1 comments about Summerour: Architecture of Permanence, Scale, and Proportion.

1. The work of Keith Summerour is a great example of a modern day use of traditional proportion, scale, and precedence. The design concepts portrayed in his architecture bring to mind exquisite works of architecture built over 100 years ago. Keith Summerour is able to bring old world techniques into play in the 21st century and is therefore able to acheive a level of detail that distinguishes him from the majority of architects practicing today.

1 comments about Tall Building Structures: Analysis and Design.

1. Es muy agradable poder contar con un texto que contenga una descripción completa de la mayoría de las tipologías y sistemas estructurales disponibles en el abanico del diseñador. Es una herramienta fundamental para orientar al estudiante contribuyendo a la formación de un "criterio" profesional de selección. Para el profesional es un manual de consulta permanente. Para el profesor un auxiliar muy valioso para la enseñanza-aprendizaje del comportamiento estructural. Como docente de facultad de arquitectura y profesional del diseño estructural considero que es un texto para tener muy a mano tanto en la bilbioteca personal como en la de las Universidades.

   Ing. Daniel Quiroga Mendoza Argentina

5 comments about A History of Russian Architecture.

1. I suppose I was set up for disappointment by the four 5-star reviews, so this is to balance those out - Actually, I'd give this a three and a half, mainly because I am used to books where at least the majority of the reproductions are in colour. This is the pitfall of buying unseen off the internet, and I think that disappointment for me is the main reaction for many art books purchased this way. In this volume, everthing is in black and white with the exception of five or six inserts each with maybe fifteen or twenty buildings featured in colour. That said, the text is readable, and from the little I know of Russian architecture, comprehensive. Just be aware of the pictures being mainly in black and white.



2. A wonderful book on a fascinating subject. Russian architecture is so varied, I really had no idea and this book is exhaustingly thorough. I especially enjoyed the section on Imperial Russian Architecture and the later Soviet Architecture. It is obvious how Speer influenced Soviet architecture, his Third Reich Berlin may have never been realized, but his spirit it is alive and well in Soviet buildings. If you have any interest in Russia or architecture or just well researched, scholarly books, then i cant imagine you being disappointed.



3. THIS BOOK IS PHAT. IT'S FAT TOO. IT'S A HUGE FAT BOOK FULL OF WONDERFUL COLOR AND B&W PHOTOS OF ALL KINDS OF CHURCHES, MONASTARIES, AND ALL THAT JAZZ. I'M STILL KIND OF INTIMIDATED BY IT THOUGH, JUST BECAUSE OF IT'S SIZE. I THINK IT'LL TAKE ME A COUPLE YEARS TO 'REALLY' GET THROUGH IT. MANY OF THE PICTURES, AT LEAST THE COLOR ONES, ARE FULL PAGE SIZED. THE PICTURE QUALITIES ARE VERY GOOD AND THE SUBJECT MATTER OF COURSE IS AWESOME. I LOVE HOW THESE ARCHITECTS WERE THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX. SOME OF THESE CHURCHES MAKE NOTRE DAME LOOK BORING.



4. Russian architecture is not well known to Western readers. Prof. Brumfield is a prolific and systematical writer about Russian architecture. Reviewing book is the best modern book in English about a history of Russian architecture. The book covers whole periods of a long history of the glorious Russian architecture. Author have visited Russia several times and most of pictures made by author and that also makes his approach more unique and personal. Text, pictures and references are very impressive and higly professional. As a systematical desription of history of Russian architecture (data base) it is close to classical Grabar's work History of Russian Culture (in Russian). The book creates a solid basement for building a theory of Russian architecture with discussion its origin, its unique stylistic features and factors which influence the development of Russian architecture. Prof. Brumfield's book established a golden standard for any other attempt to write a book about a history of Russian architecture (in Russian or in English). I have this book and I am treating it as a my national treasure. Everybody who are interested in the architecture and/or Russian architecture must buy this excellent, beautiful, well written, highly informative and richly illustrated book.



5. I studied under Brumfield at Tulane, with this book as the main text for study. He employs strong, fluid writing to encompass a millenium of russian expression and turmoil. The book does not lose its sense of history. A decisive book for any interested.

3 comments about Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (Writing Architecture).

