5 comments about Paint Happy.

1. How fun is this book? This artist is a true inspiration to me to just get out my paints and splash around. It has given me a measure of freedom in that I always want to measure and calculate everything. Reading and using the ideas in this book help me gain a true measure of freedom of expression. I HIGHLY recommend it. Be sure to visit the artist's website, too. She has a wonderful sense of color and fun.



2. The art techniques included in this book are simple, yet they encourage creativity and the exploration of line, color, form, composition and texture. Although primarily for acrylics and pastels, there are demonstrations that incorporate a variety of other materials. In addition, the exercises could easily be adapted for artists of all ages - highly recommendable for teachers. The book lives up to its title, "Paint Happy!"



3. This is such an awesome book. I was impressed how easily the sketches became art. I had such a "Duh" moment when I thumbed through this book! I can easily follow the instruction and transfer my imagination onto my canvas. I paint in oil and this book is a tremendous help. I absolutely love the bold, beautiful colors.
   
   A fantastic buy!



4. Wonderful book with great fun art lessons!!
   It uses acrylic and pastels and the main media, but you could use many other media with what you will learn from this book.
   
   This book is beautiful and very uplifting. Not only that, but it is filled to the brim with valuable lessons on design that I had little background in, and that most of my watercolor books don't expand on enough. It teaches you a lot about shapes, connecting shapes, lines, how repetition can create interest and excitement, variation and repetition, creating movement with shapes and how they are connected with lines, smooth and textured surfaces,, patterned and plain surfaces, soft and hard edges (lost and found) painting with your mind's eye and not exactly what you see in front of you ("if you can't see it, imagine it!" p. 60), how colors interact with each other--not just when mixed, but when put next to each other, how there is "more than one way to paint a picture", how "a series of possibilities can make a series", "when more is better"--i.e. knowing when to embellish, "when enough is enough", geometric and organic shapes, how does a shape take on a form?, creating form using values, play with 2-D and 3-D in a painting, color and value balance---warming a painting vs cooling a painting, using limited color schemes, conveying space--flat space vs. space created with forms vs. deep space vs. ambiguous space.
   
   Part 3 of this fun learning book is how to "Paint Your Home Happy"--basically using what you have learned from the rest of the book and incorporating it into painting on lampshades, walls, furniture, tiles, other ceramics, etc..
   
   I bought this book not really knowing what to expect. The delightfulness of the front cover was inspiring. I mostly do watercolors and pottery. This book mostly uses acrylics and pastels in the demonstrations, but after reading this book thoroughly, I know I will enjoy using a lot of the information and demonstration methods in my watercolors, and also my pottery that I like to paint with underglazes.
   
   There is a LOT to learn and enjoy in this book. It is filled with many exercises to help you learn and wake your sleeping creativity. It is not a "how to paint a landscape" type of book, but more, how to paint with a certain style of your own using the knowledge of shapes, lines, color, repetition, etc. to convey what you feel. GREAT BOOK!!



5. I just bought this book a week ago and I have already framed two pictures that I have painted with its help. I enjoyed painting them, they were simple and not challenging, just how I like painting. You can use the author's ideas with your own style thrown in. I'm happy that I bought this book.

4 comments about Patterns from the Golden Age of Rustic Design: Park and Recreation Structuires from the 1930's.

1. I thought this would be a book of instruction or patterns for creating rustic furniture. Not even close. It is a book about layouts and some architectural design for parks and campsites. I sold it to a man designing and building his own campground. He loved it.



2. As a professional designer and consultant to the resort development industry, I found this book very informative, with extensive photos and architectural illlustrations, plans and diagrams originating from the early 20th century. A valuable reference book for land planners, architects and developers looking to create "authentic" park and recreational structures for their communities, whether in the mountains or the prairie!
   
   Excellent Book.



3. This guide, originally printed in the 1930s, is an incredibly complete overview of the many structures created in state and national parks from across America. Every kind of structure, and I mean EVERY kind, is represented here with an amazing number of photographs and plans so that you can reproduce them on your own property.
   
