2 comments about Morphosis/Diamond Ranch High School (Source Books in Architecture).

1. "Diamond Ranch High School: Source Book in Architecture" is perhaps one of the best books to have if you want to know the process of which great projects come to be.
   
   Divided into three sections, the first section is a documented transcript of Thom Mayne of Morphosis, critic Jeffrey Kipnis, and lecturer Todd Gannon during the Baumer Lecture Series at The Ohio State University. Mr. Kipnis and Mr. Gannon provide some of the best questions to Mr. Mayne - questions that many of us would actually want to ask Mr. Mayne. Likewise, Mr. Mayne's responses are eloquent and insightful. His honesty removes the aura created by his computer renderings and makes you realize that this is simply an individual who loves what he does.
   
   The second section of the book documents the drawings that Morphosis developed for the Diamond Ranch High School. Let's face it - we are usually presented with either a project proposal or a professional finished photograph and drawings are typically excluded from any typical documentation.
   
   The third section contains photos of the project under construction to the final construction photos.
   
   From the Mayne's discussion, to the drawings, and to the photographs, you gain a valuable insight into the true design and development of 'Diamond Ranch High School' that other publications simply gloss over.
   
   This series of books are simply one of the best in contemporary architectural writing and documentation today.



2. As an architect, I have followed Thom Mayne's work for a long period of time. I have collected most of his books and have always admired their production quality and most importantly, the depth of the work produced by this firm. They have been and will remain at the forefront of the architectural profession. Despite reading and studying Mayne's work and philosophies in other books, I have always been left unsatisfied, not knowing exactly how the firm works and how a project comes together within their office. The interview with Jeffery Kipnis and Todd Gannon at the front of the book enters into this territory, although I would have liked it to be much longer. The rest of the book is much like other Morphosis' books; full of beautiful sketches, computer renderings and drawings. Images walk the reader from schematic design through completion.

5 comments about Alvar Aalto.

1. If you are one those who don't like boring books, and you like books to show good photografs, this is the book you have to buy about this great architect that ALVAR AALTO was. This book is one of my favourites and believe, i have plenty of book is my room. Amazing book and amazing photografs!



2. Undoubtedly this is a book of fine photographs and drawings. And for many architects and students that is more than enough. They want to be inspired, and to get a feeling for the material qualities of architecture. They indeed need few words. But Weston's book makes a claim to be more than that. It claims to be a historical monograph. But we get little sense of the strangeness, the Otherness, of Finnish culture. Aalto could more or less be designing anywhere. Reference to Finland is merely stereo-typical "nature". Aalto remains as elusive as ever.



3. I love Alvar Aalto's architecture and i think this is book contains so beautiful photografs as his architecture is. Richard Weston on the best.



4. I would just like to say that this is one of the best architecture books i've seen up to date



5. Beautiful photographs of Aalto's architecture. I don't think a monograph needs too many words. Weston provides the necessary dates and basic information, but luckilly keeps away from intellectualisations.

2 comments about World's Greatest Lighthouses (Architecture).

1. This book tells the storis of many lighthouses around the world giving to lighthouses lovers, but nont only, a view on the way of construction of each light, the life of the keepers inside them, giving life to these architectural monuments and thei builders that from thousand of years helped the ships in the dark of the night. An introduction with the story of the development through the ancient times of this system of lighthening the sea gives an idea of the hard work that is beyond them. Beutiful pictures of each light illustrate this great book



2. Very thorough and detail piece of art as well as a study. Because this is what this book is all about. A complete study with details that are hard to be gathered, followed by a photographic representation that is between the thin line of art and reality.
   Congratulations to the author and the team for this project.
   
   Nikiforos
   
   P.S, Excellent price!!!

5 comments about French America: French Architecture Form Colonialization To The Birth Of A Nation.

1. This book was exactly what i needed to work with on an interior design project. It was easy to read and not so detailed that would make it dull.



2. "French America" is a dazzling, oversized coffee table book which opens an entirely new world all around the reader. I had expected a treasure of great pictures and was not disappointed. What I had not expected is the narration, not only descriptions of the pictures, but of the history of the French role in the development of the United States.
   
   This book is a tour through many buildings associated with French settlement and development in the United States. Beginning with the early Huguenot settlements in New York and South Carolina, the reader is taken on to the heart of French America along the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi. Despite living among the greatest collection of French Colonial architecture in the country, I learned of near by structures of which I was totally unaware. The journey continues down the river to Louisiana with its living French culture amid the houses and buildings surviving from a way of life that is Gone With The Wind. The tour winds through sites in the Eastern states associated with French participation in the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars and concludes with Civic buildings in the Washington-Virginia area inspired by French architecture.
   
   This book broadened my understanding of the French heritage around us and sharpened my appetite to visit some of these areas. It can do the same for you.



3. As a loving and dutiful son of both cultures, having been reared in France under the Nazi terror and having commanded American Infantry during the Korean War, I feel qualified to greet this treasure of a book with enthusiastic acclaim for being such a moving and exquisite celebration of the Entente Cordiale that holds these two great republics in a bond that no amount of maligning can destroy.The evocative text together with the extensive collection of superb photographs are the guides for a cultural, architectural and historical visit to the enriching French heritage that graces all the regions of the United States.No effort has been spared in designing and in producing this large and most elegant volume which is in itself a work of art.



4. French America is one of those rare coffee table books that is both beautiful to look at and features a well-written and highly interesting text. The photos display incredible luminosity and skill. Both interior and exterior shots are infused with light that reaches out and grabs the viewer. The book itself is a true find - a vast historical and architectural frescoe of the French sites and buildings in America, spanning from New England, the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.
   
