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

No comments about Perspecta 40 "Monster": The Yale Architectural Journal (Perspecta).

No comments about Plumbing:: Sounding Modern Architecture.

No comments about The Architectural Detail.

2 comments about The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt.

1. Originally written as a PhD thesis in 1986, this book should have been published sooner than it was (1993) because it forewarns just where Jacques Derrida's elusive philosophy was taking us - to a ghost dance, specifically to Derrida's latest ill-fated attempt to prove the ethico-political relevance of his Deconstruction in his book, Specters of Marx, 1993. The Architecture of Deconstruction focuses on Derrida's essays on Husserl (Introduction to the Origin of Geometry) and on Abraham and Torok (Fors) rather than Derrida's essays on architecture (there are enough now to full a book, many concerning Plato's intriguing use of the word Chora, but in '86 there was only one published) in order, writes Wigley, "to think the covert architectural economy of his (Derrida's) work", thus, a poverty of resource is disguised as a guiding principle. Wigley had ample opportunity to correct this before publishing but he chose not to. The core of Wigley's thesis is that there exists an unspoken contract between architecture and philosophy. The former lends itself to the latter as a cluster of metaphors for stability (spatially systematised concepts inside built on solid foundations outside) and in return architectural discourse is granted the authority and respectability of higher learning that only philosophy can give. And like all good conspiracy theories this is a self-fulfilling prophesy: someone will inevitably contradict you, thereby proving the conspiracy is operative by attempting to cover it up. If anything, this book proves that conspiracy theories do indeed work, but when Deconstruction dances, its partner will always be a ghost.



2. Originally written as a PhD thesis in 1986, this book should have been published sooner than it was (1993) because it forewarns just were Jacques Derrida's elusive philosophy was taking us - to a ghost dance, specifically to Derrida's latest ill-fated attempt to prove the ethico-political relevance of his Deconstruction in his book, Specters of Marx, 1993. The Architecture of Deconstruction focuses on Derrida's essays on Husserl (Introduction to the Origin of Geometry) and on Abraham and Torok (Fors) rather than Derrida's essays on architecture (there are enough now to full a book, many concerning Plato's intriguing use of the word Chora, but in '86 there was only one published) in order, writes Wigley, "to think the covert architectural economy of his (Derrida's) work", thus, a poverty of resource is disguised as a guiding principle. Wigley had ample opportunity to correct this before publishing but he chose not to. The core of Wigley's thesis is that there exists an unspoken contract between architecture and philosophy. The former lends itself to the latter as a cluster of metaphors for stability (spatially systematised concepts inside built on solid foundations outside) and in return architectural discourse is granted the authority and respectability of higher learning that only philosophy can give. And like all good conspiracy theories this is a self-fulfilling prophesy: someone will inevitably contradict you, thereby proving the conspiracy is operative by attempting to cover it up. If anything, this book proves that conspiracy theories do indeed work, but when Deconstruction dances, its partner will always be a ghost.

1 comments about Deco by the Bay: Art Deco Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area.

1. This is my first Art Deco architecture book and I found it to be a perfect introduction to this design movement. The book has multiple color photos on almost every page and is organized nicely. A few of the photos are fuzzy, but this did not detract from my enjoyment. In fact it inspired me (as a novice) to go out, look up, and photograph the architecture around me. And I find myself looking at buildings that I admired prior to reading the book in a new light.

   Several local walks are listed in the second half of the book (along with photos to enjoy if you can't make it yourself) as well as a list of Art Deco societies around the country (some sponsor walks and events).

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.

1 comments about Inside Paris: Discovering the Classic Interiors of Paris (Inside...Series).

1. After falling in love with Paris, I took my mother there for her 60th birthday. So, when her 61st birthday rolled around, I bought her this book as a reminder of those wonderful days. Trouble is, I didn't want to part with it so I had to buy my own copy. It's filled with gorgeous photos of the interiors of some of Paris's most-loved buildings and several lesser-known but just as beautiful. A great gift for the Paris lover or any lover of architecture, history, and beautiful spaces.

3 comments about Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn.

1. If you are inerested in late modern architecture and the thoughts "behind the men", it is a good resource. Lots of bright photos of Kahn's work. The text is a little sparse. but for the price it's a good deal.



2. Kahn's words in this book are very wise.

   For just one example: The reason a city might deserve to exist is not due to packing a lot of warm squirming bodies into a small cubic footage, but rather to be a place where persons can explore things that interest them beyond the requirements of reproduction of individual and species life which determines peasant (and other non-urban) life.

   A city is a place where a young person, as they walk through it, observing various master craftspersons at work, may find something they *want* to do for their whole life (not just something they *have* to do to earn a "living").

   This is remarkable stuff, especially when we compare it with the ethical vapidity of postmodernism. Read this book and then see how the "world" you live in and the architects who designed it shapes up. Do you live in spaces which nurture creative human association? Or do you live and work in "decorated sheds" that put sugar coating on places that make you and your loved ones be banal?




3. If you're someone who's interested in architecture,but don't seem to get the hang of it, the word of Louis I. Kahn might help. I was a sopmore when I read the book , classes were a bit blur to me,it was like seeing an image but not sure of what you were looking at. But this book put things in a way that incouraged me as a student , to see the many concepts from life that concerned an architect, and how an an archetect was more of a artist of living, a thinker than just a constrution manager.

No comments about Europan 9 (Europan).