2 comments about Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House: The Illustrated Story of an Architectural Masterpiece.

1. This book is an excellent study, in marvelous detail
   and analysis, of one of Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpieces
   of architecture. Too often the words "artist" and
   "genius" only dimly suggest the true nature of the
   person or work being discussed; but this book with
   its keen and accurate delineations about Robie,
   the client and his desires, Wright, the architect/
   artist/genius and his desires, and the work of art
   itself -- the Robie House -- help one to fully
   understand the harmonious combination of elements
   which can come together in producing a masterpiece.
   The author of this work is Donald Hoffmann, and
   he has himself produced a work of magnificence
   in this full presentation of the design and execution
   of a "dream house." Hoffmann gives full and interesting
   accounts of Robie and of Wright as their two psyches
   come together to promote an "idealized" artwork which
   pleases both client and architect.
   The book also has wonderful footnotes filled
   with insightful comments and quotes. Here is
   an example of one:

   Louis H. Sullivan at the end of his life wrote
   quite beautifully that Wright was gifted with
   "an apprehension of the material,so delicate as
   to border on the mystic, and yet remain coordinate
   with those facts we call real life." (p. 31)

   The text itself is filled with suggestive and
   provocative commentary:

   Wright's ideal was the comprehensive and unified
   work of art, the *Gesamtkunstwerk. German culture
   fascinated him. He spoke of Bach and Beethoven
   as the two greatest architects, and he confessed
   his love for the old Germany of Goethe, Schiller,
   even Nietzsche. (p. 14)

   Wright stood almost alone in his intuition of
   the prairie. * * * Everything about the site
   suggested a long, low, stream-lined, ship-like
   house: the prairie, the nearby lake, the new
   sense of speed, * * * and the shape of the lot ,
   three times as long as it was wide. (p. 17)

   Radical and masculine, the Robie house would be
   built in a part of Chicago characteristically
   stern and urbane. (p. 13)
   -------------
   The book is filled with "160 carefully selected
   illustrations" --which include architectural
   drawings and many photos, both of the house,
   of Robie and his family, of Wright, and of some
   of Wright's other previous houses leading up to
   the Robie House. Hoffmann also did excellent
   research by gaining access to complete
   taped transcripts by Robie, and interviews with
   Robie's son, and others.

   There is something very compelling and involving
   to my sense perceptions about Wright's long, sleek,
   tiered approach to architecture, as well as the
   various designs of lamps and chairs and lights
   which he included in the house. But on seeing the
   photos of the dining room...and the rigid but
   beautiful "Gothic" like chairs, as well as the
   photos of the "stuff" that the Robie family
   cluttered the Spartan rooms with in their
   attempts to "customize" it to their living
   desires...the house seems incredibly beautiful,
   but not incredibly utilitarian: idealized, abstract,
   geometric beauty and organic harmony with the
   beauty and structure of Nature, but not necessarily
   "organic" in its relation to people and "common
   creature" comforts.




2. Dieses Buch, wie sein Thema, wird wie ein Ziegelsteinouthouse aufgebaut. Unassailable Forschung. Gute Arbeit, Don.

No comments about China Living.

2 comments about Blur: The Making of Nothing.

1. This book was designed extreamly well. The book consists of emails, faxes, photos, sketches, CAD, essays, and much more in a scrap book fasion. The whole thing is talking about this project for the Expo, but that isn't what is interesting about it. The design of the book allows you to page through and look at the pictures, read snippits of emails or faxes, and shows you their process of concept and design. If you were to ignore the fact that it is all talking about this one project you can use it to inspire new ideas for your own use. This is one hell of a book. The copy i go was a slightly different version but the inards are essentially the same.



2. diller & scofidio are the best. and everyone has to know it. so read the book and support them on their fight against the rest of the bad, bad world. you can manipulate every fact that it fits your purpose, but sometimes it's too transparent for mature people, probably this book would work as a fairytale for children.

3 comments about Alternative Construction: Contemporary Natural Building Methods.

1. If you have read few other books on alternate construction this is a good book for a general survey of current trends in natural building. Some good pointers on where to go for more details.
   If you are looking for an actual how-to guide to various building methods, this book is not the one you want. Certainly not as a solo guide if you are looking to be an owner-builder in the sense of building yourself.
   Worth reading by checking it out from your library, not worth purchasing.



2. This is an excellent resource book for those seeking to learn more about alternative construction methods and materials. It introduces the reader to straw bale, cob, light straw clay (a marvelous material), rammed earth and many other ecologically appropriate materials. It doesn't provide enough detail to help you build with these materials but it will help you choose which might be good for you and guides you to some of the key people and resources. The chapter on natural conditioning of houses is outstanding and provides performance estimates for a variety of building materials in cities as diverse as Denver and El Centro.

   david bainbridge is one of the authors of the Straw Bale House and a pioneer in passive solar heating and cooling.




3. A good informativeand worth to keep in your personal library

4 comments about Vizcaya: An American Villa and Its Makers (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture).

1. Vizcaya is one of the great Gilded Age estates, build by an heir to a huge fortune, who had no family or children, so he devoted all his time and wealth to this palace on Biscayne Bay..and if you've ever layed eyes on this pile you can appreciate it was money well spent. This book is the best resourse I've seen on Viscaya; the text is scholarly and extremely well researched. The images are very well realized, and frankly in a book like this, great images are a must, because you can't imagine a place like this, unless you can actually see it, no description, no matter how articulate can do this place justice. If you have any interest in great residental architecture, or the history of south Florida or just appreciate great books, then I can't imagine you not loving this book.



