2 comments about Artificial Love: A Story of Machines and Architecture.

1. Paul is everything Nietzsche screamed about being without necessarily proving that he was himself what he would enjoin others to become: Genuinely cheerful, high-thinking, irreverent about the past, just big, and "Greek." Paul has written a wonderful book--seemingly all the more wonderful for confirming so many of my own observations about the subject.

   Here in this book he expands on the ideas he presented in his earlier book "What is Architecture?" and he does so in a way that delights,informs, teaches, and shocks. No small feat, mate.
   And he pulls this off by writing in a style that is nonexistent in the field. The book reads like a diary--of the kind 19th century biologists and anthropolgists used to keep: accurate, subjective, poetic when wrong, speculative, eloquent, filled with arcane data, and connected to LIVED LIFE.
   And to tell his story, he brings in his family, his students, his house, his travels, ants in his backyard, etc --whatever he's got at his fingertips.

   For Paul there is no past: No dinosaurs, no pyramids in the past for him because they are all right here right now--as they cannot but be otherwise. (His brand of "optimism" about machines and technology cannot even be called optimism--since optimism is an attitude that comes from acknowledging that cause for pessimism does exist but would rather not focus on it.) In Pauls's view, there is also no future but only NOW. A rather Zen attitude, ain't it.

   In this book, Paul makes no attempt to restrain his joy and wonderment at the sheer fact of existence of EVERYTHING including us and our irrepressible urge to tinker to make ourselves in different material other than flesh and blood only.

   The title of the book, ARTIFICIAL LOVE comes from a conversation in which his friends, Maria and Jaques are debating whether machines are indeed alive: Maria says machines are 'artifical life.' Jaques wonder if all this time what he felt for them was, then, 'artificial love.'

   Written like a novel, this book is weird in that it contains REAL architecture talk that ACTUALLY takes place between real smart and fun architects when they are just shootin' the breeze.
   If you think about all the pretentious archi-babble that fills the pages of so many "high-theory" architecture books today, it kinda makes you go, "wassupwitdat?"

   Highly recommended for all smart people but especially for small-minded as well as big-minded architects--but for totally different reasons.




2. Paul Shepheard's wonderful, witty new book is about architecture and machines in the broadest sense. "Artificial Love" provides a biting, brilliant commentary on our times. It's not only the best architecture book, it's the best book that I've read this year.

4 comments about Differences: Topographies of Contemporary Architecture (Writing Architecture).

1. The mediocrity of thought culled in these essays is equal to the quality of the translation. De Sola-Morales was a fine architect and an important theorist. His death was a great loss to the community of minds that comprise our discipline. This collection is far from his best effort. Look elsewhere, particularly his essay in the 2G publication of the Barcelona Pavilion reconstruction which demonstrates the nimble intellect of a cultured man.



2. i want to see forward in this boo



3. This collection of essays by Solà-Morales is a very good place to start if you want to understand contempory architectural thought in a wider perspective. Although the author has his own particular viewpoint and refers to the theory and practice of many different architects, artists and philosophers, he always has important points to make in each essay. The structure of the book as autonomous essays with themes which recur throughout the book enable an understanding which does not depend on rigorous knowledge of philosophical lines of thought. In this way the book provides a useful starting point for deeper inquiry into how the modernist project in all disciplines has fragmented. Solà-Morales is comprehensive and far-sighted in his acknowledgement of lines of thought and action such as the radical critique of the 60's and it's significance to architecture. The main premise of the book is a particular way of thinking with which Solà-Morales tries to place architectural works and thought. His enthusiastic reinterpretation of the work of Mies in 'Mies van der Rohe and Minimalism' is remarkable in it's clarity. I found his praise of the work of contempory architects such as Foster, a little too optimistic in relation to the current situation however (High tech, functionalism or rhetoric).



4. Personally, I think that is a good book. Other readers may not buy what the writer thinks but I think that it is really good to know an opinion and to understand his argument. This book inspires me to rethinking about architecture in a deeper and alternative way and help me to know what I want to pursuit in the future. The writer comments on different styles of the contemporary architecture and he implies a new way of future architecture.