   Whether you want to make a simple stone fire pit or a two-story timber-frame visitor's center, this is the book for you. Chapters include fences, signs, administration buildings, drinking fountains, comfort stations, fire lookout towers, trail steps, bridges, picnic shelters, fire pits, outdoor theaters, cabins, bath houses, and lots more. There's even chapters on furnishings and camp layouts.
   
   The book is written in the somewhat flowery tongue of the early 20-century style, but it's quite readable and in some cases truly amusing, especially when discussing the evils of vandalism. A particularly funny passage is found in the chapter about signs:
   
   "Barring an act of God, like a cyclone, or assault by that instrument of Satan, the initial carver, signs like these promise long life... In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, [the initial carver] is a physical, as well as mental, sluggard and is likely to think twice (we flatter him) before he will stand on his head or shinny up a post to accomplish his scandalous, vandalous ends. Twin to the jackknife pest is the souvenir hunter. Signs too appealingly picturesque and easy to get at and carry away fall prey to his pack rat instincts."



4. I always wondered how these incredibly beautiful wood and stone structures were built, everytime we went camping in some state or national park. Now I know!

   Where's my pick, hammer, axe, adze and saw? I can't wait to get started! This book has everything. I hope to be able to buy the rest of Albert H. Good's books on the subject. Fabulous.

3 comments about Living in Morocco.

1. This is an excellent book for anyone interested in interior design or Morocco.
   Full of beautifull photos of guest houses and private homes in Morocco. The book is presented beautifully and would make a great present for someone special or even as a gift to yourself.



2. This is certainly what I did when I purchased this book. I expected a volume full of palaces, mosques, markets and average folk's homes (or at least native Moroccans!). What I found was a book of lavish hotels and rich foreigners' mansions. They are by and large interesting rich foreigners, but I was still disappointed in that what is portrayed in this book is not "living" in Morocco. It's "being wealthy" in Morocco. There is nothing penetrating about this book, but it is nice eye-candy.



3. Another one those wonderful coffee table book by Taschen publication. This book has a broader variety of homes like from the exclusive Aman hotel (Amanjena) to a humble farmer's house. It's not a book about how to live in Morocco nor about going remodeling or building a home in Morocco. It shows you what some foreigners and locals have done to their home.

   Book is cheaper than the previous Taschen book "Moroccan style".

No comments about The New 100 Houses x 100 Architects.

5 comments about Morgan.

1. I have both this book and Sara Boutelle's "Julia Morgan, architect" ISBN 0-7892-0019-8. I give a slight edge to the Boutelle book for the writing, but both books are excellent and each provides information, images, and insight not in the other. I wouldn't give up either one.



2. While this is clearly a comprehensive book at JM's work and the photographs are exquisite, the prose could have used a bit more editing.
   For example, the introduction, written by JM's niece is a stream of consciousness of memories vs. a more concise piece on Julia Morgan's relationship with the goddaughter and the mother (who was Julia's assistant).



3. This book is an exceptional coffee table book for oneself or as a gift. It is one of the most comprehensive books I have seen on Julia Morgan and her architecture with a wonderful compilation of photos.



4. This is a great addition to the Julia Morgan literature. A lovely intro by her god-daughter gives some new biographical information, and there are more pictures and discussion of her private home commissions than in any of the other books I have.



5. Much new primary source material. Stunning photography and much more. Something for the scholar, the architect, the homeowner, the dreamer...and anyone who craves beauty.

5 comments about Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America.

1. In 1969, shortly after the Atlas ICBM program was shut down, I was a college freshman filled with curiosity who more eagerly explored every silo location near the town where I went to school than I did the subjects in my classes. Inactive for such a short time, they were likely to be in pristine condition if only I could find one that was open. Flooded entrances, welded doors and no trespassing signs usually greeted me so how exciting it was when I finally found one that was wide open and with operating electricity! Someone appeared to live there who, probably fortunately, wasn't home. Unlike so many who followed me and vandalized these places, my policy was look but don't touch and leave everything as you found it.
   