2. In my opinion, Witold Rybczynski is the best observer of architecture writing today. Laurie Olin is in the same class as an observer of landscape architecture. The chance to read the two of them writing about this estate is an unusual treat. This is the kind of book somebody might give you and although the cover is attractive, you give a small inward sigh, knowing you will never read it. Not with this book. The writing is simply vastly better than books like this usually are. If you are at all interested in the design process either in landscape or residential architecture you will not be disappointed in this book.
   
   And if you like this book, check out the two books I have linked to which are classics.The Perfect House: A Journey with Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio Across the Open Field: Essays Drawn from English Landscapes (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)



3. This book by two architects that is the story of Vizcaya, the James Deering Estate built in the early twentieth century in Miami as the lavish and sumptuous expression of the great wealth of its tractor-manufacturer owner, is an exceptionally first-class literary production from every point of view that could have a bearing on its subject. Written in the technically precise phraseologies appropriate to architecture and interior decoration, its prose is free of and stands above the contamination that abounds in the otherwise usual debasement of modern literature, and it is illustrated with a landslide of stunningly magnificent photography in both color and black-and-white. But something else with which it is illustrated is what recommended this book to me. I am neither an architect nor an interior decorator, nor has the stuff of those callings ever engaged much of my attention, but as soon as my eye fell on the watercolors painted of Vizcaya by John Singer Sargent when he was a guest of Deering's there in 1917, while I turned the leaves of a friend's copy of the book, I knew immediately as one with a profound attachment to watercolor painting that I must own this book for myself. For although I have held perhaps a hundred Sargent watercolors in my hands in the Metropolitan, Brooklyn and Boston Museums, and seen many more besides in other books, I had never before seen these, as they have lain quietly in private collections without ever being published to my knowledge until now, and they are among the finest examples of Sargent's amazing wizardry in this medium, which defies belief that a human being could have painted them. And the rest of the book is a plus even for one not particularly attracted to matters of residential design or interior décor, for it is a record of an era of refinement, gentility and taste, a belle époque in American history that is gone.



4. An impressive architectural achievement of the Gilded Age when country manors and their gardens were a conspicuous documentation of personal wealth and power by their owners, the Miami estate of Vizcaya was the equal to such famous contemporary structures as the Bilmore and the San Simeon. The collaborative work of Witold Rybczynski (Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism, University of Pennsylvania) and Laurie Olin (Practice Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania), Vizcaya: An American Villa And Its Makers" is the complete story of how this magnificent building came to be constructed, landscaped, and utilized as a 180-acre estate on Biscayne Bay complete with lagoons, canals, citrus groves, a farm village, a yacht harbor, and a 40-room Baroque mansion. Enhanced with a wealth of seventy color and 96 b/w illustrations, "Vizcaya" is an informed and informative body of impeccable scholarship presenting a seminal study that is very strongly recommended as an addition to professional, academic, and community library American Architectural History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

1 comments about Welcome to My Studio: Adventures in Oil Painting.

1. A great reference book to be read and re-read. She gives quick instruction for the problem areas of painting with lots of illustrations. Easy to use.

No comments about Schools and Kindergartens: A Design Manual (Design Manuals).

1 comments about Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media.

1. The best way, somtimes, to talk about a larger condition is to delve into specifics. Colomina uses Loos and Corbusier to draw out comparisons about the use of information.
   
   Considering the amount of architectural monographs being churned out on a daily basis, and the creation of terms such as "information architecture," it's extremely valuable to look at how modern architecture might have started from an alliance between types of publicity and design.
   
   Both Loos and Corbusier come out, biography-wise, as extremely creepy, though shrewd in shaping how their work is percieved by the traces that they leave behind. In Corbusier's case, he leaves an archive stuffed with minutia, an overabundance of information to supplement the built work. Loos, on the other hand, leaves very little, and thus what little remains of his work requires imagination to fill gaps in his story. What a designer can gather from this is to ask the question: how does what we do effect what our work is? Colomina's work functions reflexively as well as she works from "evidence" to create representations of both architects.
   
   It is a compelling argument, passionately written, and not the least boring.

2 comments about Domus 1928-1999. Vols. 1-12.

1. Quite simply, I love you. Your art books beguile me out of whole paychecks. Just the sight of a Taschen flexicover fills me with wonder and delight. Awestruck, I turn your books over in my hands. I even smell the pages while gleefully noting the paperstock. You're a real pro, Benedikt. From comic book publisher to art world King. Your quality is deliciously heartbreaking. My friends and I have spent many an eve discussing your work with envious gleaming eyes and admiring sighs over glasses of wine. Domus beckons from your website; from bookshelves; and from museum bookstores everywhere. "Own me," it says. "Six hundred smackers," I reason. Instead, I buy "Collecting Contemporary, ($30)," a sophisticated "How To" book for the budding afficionado. It tides me over and yet... Domus.



2. The greatest design magazine abridged from 1928-1999. If you're interested in design, architecture etc, sell a kidney and get it...

1 comments about Watercolor for the Fun of It - How to Sketch with Watercolor (Watercolor for the Fun of It).

1. Good solid teaching methods in this book. I gained insight into the necessary thinking, tools and methods to fill my sketch books with loads of painted sketches....Takes you into the interesting world of composition of multi-viewpoints that are possible for a location, and describes the journey in entertaining ways-lots of very nice artwork examples. Recommended for the artist in everyone! No masterpieces allowed!