No comments about New Directions In Australian Architecture.

4 comments about Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture.

1. A complete and utter waste; the excerpts in this volume are so short - averaging a page and a half each - that they are completely useless. Please do not waste your money like I did. You can learn more about the authors and theories on Comedy Central than you can by reading the thirty second sound-bites in this waste of paper and ink



2. good collection of essays and ideas about the meaning of Architecture through different authors along the 20th century. It's not a dictionary nor gives the whole understanding of the overlaping of styles, but shows condensed points of view about various topics.



3. This little green book is like an encylopedia of contemporary famous architects' writings and is a good source for students or layman with not much architectural theory background.



4. This collection of texts by Mr. Jencks and Mr. Kropf is a post-modern piece of work: joining different ideas as they were equivalent. At the same time it looks like a way to inform about the theories and manifestoes, in fact, it is a reductive and destructive thing because the pieces of writing don't show the real ideas of the architects. The book gives the same importance to entire complex books, short comments about buildings, magazine interviews, etc. They are not equivalent, people should be more respectful with the work of the other ones, mainly when their work is to teach and to help understanding.

No comments about You Have to Pay for the Public Life: Selected Essays of Charles W. Moore.

2 comments about Traditions in Architecture: Africa, America, Asia, and Oceania.

1. Although the book was written as a textbook for a course in non-western traditions in architectural history, it may be of considerable interest to anyone traveling to parts of Asia, Africa and Oceania. The authors' approach is largely descriptive, and the illustrations both plentiful and very good, so one may be a little impatient that the verbal descriptions rarely provide much information that is not apparent from the photos and drawings; but this is, after all, a textbook, and if you will grant that allowance, it is well-worth your time.
        The architectural traditions covered are contemporary as well as ancient, grand as well as domestic and, throughout, the authors treat the sacred and symbolic traditions of the culture, insofar as they are known or may be inferred, as they bear on the built environment. The book is organized thematically, rather than chronologically or geographically. Among the themes: moveable, stationary and underground dwellings; the impact of colonialism on native structures; the transfer of traditional architectural knowledge; and spatial organization, from courtyards to the axial alignments of cities. The focus is on three categories of structures: professionally designed and built monuments, houses erected by traditional building tradesmen, and structures that ordinary people build for their own use. The overarching theme is that architecture expresses cultural values as well as technology, and it illustrates that theme with an exceptionally wide range of examples.
        In the single area of the book where I have a fairly solid background, the Anasazi/Puebloan architecture of the Southwest, the scholarship is current and sound. Interesting and highly informative.



2. My familiarity with architectural studies stems from 3 years as a graduate student. Most architectural studies are "biased" to western history an organized in chronological order. Traditions in Architecture takes a fresh approach by focusing on a rich source of architectural precedence in the early America, Asia, Africa and the far east. The organization is thematic, rather than chronological covering such diverse topics as fixed versus mobile living spaces, vernacular materials, construction methods, sacred spaces, and so much more.

   The only reason that I did not give the work 5 stars is that many of the pictures (all black and white) lacked clarity. I do not know whether this was due to poor originals or poor reproduction; however, the details often are necessary to untderstand the full impact of the works.

   As UCLA professors, Crouch and Johnson give much credit to their students' work and input. This appears to be a work that has been a culmination of years of study with much independent input. I highly recommend it as a "first" to take this approach and to cover such a wide breadth of topics in one volume.

No comments about New Architecture in China.

No comments about Bernini and the Bell Towers: Architecture and Politics at the Vatican.

1 comments about Oppositions Reader: Selected Essays 1973-1984.

1. a great project, a necessary book to understand the Seventeens, not only in the architecture, not only for architects.

1 comments about Texas Log Buildings: A Folk Architecture.

1. I was a student of Dr. Jordan's at UT Austin in his Geography of Texas class. His lectures on Texas are as good, as I have found out, as his writings. Recommend to anyone interested in the rural history of Texas