No comments about Did Someone Say Participate?: An Atlas of Spatial Practice.

5 comments about Chicago Architecture and Design.

1. My nephew loved it. He grew up in Milwaukee, went to school and lives in California. He comes to Chicago about every other year.



2. This book has beautifull photographs. The book is much deeper than other Chicago architecture books because it has a well thought out historical review of the progression of Chicago architecture. Interesting even for the lay person like me.



3. This book provides an excellent introduction to Chicago's numerous schools of architecture over the years. It also provides a photographic tour of the city's important buildings, from the late 1800s to the present day. The photography is great! Highly recommended for fans of Chicago or architecture buffs in general.



4. I thought this book was very interesting it has great pictures of the buildings in Chicago. It has alot of information about the beginning of when Architects wanted to build something modern but unqiue at the same time. Get inspired by the great exterior and interior of these amazing buildings.



5. This book described many of the significant architects in Chicago history. I found it to be informative and very readable. It is the best book I have found which summarizes Chicago Architecture. The color photograghs are excellent

5 comments about Palm Springs Weekend: The Architecture and Design of a Midcentury Oasis.

1. I almost bought this book in a book store on Balboa Island. Then my friend said to get it on Amazon - I didn't realize it could be brand new! Saved alot of money and the book is amazing. It arrived in the mail quickly, so I am now a devoted fan. If you love Palm Springs like we do, you'd love reading Palm Springs Weekend.



2. This book is largerly concerned with the historical and sociological environment that led to the creation of mid-20th century Palm Springs buildings. There is little time spent on the technical side of the sampled designs, and it could benefit from more large colour picture spreads.
   
   A good book for understanding the context of the architecture, not great for admiring the details. If you're after a "coffe table" piece, go for 'Palm Springs Modern: Houses in the California Desert' by Adele Cygelman.



3. If you're in to mid-century modern architecture, this book is a must.



4. Well worth the price...we had just returned from a weekend in Palm Springs and this book gave us interesting background and history and also great photographs.



5. This book has enough information in it to turn you into a bit of an expert on Palm Springs mid-century architecture. It has enough beautiful photography and helpful floorplans to make you want a piece of it. My sisters and I are going there in two weeks. We want to see the Alexander tract homes.
   
   The book explores each of the buildings and architects in detailed description - well enough that one can distinguish between the various styles and select a favorite or two. I fell in love with the Sinatra house by Stewart Williams and the Kaufmann house by Richard Neutra. I wished for the sake of the old Biltmore hotel that someone would restore it to it's former glory. I was disappointed to learn from another source that it was demolished in 2003, after this book's publication.
   
   I do have to admit that while the text is full of good information, it is a bit of a difficult read. Either the sentences are poorly constructed or the authors had a hard time sorting out their ideas. However, if you can focus and you really want to know about the architecture in Palm Springs, there is a lot to learn from this beautiful and informative book.

2 comments about The Architecture of New York City: Histories and Views of Important Structures, Sites, and Symbols.

1. This is a wonderful book that extensively covers the architecture of buildings in New York, from past to present. Full of interesting background information. I can recommend this book to anyone that is interested in New York architecture. Unfortunately, photographs are kept to an essential minimum. Other than that, it was everyting I hoped for.



2. I bought this book a few days before my first visit to New York City. However, just reading very first part of this book gave me good knowledge of both history and architectures of NYC.

   This book starts with the born of New York City in 17th century, and covers many famous (and not so famous) architectures with about 200 photos taken by the author. It covers Georgian influence of 18th Century, Greek revival of 19th century, the Chicago school...etc. The Art Deco Skyscrapers, such as the Empire State building and the Chrysler building are well described. A whole chapter is devoted to Rockefeller Center. The history of MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) is interesting...

   For me, this book seems to have some small shortcomings. This book lacks "up to date" information. (This revised edition was first published in 1994.) Also, as a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, I hope Guggenheim Museum have been covered more.

4 comments about The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries.

1. There have been times when after reading an assignment from this book, my students will ask me how the subject-matter was pertinent to what we had been studying. I tell them: in no way. I just want them to read Robin Evans so that they can learn how to write. No one writes like Evans.



2. While Translations from Drawing to Building is perhaps Evans' more often referenced publication, The Projective Cast is even better.



3. This book is a must read for any architect interested in the geometries and shapes of buildings (which I hope is every architect) If you have second thoughts about buying it, buy it... it is informative, entertaining the diagrams and pictures are beautiful and it will take 2 (amazing) months to go through it.



4. Robin Evans has a knack of getting right to the point of many a subject with expertise. Extremely versatile and knowledgable, he uses this base to write profoundly. Evans takes criticism to another level by getting to 'the obvious' quickly, then building on pre conceived theory with frightening clarity to form an original alternative view. This is a marvelously laid out book with fantastic illustrations and plates from Renaissance history to Eisenman. He is not caught up in the hype of self-preserving discourse or traditional methods of interrogation. The book has a wealth of information that acts like a reference book. So easy to read and so refreshing in opinion. RIP Robin, this is a classic work.

