1 comments about Architecture in the United States (Oxford History of Art).

1. This book will be a classic. It is not so much a history of American architecture as it is a sociology, and not so much a sociology as it is a subtle and invigorating study of the social relations and social dynamics of American buildings and the people who make and use them. The book's views can be startling---see the comments on Jefferson's Monticello, on Buckminster Fuller, on Richard Meier's Getty Center in Los Angeles. It is beautifully written and the photographs are often dazzling. It even tackles the American suburb and shopping malls. Its views of the development of architecture as a profession and the status of architecture in the history of art are provocative and incisive. Highly recommended.

4 comments about Strawbale Home Plans.

1. I keep this book around on my couch for all my friends to check out and i go back to it, daily, in searching for beautiful ideas for my soon to be breathable abode! The people in the book appear so serene and i know why! what glorious fotos and floorplans this book provided! great work!



2. This product is short on plans but I love it anyway. It provides one diagram, or layout for each ofmany sterling examples of this construction method,
   A good value for that strawbale builder who finds themself somewhere between a dream and the plan coming together...or just wondering where to get started making the dream a reality.



3. i was very impressed, this book is beautiful, the pictures, and floor plans inside give us so many ideas for the home we want to build in the future, i recommed it even if its a coffe table book.



4. I bought this book seeking inspiration, and I was not disappointed. Evident here is the continuing evolvement of strawbale house design and construction. In this book, you can see what can be done with strawbale. Included are comments and suggestions from the owner/builder of each house. For anyone considering building a strawbale structure, these comments would be especially useful. One owner/builder in the desert, for example, says rain gutters should have been installed when the house was first built, not added later on. Photo quality is very nice, and the overall layout and design of the book is quite good. The title of the book is a bit misleading, and I would have liked to see more in the way of actual plans (all you get is a floor plan), but overall this is a nice book, and offers much in the way of ideas.

5 comments about Collage City.

1. I am a second-generation Rowe disciple, I guess. I studied with a Rowe acolyte in graduate school and worked with co-author Fred Koetter in an urban design studio. Without the efforts these teachers have made to bring Rowe's ideas to urban design students, they may well have been neglected, because Collage City is a mess. It is badly marred by dense thickets of poorly-edited, idiosyncratic prose. It was one of the more frustrating books I had to read in school, but I'm glad it was required, because the close readings uncovered real gems of theory. Rowe reintroduced the complexities and possibilities of art into urban design right at the peak of Modernism's influence. Architecture was still in the thrall of La Ville Radieuse and socialist-utopian projects that aimed to simplify and disinfect cities. Jane Jacobs saw the social perils of these projects, Colin Rowe saw the architectural perils. His critique of the Modern project was among the most powerful, and among the least cogent. Still, though it requires some serious digging in prose-mud, the gems are there and worth the search. I recommend this book for graduate-level urban theorists or serious urban design students.
   
   But there are more accessible urban design primers: Aldo Rossi, et al, The Architecture of the City, for example, covers much of the same ground Rowe so spottily tilled [except where Eisenman is involved in the book: he is a worse prose-stylist than Rowe]. For non-specialists I also recommend Witold Rybczynski's City Life as a thoughtful and LUCID introduction to American urbanism, along with a critique of the last few decades of urban "development".



2. Does not contribute much to the discussion, written in a lengthy, self-important, arrogant manner.



3. This book is the most pompous garbage I have ever seen. It is unreadable drivel that has no point and adds nothing to the search for solutions to our urban problems. What were the authors thinking? They deserve the "Emperor has no clothes" award for this trash. Save your money and buy "A Pattern Language," "Edge City," "Changing Places," "Home from Nowhere," or any of many meaningful books that say something relevant.



4. Colin Rowe proposes a form of inclusive urbanism that meshes the modern city with the traditional city.



5. Rowe and Koetter's brilliant excursus of urban design theory via the texts and contexts of intellectual history.

1 comments about The Crit: An Architecture Student's Handbook, 2nd Edition (Seriously Useful Guides).

1. I am a first year Design student and this book was a department read this semester. I have loved every page! It gives a great look at both sides, instructor and student, of the critique process. A great read if you are considering or are in a architecture or design field!!

2 comments about Immaterial/Ultramaterial: Architecture, Design, and Materials (Millennium Matters).

1. Toshiko Mori has sadly fallen into the trap of confusing the practice of architecture with merely writing about it. This once-talented architect has now become a parody of herself, a self-important academic smugly satisfied with the sound of her own rhetoric. As for the book, it documents new materials and systems. But the presentation is dry, more in the form of an industrial catalog, and lacks any substantive commentary on architecture itself. And I can't help wondering how many trees might have been saved if Mori and her clique edited out the repetitive and cliched use of words like "challenging", "distorting", "alienating" etc. Architectura and materials evolve; the first use of them, however experimental, is not always good. Like Mori's work, it is stylish, but not classic. Faddish, but not timeless. Pass this one up before it becomes embarrassing to have it on your bookshelf.



2. some very interesting projects by Harvard Design School students. projects are critically approached, its not just eye candy. seem to be on the cutting edge of this kind of exploration. and some interesting interviews of practioners

2 comments about Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture.