   It was with familiarity, then, that I read Vanderbilt's account of his own descent into an Atlas site of exactly the same design.
   
   Like Vanderbilt, I was always fascinated with the old silos, Nike sites, weapons plants and other military detritus that spoke of great power, huge expense and top security now turned to open ruins left to rot, yet telling a story for the amateur detective to interpret. To think that these crumbling places might have meant The End and that what was now casual climbing might once have meant setting off alarms and being shot by an armed guard.
   
   Vanderbilt's book is not a dry description of the specifications of such ruins (though he does seem to be fond of mentioning the number of inches of thickness of reinforced concrete) but a lively account that puts them in place among the ideas and technologies of the Cold War period. Unlike my often clueless speculations on visits to some of the sites, this author has educated himself and brings along others who can expand his knowledge and ours. For me, it's like a dream come true - to visit the places and have along with you knowledgeable company to answer your questions. This investigation is impressively thorough and filled with the detail that his more recent book, Traffic, also shows. Unlike Traffic, the information provided in Survival City would otherwise be far more difficult to come by. He takes his subject and squeezes it for all the juice it can provide. The pictures are an added treat and illustrate the often stark quality one finds in these places.
   
   This book gives voice to otherwise mute monuments of man's power to destroy and in Vanderbilt's writing they are quite conversational. Survival City will never come close to Traffic in popularity but I think it's a much better book both for the depth of thought that the author shares with his readers and the compelling nature of the subject.



2. Author Tom Vanderbilt takes us around the country examining the evidences left by the Cold War, a war which did and yet didn't happen. From missile silos being destroyed to ones being turned into homes, from "proving grounds" to backyard bomb shelters, Mr. Vanderbilt uncovers sites which often sit right in front of us and simply blend into our landscape in spite of their obviously militaristic features. But he goes beyond the aging and disappearing signs indicating "fallout shelters" and discusses how the threat of nuclear annihilation shaped our cities and our thinking. Cities became the targets, and today's suburbs, often denigrated under the label of "urban sprawl," were a reaction to and a defense against the calamities which befell the densely packed cities of Germany and Japan which proved so fatal during the firebombing raids of WWII. Attempts to fortify buildings, strategies for minimizing casualties, underground cities, interstate highways, early warning systems, NORAD, massive retaliation... it all walks a fine line between critical and absurd, interesting and boring.
   
   I can't help imagining the puzzlement the younger generation must feel at seeing some of these things. Growing up in the 70s and 80s I only saw the end of the Cold War, but the Reagan years witnessed an increase in tensions with the USSR (do younger people even know who that was or what it stood for?) and I recall some events like the local opposition which prevented the deployment of MX missiles in the Utah desert in the late 70s. It also reminded me of movies I saw as a teenager like "War Games" and "The Day After," or music by Sting ("Russians") or Frankie Goes To Hollywood ("Two Tribes") which reflected the contradictions of a peace maintained by the ability of two nations to assure "mutual destruction" of each other within minutes. And yet that seemed to be the reality of the world we lived in, and I thought this book captured that sense very well. Mr. Vanderbilt ends with some sobering observations on how September 11th relates to this struggle to protect ourselves without falling into a "bunker mentality." Overall, an interesting and reflective look at a fading time, a look at the darker side of the optimism and technological advances of the 50s and 60s, with lots of great pictures (all in stark b&w) although maybe not quite 4 stars.



3. Tom Vanderbilt's Survival City is a sociological survey of a forty year war that never happened. Rummaging through the modern ruins of Cold War America, Vanderbilt's haunting travelogue takes the reader into old and derelict Altas II and Minuteman missile silos, past deserted radar stations and along the broken desert landscapes of weapons proving grounds. The Cold War was an invisible conflict that most of us somehow learned to live with. But, the Cold War had a visceral reality for those technicians that watched the radar screens for the "hand of god," the massive missile attack expected from the Soviets, which would appear like a skeletal hand reaching down from the North Pole towards North America. Mid-twentieth century architects weren't speculating if a nuclear attack would occur...but when. Fallout shelters and bunkers were integrated into some public and corporate buildings, but for the most part, urban and military planners had written off cities as indefensible. This, in part, explains the growth of suburbia -- the last defense against urban decapitation attacks.
   
