3 comments about Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities.

1. I highly recommend this book to anyone curious about the history and underworkings of the great cities of the world. It gave me a new appreciation for what goes in to the planning, creation and development of a major city.



2. I almost started by stating this book isn't for the average reader. But, I'm an average reader, and frankly I found the information within it fascinating. Coincidentally I lived in N.Y.C., and have a little more experience with its underground infrastructure than just having been a straphanger (subway rider). Mr. Marshall has a no nonsense writing style, and his research has resulted in much interesting information regarding what's buried beneath our feet. The history of how, and why things got, and get buried in the first place makes the book all the more enlightening. Especially the consideration that things get buried as a result of debris that accumulates over time, and how history is lost, and then sometimes rediscovered in the process of modernization.



3. A beautiful book, monumental piece of research, with clear and engaging prose and a great mix of maps, illustrations, capsule histories, lively facts, and timelines. If you ever stood over a manhole or at the dark edge of a subway tunnel and wondered, "What's down there?" then this book will tell you. Beneath the Metropolis describes what's underneath 12 world cities -- New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City, Paris, London, Rome, Cairo, Beijing, Tokyo, Moscow and Sydney. With pith and concision, Marshall details the infrastructure, the archeology and the geology. In Paris, we learn about the fossilized bones and the beautiful sewers and subways. In Rome, we tour the ancient ruins and rickety subway (did you know there was one?). In Beijing, we learn about the vast network of cold war tunnels that few visit. Marshall uses each city's underground to trace its history, politics and economics. It's a pleasure to learn how successful cities, like London or Paris, can take different approaches to infrastructure. As a fellow author and former Columbia classmate, I admire and envy Marshall's success in wrestling such a huge topic into a pleasurable masterpiece. Beneath the Metropolis is destined for many a reader's nightstand as well as planning and political offices and classrooms.
   
   --Christopher D. Ringwald, author of A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath (Oxford, 2007)

No comments about Floor Coverings For Historic Buildings.

4 comments about Frank Lloyd Wright in New York.

1. Hession and Pickrel have written a wonderful story about Frank Lloyd Wright AND New York City's Plaza Hotel and Guggenheim Museum-- well researched and terrific photography. It sits on my coffee table for others to enjoy (full disclosure - Ms. Pickrel is a really good family friend). Check out another great review of their book.
   
   AIArchitect -February 1, 2008
   
   BOOK REVIEW
   Frank's Last Stand
   Frank Lloyd Wright in New York: The Plaza Years, 1954-1959, by Jane King Hession and Debra Pickrel (Gibbs Smith, 2007)
   
   Reviewed by Garo Gumusyan, AIA
   
   Summary: Frank Lloyd Wright, the suave, romantic playboy, at 85 years old, has one last mission--to seduce that faithless woman of a certain age, New York City. She has been on his list for a long time. This time, though, he will do it his way. Everything is meticulously planned ... down to the Plaza Hotel's Suite # 223, which Wright will completely make over; for Christian Dior's previous "inferior desecration" of the room simply will not do.
   
   The time is the `50s, and New York City, the object of his desires, is getting a major make-over--International Style. And who are the ones busy reshaping the grand corporate headquarters that line Park Avenue? None other than the Mies van der Rohe-clones, for whom Wright has nothing but contempt!
   
   Two avenues west, ensconced in his Plaza suite, Wright, anointed the "greatest architect of all time" by House Beautiful, sits stewing, yearning, waiting, having yet to build a single structure in the burgeoning post-war Capital of the World.
   
   This is the dramatic setting for Jane King Hession and Debra Pickrel's recent survey of Frank Lloyd Wright's time in New York between 1954 and 1959. As their story unfolds, Wright, the aging playboy, has one more trick left up his sleeve, the magnificent Guggenheim Museum, which would indelibly leave his mark on the city he loved to hate.
   
   Hession and Pickrel are terrific storytellers and they know their subject well. Along the way, we discover little gems such as when Marilyn Monroe comes to Suite # 223, without then-husband Arthur Miller, to privately discuss a house they were planning to build together in Connecticut. Wright, sensing his opportunity to be with the starlet alone, asks his secretary to take his own wife out shopping.
   