   I was fascinated to learn the history of French architecture from constructions along the Mississippi Valley, like Sainte Genevieve, Missouri, built by Normans using the same bousillage and colombage techniques found in local French villages. The more sophisticated architecture of the Creole plantations in Louisiana and the urban and civic buildings of Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C., created from the plan by Pierre-Charles L'Enfant remid us of the once prevading French influence in this country. Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia estate, was inspired by the Hôtel de Salm in Paris and his admiration of French architecture. The Maison Carrée in Nîmes was the prototype of another of Jefferson's architectural projects, the Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, designed along with the French architect Clérisseau.
   
   The special features on history and French culture in the US are a delight, including the Huguenots and their descendants. George Washington himself had Protestant ancestors from the l'Ile de Ré off the Brittany coast. Other sections deal with the Creole influences and the cultural importance of the Cajuns in Louisiana. As the book points out, before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, when Napoleon sold the territory for 15 million dollars,(the greatest real estate deal ever) the settlers of French origin made important contributions in the realms of architecture, education and trade. The Jesuits educated and converted Indian tribes, the coureurs de bois established fur trading posts, talented artisans constructed houses and monuments largely inspired by French architecture from France, Canada and the French West Indies while blending them in such as way as to create a unique new style : American architecture. A great discovery !



5. Very nice photographs with informative text. A great gift for any American of French ancestry or someone with an appreciation of the French contribution to our culture.

1 comments about 21st Century Hotel.

1. The thirty seven hotels featured in this book have been selected to illustrate the exciting trend that has come about in recent years to build hotels that stretch beyond the utilitarian hotels of old to reach new heights of style. Most of these new hotels have been designed for a close, harmonious fit to their surroundings. This is particularly striking in some of the hotels built in mountain or desert locations.
   
   Other hotels built in cities for instance, do not have unduely striking exteriors but make up for it by the attention paid to the design of the interior areas both public and in the individual rooms.
   
   The selected hotels are scattered widely around the world, showing that such design is not restricted to one locale or even to one continent.
   
   Seven of the hotels might be considered to be the design experiments, where the basic structure or use of the building stretches design to the limits. These are not your basic Motel 6 designs.

1 comments about The Treasures of Coptic Art in the Coptic Museum and Churches of Old Cairo.

1. The most important museum in the world for Coptic antiquities, Egypt's Coptic Museum founded in Old Cairo in 1908 houses icons, stone pillars, textiles, incense burners, Bible containers, wall paintings, papyri, wooden altar screens, crosses, and church chandeliers, among other objects. Many of these are made from ivory and bone; and others from local and imported stone, paints, wood, fabrics, and other materials for religious, artistic, and cultural items of their period. A few surviving Coptic churches are also pictured to bring in to a limited degree Coptic architecture.
   
   Over 130 of the assorted antiquities are pictured in clear color photographs of various scales, including many full page, allowing for appreciation and study of their details. For example, smaller pieces of jewelry are pictured close-up so that their carvings of figures and details of their features and clothing stand out. Parts of some textiles have close-ups where not only the woven figures and patterns can be viewed discretely, but their weaving is apparent. Text goes beyond just identifying the varied objects to treat theological inferences and implications as well as artistic and historical points of note. One image of Christ from about the seventh century "employs various devices" to render him "more approachable." Chief among these is the "halo around his head" calling to mind his particular holiness as a living person "[r]ather than representing him in a mandorla [a large oval halo frequenting enclosing a figure, from the Glossary], which would indicate his existence beyond time and space."
   
   The work of coffee-table size, quality, and style offers a particularly handsome as well as a comprehensive portrayal of this distinctive, long-lasting religious art which reflects the pagan, Romanistic, and Middle Eastern cultures of its beginnings over two thousand years ago. Gabra is a former director of the Coptic Museum; Eaton-Krauss, a specialist in Egyptian art and archaeology.

No comments about Hampton Court Palace: The Official Illustrated History (Architecture New Titles).

1 comments about The Architecture of Entertainment: LA in the Twenties.

1. The difference about Los Angeles in the 1920's was money. New money for people who previously hadn't had nearly this much. And one of the places they spent the money was on their homes. Commercial buildings likewise grew to reflect the ever increasing incomes of the area. And because of the increased income going to the local governments public buildings received their share as well. Los Angeles in the 1920's was becoming a city. It needed the big buildings of a downtown area.
   
   To fill this need, LA attracted some of the best architects available. This included Bertram Goodhue; Morgan, Walls and Clements; Allison and Allison; and Parkinson and Parkinson in the public sector, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright and Wallace Neff in residential design.
   
   These houses remain as classics of their time, and this book uses stunning photography and insightful writing to describe buildings that remain outstanding to this day. Dr. Winter has spent most of his life in the LA area and is an outstanding authority on the art and culture of the area.
   
   Highly recommended as a classic book of its type.

1 comments about Canon of the Five Orders of Architecture.

1. Dr Branko Mitrovic translates to English the most? published architectural treatise in history. There contains within his book, his typical attention to detail thereby decreasing error and misinterpretaion in the translation.

   Beautifully bound and presented, this easy to read 'reference' is uncluttered but comprehensive. It is a book that for accurate proportioning systems alone is essential on any architects' shelf. There no longer needs to be any guessing where classical geometries are concerned. The illustrations are full page elevational detail....very easy to browse and understand.

   Like a thesaurus for the poet, this fundamental system of tools is recommended for any architect, whatever their bent.

No comments about The Inspired Workspace: Designs for Creativity and Productivity.