   Vanderbilt's writing is crisp with the right combination of horror and moral shock at appropriate times.
   
   Survival City charts the emergence of the city as a war machine, its subsequent elevation to a military target in World War II, and the overall effect weapons of mass-destruction have had on our urban conscience. This book is a great read that even includes a postscript written on Sep. 17, 2001 that eerily reinforces the message of the book.
   
   I found this book to be a fairly short read, with lots of pictures of the various places the author is visiting along the way.
   
   Good stuff.
   
   Final grade: B+



4. Tom Vanderbilt's book is not only factual, but provides a riveting adventure through the remnants of America's Cold War. His writing is compelling. What he reveals is astonishing, and the pictures placed through out the book give the story crucial details that portray the reality of the Cold War in a way that words simply cannot articulate. The book draws you in and changes your perspective on and knowledge of history as well as the residue that coats America today.



5. I'm usually a rather tough grader, but this is the best book I've read in quite some time. Vanderbilt takes us on a lively and diverse tour of cold war America's remaining architectural artifacts (the interstate highway system, bomb shelters, missile silos, misc. military installations - some still in use, nuclear waste sites, etc.) and weaves an analysis of same into an interesting and often surprising commentary on the historical period and the society which gave rise to these structures. For me, the novel perspective of looking at things from an architectural standpoint worked quite well at making the history and those times come alive.

   The style is part documentary, part story-telling, part travelogue, part cultural anthropology, and part essay on topics in architecture (generally) which I previously would not have thought about, or thought I had any reason to think about. The approach was successful enough that I found myself frequently being simply and skillfully led to surprising and profound insights, which were a delight. I came away from the book thinking Vanderbilt was an excellent writer with many new and important ideas on the fascinating subject of nuclear weapons, the cold war, and national security generally -- subjects which can easily be made drole, heavy, boring and/or tedious. For many, the so-called atomic era seems long gone and forgotten (and slightly silly in many aspects), but Vanderbilt makes the issues faced then seem relevant to many similar problems facing us today by placing them in a context of continuity. Highly recommended to a broad audience.

3 comments about Pamphlet Architecture 15: War and Architecture (Pamphlet Architecture).

1. The work of Lebbeus Woods has always fascinated me. From the initial shear beauty of his art of alternate built landscapes both familiar and alien to his in-depth commentary.
   
   This small book pulls some big punches, revealing the examined paper architectural propositions expressing the underlying spirit and intent of the buildings within their context, altered, re-revealed to that society's 'catastrophe.'
   
   Well worth a buy for students to Architects to all those wishing escapism back to simple truths, and to delight in the satisfaction gleaned. Only wish the inside images were colour!



2. Woods is as much philosopher and urban planner as architect in the traditional sense. His buildings rip open the landscape of the ordered grid, and also open new possibilities about what it means to inhabit a space. The functions of some of his ideas for buildings are obscure even to him. He is constantly trying to deconstruct the politics of architecture and it's place in history. He actively embodies Heidegger's idea that "dwelling means to recieve the sky", except in his dwellings it also means to recieve the ground, and to actively take part in constructing your world.



