3 comments about Ephemeral City: Cite Looks at Houston.

1. Houston is the perfect subject for a book of this kind, it lends itself so well to current trends in urban planning and what a lack of zoning can facilitate. The text is scholarly and well researched, uh that should be an oxymoron, but alas it is not always. The authors really nailed Houston and I recognized the city completely. If you have any interest in urban planning or Houston in general, or frankly just well realized books, then I highly recommend this book to you. Well done indeed.



2. The best book on Houston that I know. This collection of articles on the architecture of the city captures its aesthetic history (or lack thereof) wonderfully. The book's production quality is clean and beautifully done, and the narratives reveal Houston's vicissitudes - its humble origins, its disinterest in history, its deification of power, and the origins of its sprawl. Excellent.



3. Great compiliation of Cite articles masterfully edited by Scardino & Co.

No comments about Louis I. Kahn: The Construction of the Kimbell Art Museum.

No comments about Electricity for Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Related Areas.

2 comments about At Home on the Prairie: The Houses of Purcell & Elmslie.

1. This book helps to address the problem of a dearth of material on Prairie School architecture by anyone other than Frank Lloyd Wright. Not that Wright wasn't an important proponent of the school, but he was far from the only architect of this style. More needs to be done to document the works of the others such as Griffin, Mahoney, Tallmadge and Watson, and Purcell and Elmslie.
   
   This book does an admirable job of this in regards to the latter two architects and their brief but productive joint practice. The two produced a remarkable number of very liveable houses in the space of ten years, houses that are notable for the quality of detail often achieved on quite modest budgets.
   
   The book itself includes a brief history of the practice and then a description and pictures of a selection of many of the houses that they designed. The pictures are first rate. The descriptions, though necessarily brief, cover not only the construction and features of the house but some of their subsequent history as well.
   
   I found this book an important and welcome addition to my collection of books on the Prairie School.



2. The partnership between Purcell and Elmslie lasted only about a dozen years (1909-1921). But during that time their firm was second only to Frank Lloyd Wright 's in the number of houses they designed. In addition, the work of Purcell and Elmslie, to me anyway, seems to have generated more features seen intoday's architecture than the houses of any other architect of the period.
   
   To be sure the Purcell & Elmslie lack the dramatic styling features of say 'Falling Water.' But then so does everything else. The Purcell& Elmslie features that I see today include the internal fireplace (dramatically designed), the wide use of windows, built in cabinets, open designs that lead from room to room, and more.
   
   This book is a beautifully photographed and printed review of some two dozen Purcell & Elmslie homes. Most of the homes included are of the prarie home style extremely common in the midwest, but in reality seen from coast to coast and Canada to Louisiana. It is a beautiful book.
   
   I can only ask that Korab and Legler consider another book on Purcell's later work when he moved to Portland, Oregon and designed houses the fit into a more urban setting.

2 comments about Los Angeles: A Certain Style.

1. People keep borrowing this book from me and then not returning it, so that gives you an idea how valuable it is. Gorgeous photos and a wonderful mix of design styles.



2. John Vaughan's book of photos of Los Angeles are always elegant, yet simplistic with perfect lighting and balance. Looking at the book, one can almost experience Los Angeles with its magnificent homes and scenery. Definitely recommended for anyone who loves interior design or just enjoying interesting architectural photographs.

5 comments about Golf Course Architecture: Design, Construction & Restoration.

1. Starts off very well with the hope that it will get more technical but instead becomes more theoretical in areas such as aesthetics and fine art, areas which the author seems to not have a background in. ie, his discussion of perception, symmetry and balance etc. If you can skip the middle chapters its not bad but again I had hoped for more technical insights. Perhaps I needed a book on golf course construction. I just assumed from architecture courses that construction issues and recommendations as well as more detail of layout relative to game play would be discussed.



2. This is one of five best technical books I ever found. As a beginner in golf course design, I found in this book all I needed to realize my projects.



3. This is a fascinating book for any golf enthusiast or historian, as well as an essential practical resource for anyone actively involved in golf course design, construction and maintenance.

   The design process progresses from the green to the individual hole to the entire course. Detailed technical information is well integrated with aesthetic and theoretical concepts making the entire book interesting & readable.

   The book is packed with color photos of individual holes to illustrate design concepts, sites under construction and wonderful historical documents. The technical drawings & plans are well done and very useful.

   This book is a great example of making a technical manual a joy to read. Any golfer who appreciates the background of the course he or she is playing on will love it.




4. This book is filled with wonderful pictures from cover to cover. An incredible collection of the worlds most famous golf courses and designers.



5. Simply an outstanding look at the fascinating process of taking a piece of land and sculpting a chapmionship layout. A step-by-step process that details the many intricacies and disciplines involved in creating a golf course. Any golfer will more fully appreciate the not only what they see on a course, but also what they "don't" see. The photos and illustrations are plentiful and precise in leading one through each phase of construction. Must reading for an serious student of the game. Kevin Burke

No comments about Spectacular Homes Of Texas (Spectacular Homes).

