No comments about Building a New Europe: Portraits of Modern Architects, Essays by George Nelson, 1935-1936 (Yale University School of Architecture).

No comments about Indianapolis Architecture: Transformations Since 1975.

2 comments about Chicago's Famous Buildings.

1. This trade-sized paperback published by the University of Chicago provides concise facts and black-and-white photos of Chicago's major architectural achievements, from skyscrapers to city neighborhoods and beyond, to the suburbs. There are helpful maps at the beginning, with numbers for each building described in the following pages. It is an easy to carry size, and features an attractive typeface. The one update this book now needs is the addition of photos for the now mostly-completed Millennium Park.



2. If you are thinking about ordering this book, think about why you want it. It is a small paperback book with only black and white photos, not a coffee table book. It is intended to be carried around the city with you while you look at the buildings. With that said, it contains photos and descriptions of 167 buildings and additional information such as a glossary and a list of buildings that have been destroyed since they appeared in previous editions.

No comments about Primitive: Original Matters in Architecture.

No comments about Montreal in Evolution.

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 Articulating British Classicism: New Approaches to Eighteenth-Century Architecture (Reinterpreting Classicism: Culture, Reaction and Appropriation).

1 comments about Mies van der Rohe: Stuttgart, Barcelona and Brno: furniture and architecture.

1. Okay, si I'm biased. My ideal home would be something like the Farnsworth House with all the furniture designed for the Barcelona expo.

   So, for me, this is an excellent book which acts as a showpiece for the selected works of the timeless brilliance of Mies van der Rohe.

   The book covers his architectural, interior design and furniture design work with a fairly balanced distribution of illustrations and written content.

   regards,

   martyn_jones@iniciativas.com

No comments about Switzerland: A Guide to Recent Architecture.

2 comments about Architecture of Fear.

1. The articles were interesting. However, the direction of the articles fell like scattered shot. This was not planned exploration into the interaction of fear and environment for which I had hoped. Perhaps that was not the point of this work, but that was what I wanted as a layman.

   The gender and literary perspectives complemented the expected architects well. I did not expect the personal accounts and they added energy and freshness into the work. The photo-essay annoyed me more than enlightened me. In short, there was something for everyone, but not a whole lot for anyone in particular.

   None of the articles explicitly built on each other. The full value of the many perspectives was not used. One article was spent defining different types of defensive spaces and then the definitions fell by the wayside.

   Besides the loose nature of the work, I felt that sociology and economy were excluded. Numbers have powerful stories to tell (anyone who need convincing, see Edward Tufte) and their voices were not heard in this multi-disciplinary collection.

   This is worthwhile reading, but not a must have.




2. Architecture of Fear provides fascinating insights into the effects of the structures that surround us in our everyday lives. By drawing upon a diverse group of professionals, not all of them architects or urban planners, Nan Ellin has created an important work that will serve as a base for future research into the perplexities of urban life. Nan Ellin's own thoughts are among the most significant contributions to the compendium.