5 comments about An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles.

1. If you want a book to LEARN about architecture in LA, then look elsewhere. But if you want to FIND architecture in LA, there is no better resource than this book. This is just a big fat list & map guide book and as such, functions brilliantly. I haven't seen this latest issue but previous ones had lived in my car the last 8 years I lived in LA. Almost anywhere I went, this guide would show me great homes and buildings hidden away and in plain sight that I never would have found otherwise. I happily burned many tanks of gas with this book in one hand and my steering wheel in the other. I left my copy with a friend when we left the area but if we were ever move back, I'd buy fresh copy right away.



2. Not AIA sponsored but in familiar AIA format, this guide is about as good as one can expect for such an incredibly vast urban area. There's lots of modernism, which is a good thing in this case since Los Angeles contains perhaps the best ensemble of high-quality modernism in the world. The entries are very short, sometimes as short as one sentence. Only about one building in five comes with a small black & white photograph. Covers all of Los Angeles County, but nothing from Orange, Ventura, Riverside or San Bernardino counties. Some important slivers of Riverside county would be a good addition.
   
   While more than a few people believe Los Angeles is nothing but a formless sprawl with little interesting architecture, this guide proves otherwise. The real key to Los Angeles is that its architectural features are scattered all over the basin rather than in one dense location, but they're out there for you to discover. This guide will help you find them. Bring it along with a full tank of gas.
   
   Another revised edition that fills out Long Beach, Shaw, Monrovia, Pomona and Claremont would be nice.



3. The book goes deep into detailing each of the buildings...It was definetely a good purchase. However,maybe just for architects, not listings of cool design bars or clubs, restaurants, etc. more the hardcore stuff like neutra, Lautner, case study, Eric Owen Moss, etc. but a lot of info. a very good source of information Very satisfy with my purchase. Spent 5 days in L.A. and got a lot covered thanks to this one.



4. This book is a major disappointment, it is hardly thorough and tries to cover to much ground and in doing so really does not cover anything. The book has very few pictures, which is so odd in guide of this kind, all you get is short discriptions of each building and I guess from this you are suppose to glean the image of the building, uh o.k. This really is the worst city architecture guide I have come across, I usually love these guides, I have reviewed several and have given them high marks, I love L.A., I think that is why I am so disappointed in this particular book. I had expected so much more, L.A. has so many interesting buildings, it's a shame that it does not have an architectural guide to match. Hopefully someday someone will write a guide deserving of the title of this book; the city of angels desevers better, heck Buffalo deserves better than this.



5. The long-awaited fifth edition of an LA guide that's often called "the bible" is a major disappointment. Robert Winter is a perceptive scholar of Victoriana and arts and crafts, but he sensibly left modernism to his collaborator, the late David Gebhard. Now he has attempted to do it all, by providing entries on key buildings of the 1990s that he neither likes nor understands, and the result is embarrassing. Gehry, Maltzan, Mayne, Moss, Pei, and Yazdani will be surprised to find themselves bundled together under the label "Neo-Expressionism (Postmodernism)." Disney Hall, which is pictured on the cover, is described in terms of what happened ten years ago (plus cloddish public reactions to the first pictures of the model); there's not a sentence on the completed building. Other adventurous work is dismissed as "very strange." A long-winded entry on the Getty reads like a chatty letter to a friend; most are absurdly brief. The revisions add almost nothing, and are woefully incomplete; the publisher is guilty of gross negligence for not wielding an editorial pencil. Earlier selections have been edited, but the William Cameron Menzies house in Beverly Hills is still there, even though it was demolished three editions ago, along with Gehry's Venice restaurant, Rebecca's. The original 97 percent of the guide remains invaluable and engaging. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

3 comments about Big and Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century.

1. book is small format. covers about 50 building/urban projects which utilize green energy. however, most analysis is only one page to 2 page including diagrams and photos, and without any detail summary. the author have divided the book in sections such as "air we breath, skyscraper garden, energy, construction, and etc". Despite a clear outline, he uses too many buildings with very little detail instead of just using 1 or 2 buildings in great detail for each topic.
   unfortunately, this book is more of a guidebook of the latest green energy buildings with brief description.
   I would not buy this book unless you find it at super bargain price (like $10-15). this should be 2 stars instead of 3 but I cannot change due to Amazon's editing function.



2. The book was a bit dissapointing. I anticipated reading more indepth detail about the featured projects with diagrams/pictures of the major energy efficient application. Instead the information is only on the surface. It provides beautiful pictures of the building, with two page excerpts of each project (mainly pictures with a paragraph description), a list of the energy efficient applicatios and small floor plans and elevations, if any. A few projects feature the sustainable application methods, such as a diagram of natural ventilation. Overall, it's a good reference to start your research and find a sustainable building to research on, but the information is limited. It's also a good reference for lists of sustainable applications, definitions and essays. The projects are also divided up in five categories: Energy, Light & Air, Greenery Water & Waste, Construction and Urbanism. There are a lot of projects within each category that will spark your interest.