1. A very engaging, wide-ranging look at the aural environment from many perspectives: cultural, historical, architectural, physical, sociological, political and more. The authors explore many of the deep and often times not-so-obvious connections and influences in an unusual, informative and refreshingly multi-disciplinary approach. Even though covered topics are broad in scope and complexity, the book is written in an easy and engaging conversational style that is neither academically stodgy nor technically overwhelming. But neither does it attempt to simplify the subject into shallow triviality.
   
   Unlike many modern-day science popularizations, this book is not a simple distillation of some lofty academic field. Rather it is at once the introductory text, the major body of research and a pointer to even wider exploration of the a heretofore under-explored and under-appreciated topic. There's plenty of new and useful material here for the professional practitioner in a number of disciplines. At the same time, the entire book is accessible to the casual reader, the neophyte. No chapter or paragraph need be avoided by any reader: all are carried along with the narrative: none are left behind.
   
   Personally, I have read book in out-of-order pieces as my busy schedule allows, without the feeling that I really should have read it in a more disciplined fashion. Rather than having to read other sections out of sheer necessity, I've gone back to fill in the holes more out of curiosity and interest.
   
   If you want to understand the intimate connection between humans and the aural space they live in, there is no better place to find it than this book. If you're looking for a new model of understanding of a complex topic through an truly broad, interdisciplinary approach, this book is the best model I know of.
   
   It's difficult to recommend it to highly.



2. Very interesting and new thinking about that sound around. Recommend for sound engineers, acoustic design architects, musicians and people who love music and/or are interested in the aural spaces abounding. Do you like John Cage, Terry Riley, ee cummings? Can you sing the sound of one _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _?

No comments about Architecture and Design in Europe and America: 1750 - 2000 (Blackwell Anthologies in Art History).

3 comments about Pamphlet Architecture 15: War and Architecture (Pamphlet Architecture).

1. The work of Lebbeus Woods has always fascinated me. From the initial shear beauty of his art of alternate built landscapes both familiar and alien to his in-depth commentary.
   
   This small book pulls some big punches, revealing the examined paper architectural propositions expressing the underlying spirit and intent of the buildings within their context, altered, re-revealed to that society's 'catastrophe.'
   
   Well worth a buy for students to Architects to all those wishing escapism back to simple truths, and to delight in the satisfaction gleaned. Only wish the inside images were colour!



2. Woods is as much philosopher and urban planner as architect in the traditional sense. His buildings rip open the landscape of the ordered grid, and also open new possibilities about what it means to inhabit a space. The functions of some of his ideas for buildings are obscure even to him. He is constantly trying to deconstruct the politics of architecture and it's place in history. He actively embodies Heidegger's idea that "dwelling means to recieve the sky", except in his dwellings it also means to recieve the ground, and to actively take part in constructing your world.



3. In this work I have seen the necessity for Woods' architecture to exist; where before I had only seen compelling drawings. Lebbeus Woods has dedicated this manifesto to the city of Sarajevo, and to all cities which bear the signs of armed conflict on their walls. He states that the emergence of a new architecture is especially crucial in Sarajevo where the architecture was the target of the attackers (from within) who meant to destroy the culture there in all of its manifestations. The architecture of that culture, the places of worship and of social congregation, became the primary target for the ethnic genocide. As much as the bodies of the people, the architecture was destroyed for its significance as the public body. Therefore it is the architecture which must give a physical presence to these atrocities. Woods makes it clear that it is the responsibility of the architecture to preserve the memory of the destruction- not in a sentimental or memorial manner- but in the same manner as the life of cities has been preserved through use and adaptation throughout history. The war is part of the reality of the place and therefore should not be erased. This work also resists the glorification of war of the Italian Futurists, and the `tabula rasa' erasure of existing conditions of the Modernists. This is a work which acknowledges growth and destruction in the same breath. It is existential in its acceptance of reality and its means of building with it.... not nihilistic. It is existential in that it knows no reality other than what is there, but is not fully convinced by its authority. It revels in the multitudinous nature of the contemporary world, of the present. Unlike the Modernists, Woods does not intend to reinvent the city but to allow the city to be more itself. This work, his infamous drawings, is an attempt to recognize the reality of a place through actualization of events.... By building in and upon the ruins he remakes them into the living substance of the city, leaving no trace unexposed.

2 comments about Houses of the Hamptons 1880-1930 (The Architecture of Leisure).

1. The authors have clearly worked hard to document thirty important houses, located mostly in Southampton and East Hampton. The history is superbly researched, and there are many archival images that will thrill even the most knowledgeable Hamptons aficionado. If you are interested in the Hamptons in particular or resort architecture on general, you must own this book.



2. This is yet another well researched, beautiful book put out by Acanthus Press. Ms. Surchin does the Hamptons proud, with her insightful text and wonderful period images, I had no idea that there where so many period houses in the Hamptons, of course I knew all about the North Shore of Long Island, the famous Gold Coast, but i had thought all the huge houses in the Hamptons where fairly new, needless to say this book was a very pleasant surprise. If you have any interest in the Hamptons or just have an appreciation of beautiful books then I highly recommend this book; well done, indeed.