   Wright wasn't always so smooth for "when he ordered his favorite spirit, Old Bushmills, neat, the waiter usually incorrectly delivered his Irish whiskey in an ice filled glass. Wright would pick up a spoon ... lift the cubes out one by one, and proceed to flip them across the green carpeted floor, to the astonishment and pleasure of the other patrons."
   
   Insightful little stories like these illuminate this late yet significant period in the American master's life. This is a cleverly written book and delicious read. Which raises the question: A half a century has passed since his death, why hasn't there been another Wright? What does this say about the current American Architecture? Makes you reach for that Old Bushmills. Neat.



2. REVIEW: The Atlantic Monthly, June 2008
   Frank Lloyd Wright in New York
   by Jane King Hession and Debra Pickrel (Gibbs Smith)
   
   The Frank Lloyd Wright who emerges as the bon vivant starchitect of this Manhattan tale retains the pluck of the upstart Prairie School designer, only with a more obsessive bent. The authors cast the Guggenheim as Wright's foil: the museum-as-ramp that became both the aesthetic driving force of his life and a symbol of his relationship with the city, something welcoming and discomfiting all at once. In near-breathless depictions, Wright's live-in suite at the Plaza Hotel takes form as a veritable Algonquin Round Table in the sky, a whirligig of visiting celebrities, lawyers, scholars, and architects that mirrored the excitement of the museum being erected on the ground below.



3. The legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright has had many books written about his long life. This book looks at that part of the last years of FLW's long life during which he supervised the construction of the Solomon R.Guggenheim museum in New York City. The Guggenheim project had been in the planning stages since the early 40's with Wright having an extensive correspondence with Solomon Guggenheim and his "non-objective" art advisor, Hilda Rebay. Rebay was the art dealer that first convinced Guggenheim to create as museum as a monument to his memory. "Frank Lloyd Wright: The Guggenheim Correspondence" is an entire book devoted to this correspondence; it also touches upon the period about which this book is written. This book looks at the period 1954 - 1959. Wright died April 9, 1959 in Scottsdale just a few months before the completion of the Guggenheim museum.
   
   The book is a 160 page quarto printed on glossy paper. It is illustrated with many photos I've never seen before of Wright in his Plaza suite, at the Guggenheim construction site, and at various other places in the New York area. The book uses a vert small font (6 or 8 point?) which makes it hard to read in poor light. I had to set the book aside to read it in a brightly lit room, it was too hard to read by a dim nightstand bulb.
   
   FLW spent money freely even when he didn't have it. In order to supervise work on the Guggenheim he chose a corner suite at the luxurious Plaza Hotel at the corner or Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue South, decorating it according his own tastes. He spent less than a week per month in New York during the years of construction but insisted on living in a grand style while there. The site of the museum itself on Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile was similarly chosen to impress; Guggenheim and Wright earlier rejected a site in Fort Tryon Park near the Cloisters as being too far away from the fashionable parts of Manhattan.
   
   There are fascinating sections that detail FLW's television appearances while in New York; he was interviewed by Mike Wallace, appeared on "What's My Line," and several other shows.
   
   Wright sought other design work while in New York. He designed a luxury Park Avenue car dealership interior as well as a home for that dealership's owner. A home in Staten Island (still in existence) built to his "Usonian" standard is the only Wright private residence in New York City. Wright found that his design ideas were at odds with the glass box office buildings of the International Style that were then in favor.
   
   There is a another interesting section that details several meetings with Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller to plan a dream house for some acreage they owned; the house was never built and their marriage was soon in dire straits.
   
   I have read several books about FLW in recent years and was pleased to find that this book contained information and photographs I hadn't seen elsewhere. This makes this book worthwhile and highly recommended despite its relatively narrow focus.



4. I have read many books and articles about Frank Lloyd Wright and seen much of his work in person. His work no matter how familiar creates an excitement in its modernism and feel for space and is of course iconic. But, this book is more than just a book about Frank Lloyd Wright--it is a luxurious tour of New York in an era of glamour and excitment. It is about Wright in the context of that New York experience. Both New York and Wright compliment and inform the other making the book fascinating reading for both the history of the city as well as the story of the man. For those of us who grew up in New York and remember the days of lunch with gloves, dreams of growing up to go to the 21 Club it evokes memories of a time long gone but not forgotten. Wright become part of the city and even his huge ego and brilliance can't minimize the landscape he finds himself in. I read the book quickly--it was beautiful, engaging and a find. A perfect gift for those that either love architecture and Wright, New York City in its glory---or best case--for those who love both! Dr. Pat Gill Webber, New Hope PA/Tucson AZ

5 comments about Planning Using Primavera SureTrak Project Manager Version 3.0.

