3 comments about Carlo Scarpa--Layers.

1. This book does a terrific job focusing on several of Scarpa's notable projects and does so with detail including text descriptions, critiques, photographs, and architectural drawings. Excellent!



2. Carlo Scarpa is an architect's architect - a master of composition and juxtaposition with a love of materials and craft. Many coffee table books are filled with his drawings and photos of his projects, yet very few have made any attempt to dig under the surface. Anne-Catrin Schultz rises to the challenge of analyzing Scarpa's buildings and the architect himself - his Venetian context, his influences and how he worked. Her analysis and photos help us understand the method behind Scarpa's genius and let us see in a fresh light the works we thought we knew so well. A wonderful example of true scholarship and a fitting tribute to one of the masters of 20th century architecture.



3. I have not received this product yet so can't possibly review it. A VERY DISSATISFIED customer.
   
   Eric Engstrom

No comments about Sprawl and Suburbia: A Harvard Design Magazine Reader (Harvard Design Magazine).

No comments about Some Assembly Required.

3 comments about Beyond the Edge: New York's New Waterfront.

1. Raymond Gastil has written an elegant, comprehensive account of the New York waterfront, but the significance of his book reaches far beyond that particular edge, into the very essence of the contemporary public realm. Gastil argues that the waterfront is "the paradigmatic site for the future of public life," a case he makes convincingly by reference to the history of modern urban development and detailed case studies from New York. Drawing on his extensive experience in the public realm (as author, designer, scholar, and public intellectual), Gastil provides the reader with an overview of past and recent attempts to recreate the New York waterfront, as well as examples from across the world.

   The importance of this book lies in Gastil's ability to use the example of New York's waterfront to pose questions and draw broader conclusions about global urban issues and the very nature of the public realm today. I believe his deep insights into the current condition of our communities, the environment and public life in the early twentieth century will reward any reader.




2. Now that the iceberg of industry has receded from our urban waterfronts, cities around the world confront the question of what to do with their riverfronts and coastlines. Ray Gastil's book Beyond the Edge offers a wealth of ideas about this. Because of his position as the executive director of New York's Van Alen Institute, which focuses on the design of the public realm, Ray Gastil is particularly well suited to talk about the waterfront proposals for New York. His writing is concise, the information ample, and the range of projects he covers extremely wide. For any community or designer looking for ideas on what they might do with their waterfront, this book will serve as a valuable sourcebook. The book also examines projects in other cities, providing an important cross-cultural comparison and suggesting that New York, while admirable in all that it has done along its waterfront, does not have all of the answers.

   You can't always judge a book by its cover, but you can this one. It has a very clever book jacket that unfolds to become a map of New York, showing the locations of the projects discussed within. A glimpse of the cover photo through a gap in the book jacket also creatively draws you in and, like the briskly paced prose, leaves you wanting to read on.

   I highly recommend the book and I know of no other that covers this subject so thoroughly and in such an engaging manner. If I have one criticism, it is that there are not enough photographs or drawings of many of the projects. One photograph often cannot adequately convey, visually, a large urban-design or architectural proposal, and while the author's descriptions compensate for that lack of documentation somewhat, words can only go so far. But the relative dearth of photos, combined with the map in the book jacket, do send a clear message: if you are going to understand waterfront development, you need to pack up the book and, with it in hand, go see these places for youself. You will see why the careful design and development of our waterfronts is one of the major opportunities many cities now have to improve the quality of life in their communities.