No comments about Follies and Fantasies: Germany and Austria.

4 comments about Fences, Gates and Trellises.

1. My husband and I got this book to make an inset board ("Good Neighbor" design) fence. Unlike the 25 other books I reviewed, this book explained EVERYTHING. Which nails (wood, fence design, hardware, etc.) are available and which work best in which application. The instructions for the fence were VERY clear. The book contained excellent descriptions and drawings for each stage of building our fence and gate. It also contained many lovely photos for inspiration. We needed no other explanation in building our fence but this book. Having never built a fence before we were finished in a weekend!



2. My husband and I got this book to make an inset board ("Good Neighbor" design) fence. Unlike the 25 other books I reviewed, this book explained EVERYTHING. Which nails (wood, fence design, hardware, etc.) are available and which work best in which application. The instructions for the fence were VERY clear. The book contained excellent descriptions and drawings for each stage of building our fence and gate. It also contained many lovely photos for inspiration. We needed no other explanation in building our fence but this book. Having never built a fence before we were finished in a weekend!



3. This is exactly the book that I was looking for. Lots of pictures, good writeup on how to get out there and do it. Nice section on fence repair. No seond thoughts on this one.



4. This book is excellent. It contains lots of ideas along with explanations and instructions. We built a great-looking fence in the front yard with no experience. We will use this wonderful reference again and again.

3 comments about The New American Village (Creating the North American Landscape).

1. In the 20 page written intro to Bob Thall's book of photographs, the author discusses the introduction of the new suburban areas surrounding large cities, specifically the ones surrounding Chicago, and even more specifically Schaumburg, Illinois. His description is admittedly subjective, but that doesn't make it negative. He addresses the pros and cons of both city life and suburban life, and details the way that his photographs will illutrate his points.
   
   The photographs themselves are stunning simply because they are of such typical subruban non-descript businesses, streets, homes, and parks. What is interesting is how new everything looks, and yet 8 years later, I wonder what it looks like. Thall considers what these neighborhoods will look like 20 years from their construction dates, considering they are built with such cheap material, and almost a decade later, we're close to finding out. It would be interesting to see a follow-up book about the same area, just to see how much can change in such a short amount of time in a rapidly growing suburban area.
   
   For anyone interested in the suburbs and the small cities full of strip-malls and housing developments that arise around major cities, this book is an excellent reference point.



2. Schaumburg, Illinois (incorporated 1956) is now on the map thanks to Bob Thall's excellent photos taken during the growth of the town in the Nineties. Divided into four chapters dealing with the landscape: corporate, commercial, domestic and natural, the photos carry on the deadpan format of Adams, Baltz, Gohlke and others associated with the New Topographics style.
   
   Despite appearing rather anonymous because there are no people in the photos Schaumburg does look a very reasonable place to live and Thall mentions in his short opening essay that many of the houses and corporate offices overlook small lakes and ponds, created by the developers to control flooding, this water obviously encourages wildlife. As is usual with suburbs/edge cities/New Villages, critics will assume that the inhabitants can't possibly be happy living in such an environment but I bet they are. Probably the best folks-at-home-in-the-suburbs book is Bill Owens stunning 'Suburbia' (ISBN 1881270408) photographed in Livermore, San Francisco.
   
   The sixty-five photos in 'The New American Village' are well presented (in 265dpi) in the standard art-photo landscape format though there is the usual photobook annoyance of having to turn to a page in the back to read each photo's caption. Unfortunately the captions say no more than place and date yet the images frequently, it seems to me, deserve more of an explanation than just resting on the page.
   
   Incidentally, it is worth looking down at Schaumburg on Google Earth, you will see a place that has matured over the years since Thall took his photos and especially look at the space between houses, the curved streets, the position of corporate and retail units in relation to domestic housing. A pretty good place to live!
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.



3. Thall is a photographer and his photographs are marvelous: lucid, lovely, tonally rich, beautifully constructed. What's astonishing, though, is the way he has applied his sensibility to the least-liked spaces that increasingly dominate America and the globe: the "edge cities" of prefab warehouses for outsourced products, of instant townhouse communities (really trailer courts stacked upright) of malls and corporate "campuses." Most writing about this new American landscape excoriates it or, more rarely, argues that it's the landscape we want (ignoring that "we" aren't the architects, the patrons, or the developers). Thall seeks simply to look, to see what's remarkable, and then to communicate it, in pictures that embody the complex history of our newly decentralized human habitations. On the cover is a picture of two shocking office towers shot from a parking garage. Only one car is there: a beat-up Toyota station wagon perched impudently at off-angle to the resolute order of the rest of the space. That must be Thall's car; certainly it's the embodiment of the position he takes when he makes these pictures.