2 comments about Folding Architecture.

1. perhaps i expected a little too much from this book. but personally i just don't think the content is clear at all. sure they provide you a template of how they cut and score the paper but the models don't look like they have carefully designed. even for this low price it still doesn't justify, since you can find most of the stuff from google anyway.



2. this book has helped me wit my architecture work in school. the images are amazing and detailed.

No comments about Cool Shops Berlin (Cool Shops).

No comments about Historic Preservation Technology: A Primer.

No comments about D Book - Density, Data, Diagrams, Dwellings.

2 comments about Good City Form.

1. As one who straddles the two worlds of practice and scholarship with great ease and comfort, I am struck by that rare work of craft which is at once profoundly thoughtful as well as clearly directed. Most serious scholars bend over backwards to embrace the myth of "objectivity", while most practitioners salivate over superficial "best practices". Kevin Lynch's masterpiece, Good City Form, avoids both traps while offering a template for judging the effectiveness of different types of urban form and providing a guide for successful urban design projects. His starting points, a masterful overview of models of urban form throughout history and a sensitive ode to humanist values, help establish a foundation for performance dimensions to measure "good city form": Vitality, Sense, Fit, Access, Control, Efficiency and Justice. I would highly recommend this book to reflective practitioners, scholars interested in the practice of urban design, and others simply interested in shaping the future of our cities. In addition, the book works well with two others as an excellent advanced introduction to the field of urban design: "The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History" by Spiro Kostof, and "Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form" by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Tridib Banerjee.



2. In the world of urban design, obsessed with spectacular novelty and superficial aesthetics, this ambitious and profound work of Kevin Lynch is refreshing, yet enduring. He suggests a theory of urban design based on fundamental human values and examines how such values lead to the notion of a "good city form". His performance dimensions (e.g. access, fit, vitality) are broad enough to be interpreted and re-interpreted for specific contexts and sites. And the appendix, which briefly summarizes other theories of city form, is a tour-de-force by itself. A masterpiece which deserves greater attention and consideration, especially by those under the illusion that urban design is more or less architecture writ large!

5 comments about New Artist's Handbook.

1. This book answers loads of "How do they do that?" questions that the non-artist would never be able to figure out, even with the internet. Every page has something I never knew and didn't know I didn't know. Techniques, materials, tools...they are all there with the proper depth for someone who just wants the basic info.
   
   Other than nature and travel guides, this is the first reference book I have found extremely useful since the internet took over most of that function from my home library.



2. Great book for anyone interested in art - from the beginner to the expert. An excellent mix of science (particularly chemistry) and the creation of art itself. Very informative and easy to read. I look forward to purchasing and reading the follow-on edition.



3. I keep this around for when I'm bored and just want to browse and think about materials, but it's most useful for when you forget things. For instance, when you forget exactly how much dammar resin to soak in turpentine, like I did today. I found the answer in seconds and went back to work. Very, very handy. On the other hand, if you're not doing two-dimensional work, this won't be so handy. This is a great text on painting, drawing, and formal aspects and techniques in those areas.



4. This book is an important resource for artists. Ray Smith has a complete knowledge of art materials, and he gives a complete and detailed description of each material and how they are used. It covers a wide range of art materials including paints, grounds, pencils, inks, printing equipment, cereamic tiles, stained glass, and so forth. Also included is information on color, perspective, framing, photography, and exhibiting your work. Basically it's a complete guide to the 2D mediums of art. if you're interesting in 3D arts such as sculpture or pottery, you're not in luck. Those fields aren't covered.

   For me, it's interesting to just look through this book and examine the wide range of techniques and materials presented in it. You can find a lot of new ideas to try out. Even if you're an experienced artist, I think you can find something new that you will be excited to try. Check it out. It's worth it.




5. When recommending an alternative text in the last review I wrote of this book, I suggested Robert Gottsegan's book. His real name is Mark David Gottsegan. Apologies for this mistake.

3 comments about John Pawson Works.

1. The main complaint I have with this book is that some of the photography veers towards the abstract or obscure. Frankly in an architecture book I'm not interested in the photographer's or author's artistic pretensions. Let the architect's work speak for itself - something that many authors on architecture seem reluctant to do these days. Having experienced some of the work featured in this book, there were some photographs that left me wondering if I'd been in the same building as these guys. It was great to see floorplans but some drawings or draft plans illustrating Pawson's design process would have been very welcome.