1. The most enlightening chapter is "The Future of Space: Toward an Architecture of Invention". For that essay alone, buy or read this book. Ms Grosz problematizes philosophies with virtualities, logics, or spaces they have long overlooked. Moving away from a tired tradition of coherentism and rigor (phallocentric logocentrism), Aristotelian logic and argumentation, Ms. Grosz takes us on a journey through space and time, before or after space and time, and in between time and space or space and time (the interval). It constitutes a journey, as such, that won't soon be forgotten. Ms. Grosz offers insights such as the following:
   
   "Space itself, the very stuff of architectural reflection and production, requires and entails a mode of time, timeliness, or duration. Indeed, space must always involve at least two times, or perhaps two kinds of time. The first is the time of the emergence of space as such, a time before time and space, a temporalization/spatialization that precedes and renders the organization or emergence of space as such and time as such and thus emerges before a scientific understanding of a space-time continuum." (p. 110)
   
   Time, as such, is represented by the virtual (virtuality), "a concept that requires not only a time before time but also a time after time" (p. 111).
   
   Ms. Grosz's essays are informed by her expansive and extensive knowledge and erudition of Aristotelian logic, contact physics, maths, and postmodern philosophy.
   
   Her insights into the mysteries of space and time, the suchness of the now, the virtuality of the actuality or the potentiality, and the "hesitation" of durationality will have your head spinning as it's nodding in agreement.



2. Professor Grosz as done it again. In her latest work she as out done herself. Enjoy the read



3. Initially I was impressed with this book, it seemed to be well written and to raise some interesting questions concerning architectural ideas of the present and future. As the book progresses the author's rhetoric gets a bit thin, causually citing references that are never elaborated upon leaving many of her arguements baseless. If you suffer from the ability to develop your own questions concerning the future of architectural thought/theory, whether you are an architect or from the 'outside', buy this book. Otherwise find an author that can actual communicate an idea beyond an initial thought.

No comments about Multi-National City: Architectural Itineraries.

2 comments about Palladio's Rome.

1. This book serves as a wonderful guide to a neglected side of Rome. Palladio's two guidebooks to the 'City of Wonders' published in 1554 were addressed to both his fellow architects and to religious tourists. He leads the reader into the ruins through the walls and gates, moves on to the roads, bridges, sewers and aqueducts, and then to the circuses, triumphal columns, arches and, finally, the temples. By using its useful annotated maps on site, this book allows the reader to follow in the footsteps of the Renaissance tourist. A reviewer in the New York Times described it as "A fascinating snapshot of Rome a century before the Baroque architects got their hands on it."



2. By using this book modern readers can get an extraordinary view of Rome, following in the footsteps of Palladio, the Renaissance master architect, as he takes them round the churches and antiquities. Just the right size to fit in your pocket, will change the way you see the 'eternal city'.

1 comments about Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation: The Question of Creativity in the Shadow of Production.

1. This insightful book provided me with a fundamental understanding of not only the history of architectural representation, but also scientific, psychological, philosophical and metaphysical backgrounds of the architectural expressions of epochs throughout the Western culture. What is especially interesting to me is how the idea of 'architecture as language' especially in relation to Bauhaus and modernism is investigated. Since the manifestation of fragments of contemporary cities continuously surfaces in our environments to be comprehended or to take in charge, the text seems to be very relevant to our present time, perhaps even more so in developing countries. One passage reads: "... (I)n amnesic aphasia, the discontinuity between the possible and actual reality of words, between their concrete and abstract meanings, destroys the physiognomic qualities of experience, perception, and language. The loss of physiognomic qualities is directly related to the loss of categorial background, affecting language and perception... This shows just how critical is the communication between articulated, conceptual experience and its background; even more important, it shows that the background is common to our experience as a whole, including our language."

4 comments about Stanford University (The Campus Guide) an architectural tour.

1. This is another volume is the Princeton series on U.S. universities, using a similar format: the campus is divided into "walks," with each chapter covering one walk and commenting on each building. As one reviewer here did not seem to understand, this is not the insider's guide to Stanford, nor even a full history of the University. That said, the reviewer made a telling criticism: in a campus defined by its setting, showing the buildings without showing the surrounding trees and open areas gives a false sense of the appearance of the place.
   
   When compared with other volumes in this series, "Stanford" is a little better than average. The entries are brief and factual, without the rather elliptical architecture speak that characterizes some of the Ivy League volumes. Most buildings are represented by a small photograph. There are a very few full page pictures.
   
