No comments about Material Stone.

1 comments about The Presence of the Case Study Houses.

1. I found this latest Case Study book written by two European architects an interesting overview of the thirty-six projects . Anyone familiar with the concept will know that it was a sort of magical mystery tour of house design with Julius Davidson's House 1 in 1945 re-numbered as 11, Kemper Nomland's House 10 was actually the third one built in 1947 and because design and building was running behind by 1950 all the Houses were re-numbered leaving Ralph Soriano's House just as Study 1950 (actually the thirteenth built) and Richard Neutra's House 19 rejected by the Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza. None of this, of course, is any criticism of the wonderful designs sponsored by the magazine.
   
   The authors plunge into this administrative confusion describing each House with a wealth of text detail and illustrated with pages from Arts & Architecture, plans and period ads. What appealed to me though about the book are the color photos they took of seventeen Houses. I've only ever seen these homes through Julius Shulman's brilliant work and now to see them as matured properties surrounded by trees and gardens and the interiors glowing with that lived in look is rather impressive.
   
   Most of the book is, of course, taken up with the Houses but after that there is an interesting series of short sections dealing with the architects drawings, Shulman's photos, how advertisers used the properties, past and current owners and at the back a listing of each House with address, architect, photo (contemporary color or period) and a plan, unfortunately the plans are a bit small and don't have any key. Lastly there is a spread that has a useful timeline from 1945 to 1966 for each House.
   
   Overall I found this a fascinating book and the inclusion of the contemporary photos a real plus. A couple of criticisms: the authors writing style is rather flowery though this might have something to do with the translation from French and (oddly) there is no index. I think the book is a good complement to Elizabeth Smith's quite remarkable Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses published by MIT in 1989.
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover

No comments about Shrinking Cities: Volume 2.

1 comments about Mexico: Architecture - Interiors - Design.

1. Outstanding in its ability to capture the range of Mexican architecture and design from the historic haciendas to the stunning modernist houses of Mexico City.
   The best part, however, are the amazing sensual houses of Careyes and Cuixmala, you can practically feel the sea breezes.

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.

1 comments about Maekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture.

1. The account in this book of Kunio serves as an appropriate symbol of 20th century Japanese architecture. Kunio's career spanned World War 2. He designed numerous buildings before and after the war. (Plus during the war, too.)
   
   The postwar photos show a very modernist approach, that would not have been out of place in Europe or the United States. The coverage of his projects is comprehensive. Including, naturally, his best known work, the Tokyo Metropolitan Festival Hall in 1957. The book gives this building extensive coverage, in both text and photos. A very clean design.
   
   Reynolds did a lot of his research for this book by going to many of Kunio's buildings. As indicated by the credits to numerous photos, taken by Reynolds.

No comments about Utopia Deferred: Writings from Utopie (1967–1978) (Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents).

No comments about Russian Architecture and the West.

1 comments about An Aesthetic Occupation: The Immediacy of Architecture and the Palestine Conflict.

1. In light of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, Monk's An Aesthetic Occupation offers an enlightening perspective on the tired discourse of recrimination and counter-recrimination that has guided the Palestine conflict for over a hundred years. Monk's analysis of architecture as the focus of the accusations fired from both sides does not recreate the rhetoric of the historical actors he engages. Rather, as Monk himself would put it, his book is a history of the history of how architecture has been deployed in the conflict. And as such, the book both gets at the very emptiness of the ideologies that drive this conflict, and demonstrates the eternal return of that emptiness as both sides re-invoke architecture as the epicenter of historical ethnic claims on the land. In this, we need only remind ourselves that the current violence was sparked by Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in the autumn of 2000, in a blatant disregard (and repetition) of a history of ideological discourse about architecture and ownership of place that goes back at least to General Charles Gordon, the nineteenth-century British imperialist with whom Monk begins his study.

   In short, this is an excellent book, excellent because it is able to articulate and theorize the discursive and aesthetic apparatus in which Middle Eastern politics of the conflict have been caught. Monk does not offer explicit solutions out of that morass, but one is still forced to believe that enlightenment and analysis are the first step toward a solution. It is here that Monk's book offers something for the present and for the future.

No comments about Next Wave: New Australian Architecture.