1. I was very disapointed in this book. I got more out of the Primavera SureTrak 3.0 book that came with the software than I did from this book. Not worth the money.



2. When I reviewed the SureTrak program here last may I considered myself to be an experienced used who fully understood the features of that powerful PM application. After reading this book I found out that I was only using a fraction of the features that are built into SureTrak. For example, while I knew that it supported multiple calendars. This feature gives you absolute control and is especially useful when you're using subcontractors or multi-national resources. Until I was stepped through it by the book's lessons I didn't know how to fully exploit its power.

   It was the same for reports. SureTrak includes reports for every conceivable management style and project type. The problem is there are so many that it's difficult to select the ones best suited to each project's unique requirements or your PM standards. This book clearly explained the reports and clearly explained how to create custom reports in the unlikely event that what you need isn't already included. I also learned a lot from the lessons on resource management, as well as the author's tips for project management in general.

   If you're using SureTrak you should get this book because it's a safe bet that you're not using everything it has to offer for planning, scheduling and control - and this book will reveal them.




3. Although SureTrak Project Manager 3.0 ships with adequate documentation and the program is intuitive, there are three good reasons to buy this book:

   1. The product documentation covers every feature - the information about planning and managing projects using this powerful tool is scattered throughout, making it difficult to tap into SureTrak's power without wading through an overwhelming amount of nice-to-know, but non-essential detail.

   2. Although anyone who has used Microsoft's ubiquitous MS Project will have no problem getting started with SureTrak, they will miss the true project management features of SureTrak that are not present (or don't correctly work) in MS Project. This book identifies those features and shows how to use them effectively.

   3. The author goes beyond merely describing how to use SureTrak by showing you how to use effective project management techniques, many of which take years of managing projects to discover.

   The book is structured as a series of 20 lessons (called workshops) that are designed to step you through setting up a project, and planning and scheduling it. If you follow them in sequence you will be able to not only set up a project using SureTrak's rich feature set, but will also pick up general project management techniques along the way. An example of one such technique is how the author classifies projects into four levels for planning and controlling. These levels are based on project complexity, with Level 1 being the simplest and suitable for short projects, to Level 4 for complex, high-value projects. You are given the planning and tracking criteria for each project type, which allows you to tailor your approach as well as ensure that you don't over-manage simple projects or under-manage the complex ones.

   You are also shown how to use the more powerful features, such as the many project views (work breakdown structure, activity or resource), managing the sophisticated calendaring functions, and effectively using the resource profiles and reporting features. I particularly like the way earned value is treated. The author shows how to use SureTrak's facilities for managing to earned value, as well as explaining this essential technique (which, by the way, is now a part of the Project Management Institute's PMBOK 2000 version). Another bonus is the way scheduling is explained by walking through adding logic to activities. You'll not only be shown how to perform this task, but given reasons why you should use one approach from among four possibilities to establish relationships. In this example the choices are start-to-start, finish-to-start, start-to-finish and finish-to-finish.

   This book is clear, concise and heavily illustrated with screenshots from SureTrak. The tutorial style and the way the lessons are sequenced will get you quickly up-to-speed with SureTrak and give you the knowledge and skills necessary to employ it with minimum reference to the manuals that come with the software.




4. Planning Using Primavera SureTrak Project Manager Version 3 is a Training Manual introducing the features of the Suretrak Version 3.0 Software which is used for Planning and Controlling Projects. The Technical Services Group at John Holland has been using SureTrak since its introduction by Primavera. I personally use Paul Harris' manual in the delivery of training courses in SureTrak. At John Holland we conduct SureTrak training over a two day period, and within this time limitation I have found the manual provides comprehensive detail on the features of SureTrak and is easy to follow. As it is considered to be an excellent guide in respect of the use of the software, at the end of the training course attendees receive a manual for reference and as a 'memory jogger' when they start to use the software. The manual is divided into sections with a 'workshop' at the end of each section providing the ability to practice the points covered. Useful tips, for both experienced and new users are provided throughout the manual and are indicated with an 'i'. This is a manual that the user will turn to again and again. Particularly for new users of the Software, but even for experienced users who are trying to solve a particulasr problem it is a good guide into the features of SureTrak. This manual fills a slot in the market as an easy to follow guide in the use of the SureTrak Version 3.0 software, and I would recommend it to those wishing to learn how to use SureTrak or refresh their skills.



