No comments about L'Architecture (Reprint Series).

No comments about The Charged Void: Urbanism.

1 comments about Italian Architecture of the 16th Century.

1. I'm not an academic on architecture, I simply love he buildings of the renaissance an can look at theme for hours, but this book was accessibly written in my opinion. All the major architects are presented and their work described. Here you find the information that coffee-table-books (by their nature) lack. Put the two together and you understand the era so much better. Architecture is i visual art and must be viewed, if not on location, at least by pictures. And thats why my fith stars is missing, it's sparesly illustrated, too sparesly for me as the topic is architecture.

1 comments about Colonial Revival Maine.

1. Maine, especially the coast, is a beautiful setting for almost any style of residence, but it seems Colonial Revival was made for Maine. This book does a wonderful job of presenting these buildings in their best light, the images are first rate and gorgeous. The text is highly informative and easy to naviagate. The craftsmanship on these homes is simply amazing and the settings for the most part are breathtaking. If you have any interest in Colonial Revival architecture or Maine in general then i highly recommend this book, I cant image anyone not appreciating this book.

5 comments about Lost Twin Cities.

1. A really fun book. Outstanding photos. Made me want to go out and see what is there now!! We've lost too many true treasures.
   Larry is a great story-teller and fact-finder.



2. This is a fascinating, though often sad, look at Twin Cities architectural history. I loved it!



3. Reading Lost Twin Cities feels like you've found that great uncle or aunt who can explain all the black and white family photos. This is a great example of the historian's art, a real case in which an author, by choosing a particular way to frame a set of information, calls a past world back to vivid life. It's a bittersweet pleasure to relive the life span of each historical building. Millet's approach is anecdotal, like that old relative's conversational voice.

   Indirectly, this book also raises some natural questions about our country's urban development. The demise of the Twin Cities' streetcar system is particularly well described, for example. I could see a creative professor, teaching a lower level course on urban development, assigning this book as a text. (The same professor would also have students view "Chinatown.")

   The book was also adapted for television by the local (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) public station. The program is quite entertaining, and catches the tone of the book pretty well.

   Larry Millet has written a few Sherlock Holmes mysteries, largely as an excuse to present much of this same historical information in a livelier way. If you're considering which approach to take, stick to this. The mysteries are awful, extremely flat-footed and despiriting for an Arthur Conan Doyle fan; this is a wonderful book.




4. I have a newer version of this book, and I just wanted to say that it is a very, very interesting book. Even if you arn't originally from the Twin Cities this book is still very interesting to look at to see how things have changed over the years such as the cars, the billboards/advertisements, and the way people dressed. I think that this is definetly worth every cent, and I look forward for another edition to come out with different photos of streets in the Twin Cities.



5. So far the best architectural book I've read, especially since I'm from the area of the subjects.

No comments about Hans Ulrich Obrist & Zaha Hadid: The Conversation Series.

No comments about Architecture in Britain: 1530-1830 (The Yale University Press Pelican History of Art).

4 comments about New York 1960.

1. I guess this book had to be written, it is a series afterall, but it is digusting what kind of buildings were built. Having said that, this is an excellent book and it is scholarly and the images are first rate, but lord these are for the most part terrible buildings that just about ruined the iconic Manhattan skyline, I guess at least we should be glad Jackie O, saved Pan Am from tearing down the breathtaking Grand Central Station, unfortunitely the same cannot be said for Penn Station, I think what you come away with from this book is, greedy developers, awful Mayors and the sinsister Robert Moses, it's a wonder the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building were not torn down.



2. on the history of NY's architecture and great buildings.
   
   You should own all of them.



3. First of all, the book is just too darned big to handle comfortably. With over 1300 pages, I don't know whether to congratulate the authors on their thoroughness or criticize them for having no sense of self-restraint. This tome could have been divided into three separate volumes, and each would have been a substantial book in itself.

   The epic length of the book allows the authors to go into incredible detail. The book is divided into chapters primarily by neighborhood. There are also chapters devoted to the topic of interior decoration, the 1964-65 World's Fair, "Beyond the Boroughs," "Historic Preservation," and "New York and the Arts." The numerous b&w photographs, averaging more than one per page, are stunning.

   A chapter titled "Death by Development" walks the reader through the ideology of the era that led to public housing monstrosities, as well as middle-class housing of dubious aesthetic and structural integrity. This same chapter discusses proposals for air-raid shelters, some of which would have had expanses large enough to hold a nine-story building, as well as the 1945 incident in which a US military plane crashed into the Empire State Building. The same chapter shifts to transportation issues, and presents a 1951 proposal for an unconventional "people mover" under 42nd Street, and the beginning of construction in 1972 on the Second Avenue subway (which perhaps, will open sometime in my lifetime). All this in just one of seventeen chapters - gives you some idea of the expansiveness and thoroughness of this book.