   Based on the date of publication, this book was not written for the Princeton series, but was adapted for it. The maps appear to have been added more recently, and the method of presentation is different from the other volumes. Here, the buildings are considered not by location but by period, starting with the original structures (including ones destroyed in the 1906 quake) and proceeding up to the present. This means that adjacent entries are adjacent in date of construction, not location. Building 71 may be half a mile away from building 72. In the original publication, written for a Stanford audience, this was not a problem, but it may be difficult for those who do not know the campus. There are a number of errors in the maps, with some buildings not listed or not marked on the maps. Finally, a few entries seem wrong: Toyon hall is listed a dormitory for 150 men. Hmm... that's what it was when built, and perhaps (I doubt this) it is today. When I lived there 20 years ago, it was a dorm for about 230 men and women. Nice picture though.
   
   In fairness, the chronological approach is more logical, even if it makes it harder to read the maps. It allows the reader to see how building one structure can change the look and the traffic patterns of a large part of the campus.
   On the whole then, I recommend this book as a good way to see Stanford, so long as you understand the limitations of this kind of history. Just don't look for pictures of the tree or LSJUMB!



2. This is the worst book on Stanford that I have ever seen. The pictures are small and faded . . . I have photos taken in 1975 with a cheap camera that look better than what you'll find here. (Ah, but the cover pic looks awfully nice, you might think. Yes, it does. Fine bit of hucksterism from Princeton Architectural Press.)



3. Let's face it. Most of us will never get to study at, or be hired by this prestigious Bay Area institution. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the beauty of its grounds and buildings. Stanford, in addition to being one of the very best universities on earth, is also one of the most beautiful.

   Institutional histories tend to be excessively pedantic affairs. I know of no history of a university yet written that is an exception. They're generally dull, tedious things written for people who want to be sure that THEIR college is the best. And as another reviewer has noted, the style of writing is usually over-refined and staid. This book is no exception to those rules. But that said, it gives us a portrait of a university and its history through the grounds and buildings, bringing it to we who have no other chance to learn about Stanford but with our own eyes. So, the book may be dry and incomplete, but the university itself is gorgeous. That's what saves the entire effort.

   Stanford started out life back in 1885 as an idea not unlike the ideas John D. Rockefeller had for the University of Chicago. And while Chicago became a world-class university directly out of the box, it took some decades for Stanford to catch up. It wasn't for lack of good buildings, as this book will prove. There are really two things that make Stanford exceptional in this regard. First, it transformed itself from a somewhat troubled early design, strapped by the heavy hand of the founder's wife and a devastating earthquake in 1906, into one of the world's great universities in less than 50 years. Second, when the vast majority of colleges and universities in the United States (and the world) were always seeking to make themselves into carbon-copies of Oxford and Cambridge, Stanford and its designers dared to try something new. Look at this book and then go to the university to see for yourself.




4. When I accepted an admission offer from Stanford, I wanted to learn all I could about the environment into which I would be entering. Having read the book, I developed expectations about the culture of Stanford, expectations which, upon arriving on the Stanford campus, I found to be errant.

   This book is quite a disappointment. Suffering both from poor editing and omission of crucial facts, the contents do not flow smoothly. The text is presented in a somewhat offensively over-refined and pretentious manner, the kind one finds in art museum catalogs or as introductions to Penguin Classics. The reader gains little sense of the beauty of the campus, as only a few of the photographs depict the excellent landscaping, the detail of Quad buildings, or the quality of materials and construction of the buildings. The foothills of the Stanford campus, and the trails leading up to the Dish aren't even included -- an omission that reflects poorly on the editors. Equally poor editorial judgment can be found in the photograph of the Hoover Tower appearing in one of the chapters -- this famous landmark is shown in its early construction, as an unsightly steel frame amid a dirt field.

   To the credit of the authors, they give an engaing account of the history of the variously defined Stanford master plans, and of the culture which gave rise to the different stages of the campus' expansion.

   In general, the reader's labors are not rewarded with fresh perspectives, or a sense of the spirit that habituates Stanford. If one toured the Stanford campus before reading the book, one might wonder what drove the editors to present such an excellent environment so vapidly.

No comments about Noise Orders: Jazz, Improvisation, and Architecture.

No comments about The Evolution of 20th Century Architecture: A Synoptic Account.