No comments about Great Buildings of Boston.

1 comments about Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates (The New Cambridge History of India).

1. This scholarly work covers a long neglected area in the art world. Southern India and the contribution of Islamic art to this region has had insufficient attention over the years. Here we have renowned experts surveying the area with great skill. A book that will give great joy and value to scholars and the general reader alike.

1 comments about The Ten Books of Architecture: The 1755 Leoni Edition.

1. The author of this book is often cited as the ideal of a Renaissance man, an architect, writer, musician, painter and by some accounts an amazing athlete. This book is based upon the Leone edition, a 1755 English translation of Alberti's original work from the 1400's. Alberta has a very modern succinct style. The chapters include many subchapters to help organize the information. He covers all the aspects of architecture and construction from laying the foundations to the wood joinery in the rafters, to adding the classical facade. He reduces classical design to a series of rules, and proportions, most of which are still followed today when a classical facade is desired. Alberti wrote with one foot in the modern world and one foot in the Renaissance world. He still respects some of the superstitions of his time, but all in all it is a dry book? I would not recommend this book to anybody unless they have a strong desire to learn about classical or Renaissance architecture. The Leone edition also includes many very good plates of his drawings. These drawing are incredible for their time period and more informative than the majority of pictures in most modern architectural books. I became interested in this book because of the plates portraying the construction of construction crane, but the font ruined the book for me. The publisher kept to the original 1755 font style. I'm sure there is some value to this, but it cut the readability factor in half. What could have been an enjoyable book was reduced to slogging through paragraph by paragraph, so (lector caveat) reader bewares?

No comments about Hans Ulrich Obrist & Nancy Spero: The Conversation Series.

1 comments about Architecture of Old Mexico: Vintage Views of Spanish Colonial Courtyards, Facades, Streetscapes, & Interiors.

1. The book is not about the Architecture of Old Mexico. Rather it is an assembly of old pictures and postcards with no story, only captions. A total , complete, and absolute lack of substance unless you like looking at old postcards.
   
   The book should be called a picture and postcard collection of old Mexican scenes.

No comments about Postcolonial Spaces:.

2 comments about AIA Guide to Boston, 2nd.

1. This is a good guide book for walking around Boston and trying to understand some history behind the buildings. Too many buildings are covered, old and new buildings together. The general information about the construction date, architectural style is provided but not in detail. It is so grouped that it makes it easy to walk around the town and see good number of buildings in the neighbourhood. Information is not very detailed, State Haouse is described in two pages or so, other buildings in one short paragraph, just to give general idea about the architecture and history of the city. I found it more handy than other available books for it covers a lot and it has walker friendly sequencing.



2. As a handbook with information about Boston buildings, the AIA guide is useful. And its treatment of older buildings is reasonable. But this book is most interesting as a historical memoir, a reminder that architectural critics were once smitten by poured concrete and vast, empty plazas.

   Ever wonder how disasters like St. Louis's Pruitt-Igoe managed to win AIA awards? Read Susan & Michael Southworth's guide to Boston, and you'll understand.

   The Southworths heap praise on the most unlikely monstrosities in the city. The execrable State HEW building is "a tour de force demonstrating the structural possibilities of concrete." The horrific Boston Architectural Center is "an admirable piece of contemporary architecture."

   The Southworths absolutely fawn over modernist heroes, irrespective of their work. They have nothing but kind words for I.M. Pei - making them perhaps the only persons in Boston capable of defending Harbor Towers or the MIT buildings. They are positively giddy about Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center, a monstrous bunker. In their eyes, 'the spatial drama is stunning, as are the bold concrete forms ... it is the work of a master."

   Now that architects have moved beyond blocky and dingy concrete boxes, the Southworths have very little favorable to say about them. They sniff at the varied facades, rooflines, and materials conceived for buildings like 75 State, 222 Berkeley, 500 Boylston and 99 Summer - if dingy concrete was good enough for Le Corbusier, why isn't it good for contemporary architects? Why can't we have more anonymous boxes like the "elegant" and "sleek" 28 State Street?

   The Southworths bemoan the fact that downtown buildings of the '80s frequently destroyed little alleyways. Of course, when I.M. Pei wiped out entire streets and blocks of lovely townhouses in the '60s, as at Government Center and the Christian Science complex, that was perfectly OK, producing "dramatic forms."

   Thankfully, the Southworths' era has long past. Their views would be more irritating if they weren't so absurd, and if anyone still had the audacity to build the concrete mausoleums they so passionately love.

No comments about The Foundations of Architecture: Selections from the Dictionnaire Raisonne.

No comments about The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance.

No comments about British Built: UK Architecture's Rising Generation.