2. If readers have come across Deyan Sudjic's works before (namely, the Architecture Park), then, you have a fairly good idea of what to expect from this book. I always find Deyan's books to be hugely entertaining & informative at the same time, & I can't help but noticing that Deyan is a strong advocate of architecture, not discussing about the literati of it all but discussing about the interaction among people that are concerned in creating spaces for their consumptions. John Pawson is a superarchitect who started his career reasonably late in his thirties but thru a mixture of his talent, hard work, sheer luck in getting recognised, his stature in the architecture world is phenomena. I wouldn't rate him as one of those cerebral architects such as Stephen Holl, Steve Eisenmann, Frank Gehry, Frank Meier, etc. but what he does, he does it in his own way, & with style. Perhaps, one of the saying that depicts him succinctly would be, if it's working, why fix it. By glancing thru all his works, readers might find that they all have those quiet contemplation ambiance with a touch of Eastern Zen (not surprising considering that he spent 4 years of his life teaching in Japan), & modernism. John also applies the fundamentals of architecture by emphasising upon form, mass, & repetition. Here, we are privileged to read about the process that John went thru with his few featured high profiled clients, who inherently share his values. Some of the works are as followings: Calvin Klein, Martha Stewart, Cathay Pacific, Obumex Kitchen, Faggionato Apartment, Pawson's own house, Young Vic. Presentation of this Phaidon's book is high quality, & even though it's a nice touch by using different tones of whites & grays to give it a Pawson's feel to it, it might be difficult to read in a less than well-lit room, & some of the building plans were so small & miniscule & without the necessary aid such as magnifying glass, it's not really easy to look at the plans in detail. Labelling of the spaces would come in handy, naturally. Chronology, index, & acknowledgements at the end of the book & a potrait of John Pawson do give us a fairly good idea of his accomplishments, & about the man himself. In terms of defining John Pawson, I think this book has done just that. Enjoyable to read & as a coffee table book, it wouldn't disappoint. Highly recommended.



3. If you appreciate that "less is certainly more.."..then you'll love this book.John Pawson's works continue to demonstrate that there is beauty even in the simplest of expressions.The use of bold planes, subtle lighting and texture continue to seduce and excite.Pawson's kitchens exemplify his minimalist philosophies-they make you want to rip your own out and start all over again!

1 comments about On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time.

1. This book provides a fresh new approach on how architects and/or designers should view the use of materials. The ingeneous approach on how the natural weathering process of materials can be a phenomenon that may enrich a material's physical property, provides a great insightful approach for a 'responsible' use of materials in architecture. This book is a MUST read for all those architecture students that have a great interest in materials.

4 comments about Event-Cities 2.

1. Simultaneously I have on my desk Peter Hall Cities in Civilization and Bernard Tschumi Event Cities 2. Well, you should try it. It is quite a challenge! Peter Hall describes in (sometimes boring) length the histories of great cities. Bernard Tschumi offers drawings, emphasizing concepts. A large part of the Tschumi book pays attention to the Parc de la Villette in Paris. A park I have loved since I first visited it in the early nineties. I fairly well remember my first impressions. I was stunned at the assumption that this could be named a park. There were buildings, follies, the French national technology museum. In all respects, this was not what a park was meant to be. But, I loved it. The lay out of the park invited me to wander around. It was a very exciting experience: nature, culture, technology, playground, people just strolling around. During my second visit I began to understand more theoretically what the park was meant to represent. I was vaguely aware of the combination nature and culture. By reading the book of Tschumi I developed a sense of the purpose and intention. I admire the theoretical concepts in the book because I have seen actually how well the park functions. I realized that Tschumi considered the park as one of the greatest buildings ever been constructed. The park ought not to be an image of nature. The park is contributing to the city! This concept of the park as an open air cultural center is nicefully being explained in Event Cities. My third visit was in 2005. I realized I had come a long way in understanding this park, or rather this concept. The preliminary thoughts and drawings of Tschumi in Event Cities did help me a lot. So, I suggest the forthcoming visitor to the Parc de la Villette should read this book before having a coffee in one of the follies.
   