3. In this work I have seen the necessity for Woods' architecture to exist; where before I had only seen compelling drawings. Lebbeus Woods has dedicated this manifesto to the city of Sarajevo, and to all cities which bear the signs of armed conflict on their walls. He states that the emergence of a new architecture is especially crucial in Sarajevo where the architecture was the target of the attackers (from within) who meant to destroy the culture there in all of its manifestations. The architecture of that culture, the places of worship and of social congregation, became the primary target for the ethnic genocide. As much as the bodies of the people, the architecture was destroyed for its significance as the public body. Therefore it is the architecture which must give a physical presence to these atrocities. Woods makes it clear that it is the responsibility of the architecture to preserve the memory of the destruction- not in a sentimental or memorial manner- but in the same manner as the life of cities has been preserved through use and adaptation throughout history. The war is part of the reality of the place and therefore should not be erased. This work also resists the glorification of war of the Italian Futurists, and the `tabula rasa' erasure of existing conditions of the Modernists. This is a work which acknowledges growth and destruction in the same breath. It is existential in its acceptance of reality and its means of building with it.... not nihilistic. It is existential in that it knows no reality other than what is there, but is not fully convinced by its authority. It revels in the multitudinous nature of the contemporary world, of the present. Unlike the Modernists, Woods does not intend to reinvent the city but to allow the city to be more itself. This work, his infamous drawings, is an attempt to recognize the reality of a place through actualization of events.... By building in and upon the ruins he remakes them into the living substance of the city, leaving no trace unexposed.

3 comments about Bamboo Style: Exteriors, Interiors, Details (Icons).

1. . . .photographed very well. This is a 'picture book' meant to stimulate the imagination in finding ways to use bamboo creatively. If you have one, and just enjoy great photography and a homage to the beauty of bamboo, this is the book for you!



2. For anyone interested in design who wants to see examples of what others have done, this is a great book - lots of excellent pictures. For someone who wants lots of explanation of what they are looking at, it is a disaster as there is virtually zero text (whole book has maybe 1 page, pictures have no titles or descriptions of any sort, no idea of location, anything. So for the artist, designer who has a need for visual stimulation (like going to an art gallery), it is great.



3. I was given this book as gift by Joerg Stamm a famous bamboo builder. It is one of the most popular books in our library in our sales and design office. Shot mostly in Bali area (I think) it is a great photo essay of design possibilities using bamboo materials. Since it is what we do for a living we are always looking for ideas to help us create new tropical sanctuaries for our customers. I recommend it highly for design ideas, and a fine coffee table book filled with delicious images sure to inspire.

2 comments about 100 of the World's Best Bars.

1. I just received my copy of this book and the pictures are absolutely beautiful! It has great inspiration if you are thinking of opening a bar/lounge/restaurant. Some bars even have the blueprint along with pictures.



2. This is a great resource book. And this group out of Milwaukee, FLUX DESIGN
   is really doing some wonderful interior design and full out building of there designs, making for truly unique spaces. Buy it.

2 comments about Surface Architecture.

1. I am finishing my thesis at a recognized architecture school on the west coast. This book is a great read. Very insightful and contemporary critique of the role of the facade with relation to fabrication. I admittedly have not finished the text but I have enjoyed what I have read thus far. Enjoy.



2. The conflict between tradition and modernity is a
   force in contemporary architecture even in 21th century!

   Let me ask what is the way of the future of architecture? If we accept architecture as a social and cultural art, beside its technological effacts, (and we know that the culture and society have got their own new definitions in 21th century regarding the new situation of the relationship between human and technology...)we are going to chang the relationship between humans and machines (look at the really similar atmophere in the early 20th century, specially structuralism)...

   Actually, there is no much moral codes here! As Cordeiro says, we are going to live a really new terminology, Genetic engineering. Cyborgs. Artificial intelligence. Consciousness uploading. Singularity, Posthumanism etc. Even as Mark Amerika (in the AVANT-POP MANIFESTO) says: "Now that Postmodernism is dead and we're in the process of finally burying it, something else is starting to take hold in the cultural imagination and I propose that we call this new phenomenon Avant-Pop" ...

   Yes, Avant-Pop and Posthuman (or whatever you call it), and specially the new Electronic Age and the new Cultural Imagination, these are the paradigms of the future and going to define everything including the basement of the architectural design, production and culture in a transdisciplinary way of thinking...

   Maybe its the most question of our age which Mostafavi asks: "'How can design utilise the opportunities of current industrial production so that the practice of architectural representation is neither independent of nor subjugated to the domination of technology?"