.

1 comments about Capital Dilemma:: Germany's Search for a New Architecture of Democracy.

1. Capital Dilemma is one of those books that talk about architecture with a slight hue of fiction, which makes interesting reading. The subject matter itself is very intriguing in that it deals with the plots that Germany was subjected to through its rather tumultuous history. Architecture assumes importance as a manouvreable political tool. The classical buildings standing over time accrue layers of significance as they play host to various disparate and historically significant events of the different political eras of Germany. Also the predicament faced by contemporary Germany in its search for a new identitiy reflects strongly on the indecisive and wavering nature of contemporary planning and development control. All these are brought to light effectively by Michael Wiese, who surprisingly, is not an architectural critic. Aided generously by some good photographs, the narrative is equally exciting when it talks about the history of Hitler's third reich or about the architectural inclinations that marked the attitudes of west and east Germanys before unification. A must read for those interested in German history and politics. Also, anyone interested in the performative and symbolic power of architecture will be delighted by Capital Dilemma.

4 comments about Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred.

1. Architecture is visual. In this book, the emphasis is on the abstract. As such, the subject and its presentation seem disconnected. Granted, the book has illustrations; however, they're generally tiny compared to what one normally sees in a presentation on a visual art. The text also contains numerous tiny footnotes throughout. These footnotes are distracting. The author makes numerous references other writers, coming across as someone who's collected a bunch of interesting quotes and wanted an excuse put them together in a book. It gives something of an intellectual stream of consciousness effect. I've read other books on architecture such as Tom Wolfe's From Our House to Bauhaus, Michael Rose's Ugly as Sin, and Lewis Mumford's Sticks and Stones, and got a lot of enjoyment and insight from them. I thought I'd really like this book but found it so boring and hard to read I gave up before finishing the first chapter.



2. Philip Bess (Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, University of Notre Dame School of Architecture) presents Till We Have Built Jerusalem, a scholarly examination of the relationship between traditional architecture, urbanism, and human flourishing, as well as the types of culture necessary to sustain traditional towns and city neighborhoods. Chapters analyze questionable intellectual assumptions of contemporary architecture, and reveals how the individualist philosophy of modern societies is physically expressed through suburban sprawl, to such an extent that it undercuts urbanism's ability to sustain itself. Till We Have Built Jerusalem concludes that the natural law tradition and communal religion can both provide the needed intellectual and spiritual depth to modern attempts to build new (and revive existing) towns and cities. Urban locales, at their best, help fulfill the human drive for order, beauty, and community, Bess argues, in this fascinating study of old versus new urbanism. Black-and-white and a few color illustrations add a visual touch to this persuasive manifesto of the common links between improving the human condition through better urban architecture and the bonds of shared religion.



3. In this interesting but highly abstract collection of essays, Bess tries to teach cultural and religious conservatives (and indeed, religious people of all political leanings) about the virtues of traditional urbanism and its 21st-century heir, the New Urbanist movement. Bess argues that traditional neighborhoods where churches and other civic institutions are the highest buildings ennoble us by teaching us what we should cherish; by contrast, in 20th-century suburban sprawl churches look no different from Wal-Marts.
   
   One of the best things about this book is its use of quotes. Some of my favorites:
   
   *"To value anything simply because it occurs, is in fact to worship success, like Quislings or men of Vichy." (quoting C.S. Lewis).
   
   *"If a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once upon this downward path, you never know when to stop. Many a man has dated his own ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time." (qutoing Thomas de Quincey)
   
   *"the gratification in climbing consists of the conquering of one's own inert heaviness for the purpose of attaining a high goal- an experience inevitably endowed with symbolic connotations. Climbing is a heroic, liberating act; and height spontaneously symbolizes things of high value." (quoting psychologist Rudolf Arnheim to explain why height and beauty often go together)
   
   *"It is not only insufferable arrogance to think that one can begin theologizing in sovereign disregard of history; it is also extremely uneconomical. It seems rather a waste of time to spend, say, five years working out a position, only to find that it has already been done by a Syrian monk in the fifth century. The very least that a knowledge of religious traditions has to offer is a catalogue of heresies for possible home use." (quoting Peter Berger)
   
   *"The utter failure to create any meaningful pedestrian environment (that is, a rewarding public realm} defines the heart of Atlanta today. Every bad idea in the service of contemporary urban design [has come] together [in Atlanta] with a public attitude that can be summed up as the outside doesn't matter." (quoting James Howard Kunstler)
   
   *And once from William Penn that he (wisely) criticizes: "The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God, but in cities little else but the works of men." As Bess points out, human endeavor, like the natural world, is infused with divine presence.
   
   One possible weakness: Because this is a collection of essays rather than a freestanding book, Bess doesn't engage defenders of the sprawl status quo as thoroughly as I would like.



4. If the following paraphrase is not too crude a summary of Philip Bess' brilliant synthesis in this book, the author believes that we all carry a kind of moral DNA within us which not only urges us not to murder but not to allow urban sprawl to devour our landscape and kill our authentic civic life. How ironic that we Americans hunger for the beauty of European small towns, for example, but don't realize that their "human scale" is related to ancient notions of what cities are for -- to make people good (i.e., excellent). This is not a political nor a polemical tract: Bess takes the reader into serious philosophical waters and his emphasis on virtues-based theories of human behavior mirrors the current work of leading philosophers and psychologists like Alasdair MacIntyre and Martin Seligman.

1 comments about Earth Moves: The Furnishing of Territories (Writing Architecture).

1. i found this text to be a significant resource in thinking about practice and design, and their blending of intentions. using furniture as a medium for thinking about architectural space, the author identifies methodologies of investigation that are forward but readable. this book is not about furniture, it is about spatial movement, its architecture in the broad sense of spatiality. its a good resource for anyone interested in layering, trans-anything, and folding concepts.

3 comments about The Situationist City.

1. You could hardly find a greater betrayal of the Situationist movement in all of its aspects, than this book, which translates a chaotic, exciting and iconoclastic movement into a boring and platitudinous addition to the obligatory academic discourse about everything.
   
   Throw this thing in the trash, don't even resell it, certainly don't donate it to any charities or libraries. Go right now instead and find "The Situationist International: A User's Guide" by Simon Ford, you won't regret it. I swear to God I am not lying and I have no institutional or other affiliation that would conflict with this judgment.



2. I can't say I enjoyed this at all. Unles you're heavily into aesthetics and understand most of the avante-garde terms, you're not going to make any sense of this. The book was overly pretentious and I couldn't burden myself to finish it. It's not at all what you'd expect, and the synopsis is misleading.

   Get the book Guy Debord and the Situationist International instead. Guy Debord was part of the Lettrist International, which founded alot of the psycho-geographical ideas. I guarantee it'll be a more interesting read than this.




3. An excellent book, within the constraints the author sets for himself, to deal primarily with what could ahistorically, but reasonably be called "situationist" architecture and architectural theory. There is no doubt the book makes bored, sensitive fellows like myself want to go out and do something to keep these insane transformational ideas alive and working in culture. I'd love to have a list of all the other bored people, we could have a big party.

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.