1 comments about Tilting, Newfoundland.

1. A wonderful portrait of a small fishing village through examination of its buildings and - especially! - words of inhabitants. Also interesting to see how a small town deals with encroaching effects of globalization and the dramatic effects of large-scale commercial overfishing on their main livelihood - so pertinent to small villages the world over. They have explored some interesting political/economic alternatives to becoming a tourist destination, through consciousness-raising of the locals through film and cooperatives. Well-written, engrossing, intelligent and enjoyable.

3 comments about Morocco Modern (Ypma, Herbert J. M. World Design, 4.).

1. Don't let yourself be fooled by the title. This isn't really an interior design book at all. It's more of a Moroccan themed photography book, filled with artsy camera angles, photos of random people, and extreme closeup shots of architecture, while also focusing on the history and various exports of Morocco. As a Moroccan sourcebook, it's not half bad. It's very informative and written in a very informal style that's easily digested by the average reader. I really enjoyed reading the historical information and looking at the gorgeous pictures, hence the 4 stars.
   
   However, if you are thinking of picking this up as a resource for Moroccan style interior decorating, I wouldn't recommend this as one of your top picks. There are many other interior decorating books out there which are so much better for that purpose... "Moroccan Style" by Alexandra Bonfante-Warren, "Moroccan Interiors" by Lisa Lovatt-Smith, and "Exotic Style" by Sara Bliss, to name just a few. I picked this up to add to my Moroccan decorating collection, and was pretty disappointed with it as a design book. It hardly focuses on design at all.
   
   There aren't any interior pictures at all of average Moroccan homes. The few interior pictures featured are limited to public buildings such as mosques, historical sites, hotels, and government buildings. Most of the photographs in this book are exterior shots combined with closeup pictures of tilework, grillework, calligraphy, pottery, and textiles. To get a better idea of what I mean, take a look at the back cover of the book. The 6 pictures featured on the back cover of the book give a pretty fair overview of most of the photographic content of this book. The pictures are very lovely, but most of them aren't going to be too terrible helpful as design inspiration.



2. I bought this book for its colorful, lush photography, high production values, and because I just really wanted it when I saw it. As a book collector, I had to have it. As an artist, I can't walk by it on the shelf without picking it up and looking inside - it's very inspiring. Makes me want to go to Morocco !



3. The richness of the colors, the incredible patterns for the tiles, the bountiful King's Palmeraie... I was just inspired. Immensily superior to Moroccan Interiors, better photos and no comparison in terms of the tex

No comments about The Fourth Dimension in Architecture: The Impact of Building on Behavior : Eero Saarinen's Administrative Center for Deere & Company, Moline, Illino.

No comments about Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and Its Political Masquerades.

1 comments about Cruelty and Utopia: Cities and Landscapes of Latin America.

1. Un excelente libro con una base teorica excepcional, ademas de una calidad grafica envidiable. El libro es un paseo por las cualidades fisicas de la ciudad y la arquitectura latinoamericanas. Es uno de los pocos libros sobre la arquitectura latinoamericana que responde a unos niveles altos de calidad expositiva, grafica, documental y teorica.

2 comments about The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe.

1. College-level architectural collections serious about their in-depth coverage will want to look at the weighty The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. It catalogs all of Latrobe's domestic commissions from interiors to exteriors, and even includes analysis of his training and career in both England and Europe, his design principles, and his methods. Analytical essays accompany sketches and vintage black and white photos, surveying changes in his thinking and approach, considering his contemporaries and influences, and examining the preservation of his structures. A comprehensive 'must' for any serious college-level architectural history holding.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



2. THE DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF BENJAMIN HENRY LATROBE by Michael W. Fazio and Patrick A. Snadon. Johns Hopkins U. Press, Baltimore, MD; www.press.jhu.edu. 2006. 769+xx pp. $75.00 hardcover, 9" x 11", ISBN 0-8028-8204-8. maps on endpages, color/black-and-white photographs, illustrations, architectural diagrams, notes, index.
   Nothing is spared in the way of breadth and depth of scholarship, nor in the way of production quality--for a definitive study of this important, but generally overlooked, American architect of the late 1700s into the early 1800s, the early period of the American Republic. A leading architect popular with the English royalty and gentry in their adaptations in a growing democratic society, Latrobe attracted the interest and commissions of the old and newly wealthy in the United States in the decades after the Revolutionary War for design of homes with many similarities to those he had done for the upper classes in his native England. And he attracted interest from government officials wishing to build impressive buildings representing the pride, the values, and the ambitions of the new Republic. Latrobe's architectural principles and designs went far in America as they had earlier in England because they characterized what he called his "rational house" based on ideas of the Enlightenment partly originating in England and embraced by America's Founding Fathers in their creation of the basics of the American political system and its institutions. Fazio is a professor at Mississippi State U.'s School of Architecture; Snadon is a professor of interior design at the School of Architecture and Interior Design at the U. of Cincinnati. The abundant biographical, critical, and analytical text with the hundreds of illustrations of all scales of architectural works are peerlessly informative standing alone. But also they work to render the authors' revisionist perspective that "perhaps only Thomas Jefferson...held a panoramic view over the international architectural scene comparable to Latrobe."

1 comments about Pamphlet Architecture 20: Seven Partly Underground Rooms and Buildings for Water, Ice, and Midgets (Pamphlet Architecture).