3. For all its romantic history as a great port, not to mention its hundreds of miles of shoreline, New York is barely known today as a waterfront city. But after reading "Beyond the Edge: New York's New Waterfront" by Raymond W. Gastil, you'll be convinced that New York's future is on its waterfront. Gastil confronts the city's post-industrial malaise and demonstrates that after decades of shoreline deterioration, New York is on the verge of becoming a "dynamic waterfront metropolis." The book, which covers an array of exciting developments in all five boroughs--not just buildings, but also parks, ferry connections, water treatment plants and even the restoration of the world's largest garbage dump--is the most complete and up-to-date picture of change and opportunity on the New York watefront. At the same time, the book is much more than a survey or an architectural showcase of pretty pictures. It is above all a book of big ideas. As a participant in many New York projects and a writer/historian of the Brooklyn waterfront, I particularly appreciate Gastil's far-reaching scope and intelligent, well-informed analysis. With both a keen sense of local history and an international perspective, he describes cutting-edge projects in other world-class waterfront cities and sets the same high goals for New York. He sees the waterfront as an extension of the vital city, a place not just for high-rise housing, but as an integrated part of the urban infrastructure. Whether rebuilding Ground Zero or planning new sports facilities for the Olympics, New York should "celebrate its infrastructure," he maintains, with designs that challenge expectations and connect the waterfront to the city. And while the book is an argument for good planning, Gastil does not rest his case on abstractions. His prose is as clear and sharp as the book's striking photographs and graphic design. Even the cover jacket tells the story, reversing to a map of the New York waterfront with pullout photos of major projects. This is a book for everyone--a practical, visionary and inspiring guide to the city's future.

No comments about Light in Architecture.

2 comments about Contemporary World: Architecture.

1. In the pages of Contemporary World Architecture, London-based writer, lecturer and architectural expert Hugh Pearman presents an immense and wonderfully illustrated study of architecture drawn from nations around the globe. Filled cover to cover with gorgeous color photography and erudite commentary on thirteen separate categories of buildings, Contemporary World Architecture is as much an architectural art appreciation reference as it is a practical study of the design, sturdiness, and aesthetics of architectural construction styles transcending cultures. An amazing, eye-catching, 511 page volume that incorporates shelter, history, building mechanics and more into a studious whole, Contemporary World Architecture is strongly recommended for professional and academic architectural reference collections as being an impressive and seminal work of detailed architectural information and enduring appreciation.



2. very nic

No comments about The Domestic Scene, 1897-1927: George M. Niedecken, Interior Architect.

1 comments about Architecture of the Everyday.

1. In Architecture of the Everyday Harris and Berke produced an anthology of essays on the architecture of the everyday. It is ordinary, banal, and quotidian. Yet such a normative, or major, theory encompasses the authority of examples from history. We can only learn how to conjecture, and thereby design, from history.

   New ideas, or minor theories also abound and are expressed as critical commentary in contemporary art, architecture, and landscape. One minor theory in landscape is that the landscape needs a dynamic language. After all-- "a landscape is worth a thousand pictures". The vast complexity and ephermeralness of the landscape as a subject of inquiry and contemplation requires more tools. Text and even drawings and still images are orders away from the intensity of percept bombardment from the real world.

   The landscape is not a still life, but determined by time, sense, movement, function, spatial structure, and perhaps most significantly by the internal landscape narratives, or fantasies. Poetry may be the essential and functionally driven language of spatial structure. Filmakers are spacemakers. Copyright 1998 Robert Hotten

1 comments about In What Style Should We Build?: The German Debate on Architectural Style (Texts & Documents).

1. That's a very usefull selection of essays on theory of architecture for research the architecture of Semper context.

2 comments about Frank Lloyd Wright's Living Space: Architecture's Fourth Dimension.

1. Although "unique"--as one professional reviewer put it--that doesn't necessarily mean a brilliantly conceived book will be enjoyable. I started, but didn't get very far, so far. The style is opaque with trendy deconstructionist jargon that must first be deciphered into plain English (this is serious sociology, after all). Understanding Wright's own words can be difficult, true, but fun. This is not, so far. (Contrast the fresh air quality of the opening Wright passage with Satler's ponderous text.) Although the book title speaks of "Living Space," note that this book focuses on Wright's early WORK spaces (Larkin and Unity Temple) rather than his houses. Nor are the tiny B/W pictures of those buildings either plentiful or good. I hope to come back to this book after enjoying some others (e.g., G. Hildebrand's The Wright Space [Univ. Washington], or Susan Bandes' Affordable Dreams: The Goetsch-Winckler House [Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State Univ]).



2. I am pleased to say that this book's form does follow it's function. It is such a pleasure to read a book ,that really jumps out at the reader, and one feels as if they are walking through a tour of one of Wright's structures. The author seems like she really knows what she is talking about, unlike some authors who just research a subject and throw it together and there is a book. Gail Satler is a phenominal author and I'm, sure she is a great person to know. I look forward to reading more of her work in the near future. Everyone should read this book about one of the most influential architect's in the history of the world.