No comments about Sport and Leisure Operations Management.

No comments about Modern Retro: Living With Mid-century Modern Style.

1 comments about Reinforced Concrete and the Modernization of American Building, 1900-1930 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology).

1. Dr. Slaton skillfully traces the evolution of modern building construction practice as well as the rise of the engineering field that made it possible. As an aside, she successfully argues that the emergence of modern architectural "design" was less of a european phenomenon than generally supposed. The research is thorough, and presented in a very entertaining fashion. The book's well worth the time and money.

1 comments about America's Original GI Town: Park Forest, Illinois (Creating the North American Landscape).

1. This is a planner's history of this unique American village, located about thirty miles South of Chicago. Gregory Randall has the advantage of growing up in Park Forest, which gives him some insight into the community that an outside observer might miss. He also has the training and experience as an urban planner to understand and appreciate the complexities of creating a new town.

   Randall places Park Forest in the contex of planned communities in England and the United States. His discussion of Riverside, Illinois, is good; but he ignores Pullman, Illinois, and Marktown, Indiana, as earlier planned communities in the Chicago area. His treatment of Harvey, Illinois, includes the minor error of listing the Chicago lumberman, Turlington W. Harvey, as an evangelist, although he was associated with the evangelist, Dwight Moody.

   He also does not deal with the demogragrahic changes that been pronounced on the South Side of Chicago and the South Suburbs. This racial and ethic movement has affected the developments that the planners did not anticipate. Perhaps, this is beyond the scope Randall's book, and deserves a monograph of its own.

   As a resident of Park Forest for twenty-six years I learned much about the origins and development of my town. I was especially interested in the how the lack of cooperation from the Illinois Central Railroad, forced the planners to drop their first chice for the location of the Park Forest Plaza. Thus, many of Park Forest's problems with a declining downtown area can be understood. I recommend this book to all who have an interest in the post-World War II period, and especially to all those who live Chicago area.

1 comments about Lighthouses (Shire Library).

1. The 2003 edition is a revised update of a small book first published in 1995. It is an introduction to the history and development of lighthouses in Great Britain and Ireland. At 64 pp it is twice the size of the first edition. The most obvious improvement is in the illustrations: all are now attractive colour photos. The text outlines the way lighthouses have been developed in the British Isles since Roman and mediaeval times, for harbour and headland, and the adaptations to reefs and lightships. The text is almost unchanged from the first edition except for minor updating of subjects such as de-manning and automation, and trials of laser light sources.

   The font has been enlarged and improved, for easier reading. The gazetteer has been enlarged, now with many colour photos. The list of lighthouses that can be visited has grown from 21 to 40 and the map has been amended. The 'Further reading' list is updated to 11 recent books. New in this edition are an index and 5 websites.

   Like most of the small books that Shire Publications Ltd have published on a wide range of subjects since the 1960s, this new edition can be recommended as an inexpensive introduction to the subject: sufficient to inform a casual interest, while also providing a foundation for those who may choose to search for more detail elsewhere.

No comments about Sanctuaries of Earth, Stone, and Light: The Churches of Northern New Spain, 1530-1821 (Southwest Center Series).

4 comments about St. Joseph Altars.

1. i bought two of these; one for our former pastor - priest
   and one for our altar society; it is just wonderful



2. This book brought back so many fond memories of when I was growing up in a little town north of New Orleans. My parents were from New Orleans and of Italian descent, and this book is reminiscent of so many things I experienced as a child. My mother made a St. Joseph's Altar for 17 years until she was no longer able to do so, and I was thrilled to find recipes for so many of the dishes she prepared in this book!



3. Growing up in a Sicilian family in the 50's, the St Jospeh Altar was a labor of love for my parents. I can recall the women gathered around the kitchen table with their own special paring knives for making cookies and secret recipes for the traditional dishes of their homeland. The photographs are a vivid reminder of those tables laden with so many pastries with the strange sounding names.

   Although this book is seen from the celebrations in New Orleans, it still captures the story of the St Joseph Altar with the prayers and rituals of the occassion. I can still hear the beautiful sung Litany of St Joseph translated into English in this book, and taste the crunch of "mudica" (toasted breadcrumbs)on the pasta. This book would be a treasure to hand down to your children as you tell them of their grandparents and great-grandparents or as a gift for anyons who remembers San Guiseppe's feast day. It is a scrapbook of a time past for most Sicilian familes who have blended into the cultural melting pot, and a reminder of a heritage that should be kept alive for future generations.




4. A beautiful book with super pictures. If you cannot come to New Orleans to see the St. Joseph Altars in person, then at least buy the book and enjoy the pictures. The Feast of St. Joseph is on March 19th.

3 comments about Shigeru Ban.

1. I read this book and another volume with the same title published by Phaidon together. My suggestion is that read the Phaidon book first, then supplement with this one. Phaidon's book catpures the core of Ban's architectural identity and is well-organized by the building materials he used in the projects (paper, wood, bamboo, prefab, and skin). The text in that book is also technical, detail, and informative.
   
   Though there are quite a few overlaps between these two books, this book includes more projects than the Phaidon volume. For example, it presents Ban's early works (emphasizing the use of walls), his exhibition installations (from which he got the inspiration of paper architecture), and more furniture house projects.
   
   If I can only buy one book, I will definitely choose the Phaidon book and get a copy of this book from the library.



2. If you are into architecture in any way, try this book. Although there is not a lot of usefull information in this book it is still a good read. It features simple and effective descriptions of some of his famous buildings which are illustrated by great photographs and small diagrams. And that is the power of this book: keeping it simple.



3. A must-have monograph that is as lucid, intelligent, and unpretentious as its subject-and at a bargain price. Ban combines a respect for the Japanese architectural tradition of simple, open, lightweight structures with the theoretical rigor he absorbed from John Hejduc, his teacher at Cooper Union. His signature element is the cardboard tube (first used as an economy in his installation of an Aalto exhibition) and since employed as the structural support for houses, a post-earthquake church in Kobe, a graceful canopy over the MoMA garden, and the Japanese Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hanover. Ban's oeuvre includes provocative private houses and temporary shelters for disaster victims.

1 comments about Edwin Lutyens. Country Houses (Country Life).

1. Lutyens excelled in the creation of great country homes. He designed in the best English tradition and his estates on the exterior often looked like they had been there for decades or a century or more. Of course he is most famous for his Vicroy's House in New Delhi and his work with Baker on the master plan for imperial Delhi of the British Raj. Lutyen's was a British treasure, one of the great traditional English architects. This book has enlightening text and wonderful images, it really shows off his work in its best light. Highly recommended indeed.

No comments about Chicago Churches and Synagogues.