1. I love midgets, and reading aboot buildings designed for midgets is the greatest thing.

1 comments about A View from the River: The Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise (Pomegranate Catalog, No. A537).

1. This book is perfect for those who want a short and simple overview of the magnificent buildings along the Chicago River. Be aware though, that it's organization makes it not terribly useful as a guide on a river cruise or in my case, an easy way to label the photos I've taken along the way. I was hoping for more of a sequential guide that would present the architecture as seen from the tour boat. Instead, the author has organized it by architectural style - The Chicago School, Art Deco, Modern, Postmodern, etc.
   
   As a result, the book "jumps" from place to place along the river. There is a map (with tiny print) in the back for reference however.
   
   The pictures are wonderful, though many are aerial views that might make it hard to identify the building from what you've seen or photographed from water level.
   
   And if I may offer one more peckish comment - if only the author had given more attention to those fantastic bridges along the way. I personally find them enchanting, and would love to see them documented.
   
   That said, it's a great book and I'm glad I bought it. It provides just what I wanted in terms of describing the buildings and fitting each into the grander, bigger picture. I now have a much better understanding of the history, trends, and philosophy of Chicago architecture and architects as a result, and I know I will use it again for reference before my next river cruise.

4 comments about The Anaesthetics of Architecture.

1. This book is full of penetrating insights and a fascinating look at the movements and theory that lead to the current architectural climate. I can think of no better person than Leach to examine the shallow state of most architecture today. He puts the current state of architecture in context by elaborating on Guy Debord's seminal work-Society of the Spectacle- and the ideas of the Situationists. An easy to read, to the point, enjoyable book full of great criticism and an interesting grounding in cultural theory.



2. quite possibly the most interesting book i've read in a long time. starts out by gripping you with the now not unfamiliar but still radically contemporary discourse about the complete loss of meaning in the world and the anonymity of the image due to complete saturation. you do start to wonder if perhaps leach has a personal grudge against venturi + scott brown but all the same a refreshing bit of criticism. definately worth a read as an intro into the issues of hyperreality and seduction as the last resort in a mind numbing world of image attack, but read it quickly as this line of thought is sure to reach a point of apocalyptic tension and then burn out.



3. Mr. Leach's polemic is thrilling. Rounding up the usual suspects like Baudrillard and Benjamin, Mr. Leach takes us on an unexpectedly critical tour of architecture's avant-garde. The seduction and infatuation of the image in modern culture is complete and total, to the point where even philosophy has been reduced to a decorative device used to tart up images that may or may not be sexy enough. This is brutal yet liberating reading for anyone who suffered architectural grad school in the late '80s or '90s. He is merciless in his critiques of Lebbeus Woods and Venturi/Scott/Brown for their amoral conflation and confusion of form and content. I read portions twice just to savor the skewering. I am surprized that some version of Mr. Leach's analysis of "aestheticization" has not reached the popular press brouhaha over the "Sensation!" exhibit. I think everyone would calm down and maybe talk about something more important than artistic freedom. There is so much more at stake. The introduction rails against "unrigorous thinking" that has dominated recent debate or theory of architecture. I think this little book will help.



4. When I saw this book in Yale University bookstore, I was extremely thrilled to discover that a book on the aesthetics of architecture has been written. However, after reading the book, I was extremely disappointed to find out that the book has wandered aimlessly in several directions, and the author seemed to have many ideas, but most of them is not critically discussed or permeable to the readers. The most distressed thing is that the book wandered off in the direction of becoming a critical review of Las Vegas and Venturi's seminal work, both Learning from Las Vegas and Complexity and Contradiction. For one, Las Vegas is not the 'contentless' city that the author subscribed to presently. It is the ultimate event city, and the author would discover that big events and 'situations' have found their place within the this city. It might even seem contradictory that this chapter on Las Vegas has worked conceptually against the main idea of the book. However, the book finally picked up its pace in the last chapter, when the author finally addressed the problem of overt aesthetics in students' work today because of the homogeneity of computer usage. It finally seemed that the last chapter is the first, and the book ended where it should have started. Overall, there is some consistencies in the arguement from Lebbeus Wood's drawings to several cultural theorists arguement on aesthetics. There is also evidence of a resurgence in Situationism, and the author has confidently picked up on this trend.However, there is not enough reference to contemporary architecture and aesthetics to warrant a serious look into this book.

2 comments about Softspace: From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space.

1. Even through its subtle and discreet design, SoftSpace exudes sexiness in the most understated way. It captures the very difficult to define LOUD whisper of the contemporary in the most unorthodox way. It defines the contemporary aspirations of Design with very broad strokes crossing disciplines as varied as fashion, style, sociology etc. An important book if you seek currency in your design library or a great gift for the design/architecture enthusiast.



2. Although compiled to benefit the architectural industry and academic
   community, Softspace turns out to be accessible to anyone interested
   in the life cycle of human culture and civilization and its ability to
   adapt and embrace a new paradigm. This well thought out collection of
   works by talented essayists speaks to our growing need of creative use
   of materials to further efforts of design. It challenges the reader to
   rethink their surroundings and to explore beyond conventional wisdom
   and methodology of architectural construction. The compilation is well
   written, logically arranged and smartly appointed with imaginative
   photography and illustration. I would strongly recommend Softspace to
   architectural professionals, students and enthusiasts.