3. "Big and Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century", by David Gissen, is published in conjunction with an exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. from January 17 to June 22, 2003. The book clearly shows that a group of architects has addressed the energy and environmental challenges facing many countries as they industrialize and enter the global marketplace. Their buildings indicate that a breath of fresh air has reinvigorated architectural practice to produce buildings that are climate-responsive, energy efficient, and occupant friendly while cleaning rainwater, reducing air pollucion, and enhancing the local environment as opposed to degrading it. The forms and shapes of these new buildings express these new functions in an authentic and genuine manner rather than look like relatively normal buildings with alien technologies applied to them. These buildings give hope that architecture can improve conditions for a sustainable society and not remain an energy and resource sink.

2 comments about The Lost Vanguard: Russian Modernist Architecture 1922-1932.

1. 
   Beautiful modern architecture, beautiful postmodernist photography -- a labor of love, worth the labor that went into it!



2. Richard Pare is one of the best architectural photographers in the world today. In more than ten years he has documented Soviet architecture from after the 1917 revolution (1922-32) and this book is a catalog of that work, some of which is on display at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (July-October 2007). It is a large (12" x 10.75") and heavy (most plates are in color) volume. An excellent source for those interested in this facet of modernism!

5 comments about St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars.

1. The most gorgeous, comprehensive photographic panorama of the treasures of St. Petersburg. Even if your exposure to St. Petersburg is limited to the Winter Palace, (now the "Hermitage" museum), BUY this book AND buy the unreal, almost surreal DVD "Russian Ark". Both are BREATHTAKING!



2. This is a gorgeous book on a beautiful city. My father would have loved this book, he had an interest in all things Russian, he and my mother toured St. Petersburg and loved it. The images in this book are crisp and text highly informative. St. Petersburg has a wealth of beautiful Imperial Buildings and they are shown at their best in this wonderful book. From Peter the Great's Peterhof to the Hermitage, to Catherine the Great's Tsarkoe Selo, the best of Imperial Russian architecture is on display. If you have any interst in Imperial Russian architecture or just enjoy fine books, then i cannot imagine you being disappointed. Highly recommended.



3. This can be an expensive book if you're not buying it used, but it's absolutely worth it. The beautiful pictures are excellent at presenting St. Petersburg's amazing architectural wonders. The text is well-written, and even if you don't have a great deal of knowledge of Russian history, you'll still be able to follow along without any trouble.

   A gem - read and enjoy!




4. I ordered this book but was sent a book on grilling...I returned the grilling book but have not been credited for the st petersburg book..please refer this to the proper dept. thank you!



5. I ordered this book but was sent a book on grilling...I returned the grilling book but have not been credited for the st petersburg book..please refer this to the proper dept. thank you!

3 comments about Art Deco New York.

1. For lovers of the 1920s and 1930s this is a fabulous book. From New York's stunning architecture to the social lives of the rich and famous, everything associated with New York when Gotham was truly the center of it all, this book is a trip back in time. Historically rich and a visual treat! New York in its finest hour.



2. Art Deco New York by cultural historian and author David Garrard Lowe (who is also President of the Beaux Arts Alliance and lectures in such noted forums as the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the American Academy in Rome, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) offers a superbly organized and presented tour of seminal decorative designs during the transformative decades of the 20s and 30s when the art style known as "art deco" was affecting architecture, fashion, furniture, textiles, graphics, trains, automobiles, even Hollywood movie and Broadway theater stage sets. Profusely illustrated with period photography and artifacts, Art Deco New York is an impressive, "reader friendly", coffee-table book that would significantly enhance any personal, professional, academic, or community library architectural studies, art history, or American popular culture collection.



3. Garrard revives the restless, utopian, sensationalistic mood of the 1920s and '30s giving rise to the inimitable Art Deco style not only by pointing to buildings and their design features representing the style, but also by including posters, advertising, architectural drawings, furniture, and varied aspects of popular culture. The author evokes an understanding of Art Deco not mainly by discussion of aesthetics or art criticism, but by immersion in the spirit of the time between the World Wars, frequently with bountiful and in many cases, unfamiliar visual matter. The Empire State Building and Paul Manship's sculpture of Prometheus ringed by signs of the zodiac in Rockefeller Center are familiar Art Deco images, if often taken for granted. But designs of rooms, architectural details of buildings, trains and cars, and magazine covers and clothing fashion are often overlooked. Garrard demonstrates how deeply--thoroughly--Art Deco pervaded the culture; and points to elements of this vibrant, short-lived cultural period which continue.