5. Approximately 200 pages presented as a comprehensive step by step guide to setting up and getting the most out of Suretrak. I found many helpful tips that are not in the Suretrak's help files or manuals. A chapter is also devoted to the new features in Suretrak Version 3.0 and this allowed me, as an existing Suretrak user, to hone in on the new features. In all, 21 workshops re-enforced the material as its presented and made me reflect on the content. Readers will need access to the Suretrak software (the demo version will do) to get the most from this book.

No comments about Postmodern Urbanism.

No comments about Behind Bars: Design for Cafes and Bars.

No comments about Chandigarh's Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India (Studies in Modernity and National Identity).

5 comments about Flying Star Feng Shui.

1. It is indeed a very comprehensive reference for beginners as well as advance learners of Flying Star Feng Shui. Good for beginners as the author lays Feng Shui foundation with the basic theory, knowledge, logic & approach. Though I have discovered what I am looking for in this book, I am going through chapters quite slowly and trying hard to absorbe as much knowledge as possible at this juncture. So far, so good and happy with my new found love.



2. If you're already familiar with classical Feng Shui or are a classical Feng Shui practitioner and want to learn about Flying Stars, this is the book to buy. Stephen Skinner puts a lot of descriptive detail and charts in this book making it very easy to follow. I was able to begin using what I learned right away.
   
   If you practice Black Sect or Western Feng shui, this book may be more of a challenge since you need to understand the cycle of elements and directions associated with them.



3. Boy! It is really hard to follow and understand those Chinese translation. One thing I notice in this book is the method to use Lo P'an that you should stand at the center of the house, not the front door to measure the directions. It is easy to see the different result when you apply it. It would be more practical and useful if authour told us the sequence and priority to apply each Feng Shui school when practice. Otherwise, it just one school violate the other.



4. This isn't the easiest book to either read or understand, but there's an incredibly amount of information packed into a relatively small book.
   
   I don't think this is a very good first book for Feng Shui, but it's a great great library addition! I too would recommend The Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui for a first introduction. THEN buy this book, as it adds to it by quite a bit.
   
   I wish there were a stronger focus on remedies, I have yet to find a feng shui book that covers all the potential remedies for all the different circumstance. Every Feng Shui book spends a huge part in the beginning explaining Feng Shui... if you are a total beginner, a book of this type won't make sense anyway, fast intro notwithstanding. If you are not, it's just wasted pages, because every book covers the intro over and over again.
   
   I'm still looking for that perfect book that dispenses with the Feng Shui intros and leads right into remedies... ie., the Host/Guest relationship in this book uses as it's only example a positive positive. What happens when you have a 6M 5T 4W combo in a critically active office? What do you do? I have yet to see a single book that answers this (if any readers can answer this, please email me!). I give it a 5, because it's the most comprehensive book of 5 I own on the subject next to the Idiot's Guide.



5. It is a great book to get the formulas down. With practice, you can definately fly the stars. Suggested remedies are sometimes not appropriate because other unforseen variables are not discussed. Deeper explanations of number combinations would make it that much better. In general though, It is good to get started with and opens the door to a very powerful system.

1 comments about Bathrooms.

1. For the Mexican Publishing House, AM Editores, who have released some good books in the past, series as Arquitectos Mexicanos, Espacios, and others, which nothing more than a collection of pretty photos without any architectural details, or drawings, and a directory of architects, which shows that the publications are just paid advertisement, and not a selection of architecture selected by the value of design.
   
   The Small Book series is probably deceiving, as they are actually not small books, but thin, and very thin high quality brochures with a collection of photos that have already been published in prior collections.
   At a modest price of 2.5 Dollars in Mexico, they cater to the architecture student, and the occasional architecture reader, who are eager to see some of the 'cool' and contemporary projects done by the not so famous Mexican Architects, often young and emerging.
   
   I would skip the entire Small Book series collection, and buy their other full sized books.

No comments about Water From The Sky.