   Many readers will take special note of the eight pages devoted to the World Trade Center. This book was written before "9-11," and the book's coverage of the WTC is haunting, to say the least.

   From our perspective, the era in question (1945-1976) constitutes the "dark ages" of urban planning and architecture. Yet, the beautiful period photographs and accompanying text immerse the reader in the aesthetic mentality of the era. This book is a masterpiece, and maybe later in the day I'll find the strength to move this eight pound book from my table to my desk.




4. A great book for the coffee table or the library. Concise desriptions of built projects as well as conceptual ideas for the City of New York. Focuses on individual neighborhoods as well as the city as a whole.

5 comments about Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, Fifth Revised and Enlarged Edition (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures).

1. This book tells the story of important buildings built since a long time ago, even bridges! Lots of nice pictures and drawings, especially of the real important artsy buildings built after WWII. You can learn alot about the history of world culture and architecture just by looking at the pictures! All my friends saw "Wow" when I show them this book! Wow!!



2. 90 per cent of books in a typical bookstore are not worth the paper they are written on. This is NOT one of those books. The concepts presented in this book are profound. It is the best book I own.



3. One cannot even presume to understand modern architecture until one has read Giedion's classic work. This book did more to shape the view of modern architecture than did any other book. Giedion provides an impressive survey of architecture down through the ages, illustrating those aspects which had an influence on modern architecture. One of his more illucidating chapters is "The Demand for Morality in Architecture," which underscores the content of this work.

   The heart of the book is his chapter on "Space-Time in Art, Architecture, adn Construction," in which he examines the leading figures and movements in modern architecture, with the spotlight on Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto. These were the founding fathers. He examines the roots of their ideas as well as the influence they had in shaping the modern movement. This later edition also includes a chapter on "Jorn Utzon and the Third Generation," which Giedion felt had successfully carried the principles of modern architecture into contemporary society.

   Giedion also explores the shifts in attitude toward city planning in the late 19th century and early 20th century, reviewing such seminal figures as Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes, Arturo Soria y Mata, and Tony Garnier, which ultimately lead to the creation of C.I.A.M, the International Congress of Modern Architecture.

   Giedion is unabashed in his support of modern architecture, which has made this book the favorite whipping post of post-modern critics. But, few have explored the subject as deeply as has Giedion. Don't rely on other interpretations of Giedion. Read "Space, Time and Architecture" before drawing any conclusions.




4. I enjoyed this book for the author's insights into how 20th century architecture, starting from certain antecedents in the 19th century, such as the early iron-reinforced concrete structures of William LeBaron Jenny, progressed through Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Bauhaus school, and so on, up to the style which he calls "the hanging curtain of glass."

   Giedion shows how this spectacular 20th-century building originated around the turn of the last century and how it's modern variations represent a triumpth of this type of design.

   The basic principle, as exemplified early on in the Carson, Pirie, Scott, and Co. building in Chicago, is that as stuctural members receeded from the outlying masonry walls into the interior skeleton of the building, this allows the architect to open up the facade with windows, skylights, and other penetrating elements in order to let the maximum amount of air and light into the building. Eventually no real supporting structural members need reside on the outside of the building, and the aesthetic result is the "hanging curtain of glass" effect... Whatever one thinks of this type of building, it has become a major landmark of 20th-century architectural design in cities all over the world.

   Giedion's treatment of Robert Maillart's graceful, parabolic spanning bridge designs in the Swiss Alps and some other places, such as the Tavanasa Bridge in the U.S., which he specifically discusses as one of Maillart's most important achievements, is also very interesting.

   Overall, Giedion's book is a fine treatment of an important and difficult period in the history of architecture, and is one of the most important books on architecture to be written in recent decades.




5. This book is based on lectures Giedion gave at Harvard 1938-39. It is considered a modernist manifesto and after WW II, and well into the 1960s, it was often used in the training of architects all over the western world. European readers found the book interesting primarily because of it's section on the American history of architecture. The subtitle - The growth of a new tradition - refers to Giedion's conviction that the modern movement was the logical outcome of what he saw as a linear historical development. To make his case he gives his version of the history of architecture, and a big portion deals with the industrial era and how new technologies changed architecture and society as a whole. Giedion's all-inclusive way of reasoning was inspired by his teacher Heinrich Wölfflin. He also admired Wölfflin's mentor Jakob Burchardt. Giedion's mission is clear and he states that laissez faire mentality hinders development and that with common goals and values the world would be able to make changes for the better on a grand scale. Today the book in my view is primarily interesting as a time document and it gives insight into the modernist world of universal ideals.

No comments about Architecture and the Sciences: Exchanging Metaphors.