5 comments about Mobile Mansions (Intl) : Taking Home Sweet Home on the Road.

1. "Mobile Mansions" opens your eyes to what can be called a "home" and to a lifestyle that many dream of, but few experience. Mankind has always had a nomadic instinct, and these motor powered homes-on-wheels are just the latest manifestation of that idea. Don't let rising gas prices ruin that experience. The book will give you a lot of ideas on what is really needed and what isn't.



2. Love it!! Looking for more like it! It sits promenently on my coffee table. It gets opened regularly by everyone. It was a Christmas gift to me, from me. I couldn't get it away from my 24 year old son from moment I opened it. Filled with great history and entertaining writings. Buy it!



3. Take a nostalgia trip down through the years of motor homes. Of course in the early days they were called motor homes, instead they started with wagons such as those in cowboy movies and in the Gypsy wagons (still to be found out here in the west in use by sheepherders). But soon after the advent of the automobile came specialized bodies that had tents, beds, even a church.
   
   This book begins with pictures from the past, but quickly turns to new photographs taken by the author. Most of these are of vintage vehicles that have been painstakingly restored by their new owners.
   
   There are also a good number of vehicles that might be called home made, but these are home made with style. My own favorite was one made from a surplus Air Force crash truck. Beautiful, but it probably only gets three miles per gallon.
   
   This is a beautiful book of four color pictures that would be at home on a coffee table or in your own RV.



4. "RVers are some of the friendliest people on earth," writes Doug Keister in his new pop culture history, "Mobile Mansions: Taking 'Home Sweet Home' On the Road" ($24.95 in large size paperback from Gibbs Smith, Publisher). "Unlike the rest of us who are permanently or temporarily moored in our bolted-down communities, they take the bumps in the road of life a little more serenely." And none are friendlier than those who own vintage and classic RVs, the mobile conveyances celebrated in Keister's book.
   
   Replete with 200 color photographs, most taken by Keister himself on location, the book explores not only the history of the recreational vehicle but allows the reader to see inside courtesy of the author's crisp, clear interior shots. From Camp Dearborn, Mich., to Quartzsite, Ariz. (with a quick stop in Chico), Keister documents the development of what used to be called "autocamping."
   
   Autocamping was popularized by Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone (of tire fame), along with an unlikely companion, a naturalist named John Burroughs. After about 1915 the group called themselves "the Vagabonds," attracting newspaper attention everywhere they went. The group was not exactly rustic -- Firestone brought his butler along to help him better appreciate "roughing it."
   
   Later on, the "Tin Can Tourists" organization was established in 1919; they "took their name from the tin can provisions that they subsisted on and, some say, also from the Tin Lizzies many of them drove."
   
   The Great Depression and better roadways put Americans on the road. It was the golden age of the travel trailer. Subsequent decades saw the development of house cars, refined camp cars, family buses, truck campers, vans and motor homes (which had their start with the Frank Motor Home in 1958 which morphed into the Travco Motor Home in 1965.) There are other storied names in the book: Volkswagen, Winnebago, Newell, Barth, Flexible.
   
   Keister devotes a chapter to each kind of "mobile mansion" with a focus on "personal visions" in the last chapter. Pride of place here goes to "Draco," a four-wheel-drive motorhome created by Shahn Torontow of Victoria, British Columbia, who constructed it so his photographer wife, disabled by Lyme disease, "could still go on backcountry photographic expeditions. The bones of Draco are an Oshkosh M-1000 Aircraft Rescue Fire Truck." There's also a wheelchair lift, 14-inch wide tires, a winch and "a 335-horsepower Caterpillar 3406A diesel-pusher engine." The contraption was photographed in Chico. Dishes have magnets glued to their bottoms so they "stick" on steel plate walls and a "macerator-type toilet liquifies waste ... (which) can be pumped into the exhaust system where it is vaporized at over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit."
   
   Pop culture connections abound. Converted Greyhound Scenicruisers (last made in the mid-1950s) help bands reach their next gigs; Charles Kuralt (the CBS "On the Road" guy) used an FMC ("Food Machinery Corporation") motor home; Barbie's "Disco motor home" came from Mattel; Mae West owned "a 1931 22-foot house car build on a Chevrolet truck chassis" -- it slept four and sported a rear balcony where West could address her fans; Ozzie and Harriet used an Alaskan Camper; John Steinbeck traveled with his poodle Charley in 1960 in a GMC pickup truck and Wolverine camper; the Partridge Family's hippie bus was a '57 Chevy school bus; and Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters drove a converted bus, too.
   
   Sprightly fun, Keister's homage to mobile living costs less than 10 gallons of gas -- and lasts a lot longer!



5. Interesting and informative especially for an RVer. I especially liked the historical progression leading from Gypsies to today. I also appreciated a look at some of the more unique campgrounds like Quartzsite and the Slabs.
   
   But I wish he had more coverage of modren travel trailers. They make up a large part of today's RV sales and they shouldn't be writen off yet.