   Luuk Oost



2. Item recieved well packaged, on-time, and as described. Will do business with again.



3. If the architecture of Frank Gehry, has been described as a movie composed entirely of special effects, then Tschumi's is like special effects that don't quite come off. Herbert Muschamp, the modernist cheerleader who is the architecture critic for the NY Times, began his review of Tschumi's Lerner Student Center at Columbia University by saying "By now, everyone knows that Bernard Tschumi's new Lerner Hall is a dud." And City Journal described his work as ""an agitated, irrational mix of limestone, brick, metal, and glass... giving the impression of a building on the edge of a nervous breakdown." Journalist Robert Locke has written, ""Tschumi's theoretical writings, the basis of his reputation, are a tangled mess that alternately induces dizziness and puzzlement as to whether the author actually knows what philosophy is, or merely heard it described by someone in a bar once ...... The worst of this stuff is so self-evidently empty as to defy attack". - It only remains for you to ask yourself whether you are one of those fools who will be taken in by this confidence trickster who has ruined the cities we live in, or whether you will move on to more intelligent reading. [Hint: Try Louis Kahn. it's a good start!]



4. In Event Cities 2, Benard Tschumi lists out his five design devices or strategies applied in his "in-between" architecture.

   The first device is using space, event and movement as beginning of analysis. The famous Parc de la Villette is a typical example.

   The second one is using the concept of "movement vector" to organize space. Vector can be applied as landscape in an office building in Geneva or as infrastructure in railaway station in Lausanne.

   The third one is to explore the relationship between soild and void in his design. The fourth one is to activate the movenment vector is this void.

   The fifth "envelope" strategy is to explore the potential of building envelope as animated and integrated in-between space, instead of just building skin.

   Through the explanation of the above strategies in Event-Cities 2 by Tschumi, all the complex ideas behind his recent design projects from 94 to 99 can be well-organized and easily understood by both design professionals and students.

3 comments about The Rockefeller Family Home: Kykuit.

1. This is a wonderful book on an amazing house. The history of the home is very interesting and the text highly informative. The Rockefeller's are synonomous with money, so you expect their estate to me magnificent, Kykuit does not disappoint, the images of the estate inside and out are very well turned out. The estate is amazing in that it is huge, but somehow warm, it's not bombastic like the Vanderbilt palaces, it is somehow more human. There is an understated elegance about the mansion, I mean understated by the lofty heights of the great American rich of course. This is a nice testement to an amazing home and an equally amazing family. In the true philanthropic tradition of John D. Rockefeller II, the house is in a trust for all to enjoy. I highly recommend this book to anyone with the least bit of interest in quenticential american success stories and what can be created with such great wealth.



2. Perfection may not be attainable, but as a beautiful book and a model study of a landmark work of architecture and landscape architecture this volume sets a high standard indeed. The photography is superb, the book design elegant, the production sumptuous. The subject in fact might be somewhat overwhelmed by the presentation, were the subject merely the "Big House" at Kykuit itself. The building was somewhat of a compromise design, remodeled once, involving two architects and an interior designer (all first class, of course). It is not the architecture of the main building, if tasteful, that alone warrants this lavish production, but rather it is the ensemble--the magnificent gardens featuring an important collection of sculpture, the interior enriched by a collection of art and sensitive decor, the varied ancillary structures, including Japanese structures, and the intimate view of Rockefeller family life at Kykuit. The text is unpretentious but well crafted. One suspects that every detail has been carefully researched and considered for relevance to the general reader. The tone is apt. A very talented and skilled team has produced a well-neigh perfect work of art about an important work of art.



3. As early as the 17th century, Dutch New Yorkers built family compounds in the Hudson River Valley north of Manhattan. Completed in 1913 for Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, Kykuit (the names comes from the Dutch, "lookout")has been home to four generations of Rockefeller family members. Now owned by the National Trust for Historic Sites, Kykuit has only recently been open to the public.

   The Beaux Arts estate, built by architects Delano and Aldrich, with formal gardens designed by landscape architect William Welles Bosworth, is a treasure-trove of rare antiques, fine furnishings, and invaluable artworks, most notably, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's (the last family member to occupy the estate) unparalleled collection of 20th-century sculpture.

   Written by Nelson Rockefeller's daughter, Ann Rockefeller Roberts, and photographed by Mary Louise Pierson, his granddaughter, "Kykuit" provides intimate details of family life that breathe live into what might have been just another coffee-table book about the fabulously wealthy.

   "Kykuit" is a must-have for anyone interested in exceptional gardens, architecture and fine arts.