4 comments about La Tour de 300 M'Tres (Tour Eiffel).

1. INCROIABLE!!!! A MUST HAVE BOOK IF YOU ARE INTO ANY KND OF ENGINEERING, ABSOLUTLEY SUPERB!!!



2. I've been wanting to build model of Eiffel Tower for about 20 years. I've been drawing the main structure from bits and pieces I was able to collect over the years, and a lot of guess work. Then I came this book, and it was everything I've been looking for. It has all the dimensions and details you need to build an acurate model. It has details of the base of legs, the tower structure, original floor layouts and mechanical plans.
   This book is worth every penny, I wish I would of found it 20 years ago.



3. What can you say? You got all the original drawings, the explanations, and also the calculations.
   It is amazing the way they did things in the past.
   Also if you like history, the book is full of it.
   The book is a complete review of all the facts of the Eiffel Tower.
   You don't need to be an engineer to enjoy the book, but if you are, I bet you'll enjoy it even more.
   The pictures are excellent.



4. This is a wonderful reproduction of Gustav Eiffel's original design. Every detail of the Eiffel Tower is represented here. The book is HUGE, though, so make sure you have room for it.

2 comments about Alden B. Dow: Midwestern Modern.

1. This is a beautifully done book reviewing the life and work of Alden B. Dow, a prairie school architect based in Midland, Michigan. I grew up in Midland, so I'm very familiar with his excellent work. It is nice to see it all in beautiful pictures.



2. I wasn't familiar with this architect until my boyfriend "discovered" him. He does fantastic, contemporary work and this book really showed a great deal of his architectural gems in color. Excellent book.

1 comments about Barn: Preservation & Adaptation The Evolution of a Vernacular Icon.

1. Excellent book, if the other book, Barns: Living in Converted and Reinvented Spaces is the ying, then this book is the yang. A good inspirational design book if you're interested in reusing an old barn for modern day use and staying within the original design. The text is interesting and informative with the accompanying photos following along with the text. The pictures are overall excellent, sharp, clear, in detail and professionally done, with very very few exceptions. Some buildings are shown with structural drawings that help visualize the internal timber frame or stone structure with the accompanying photogaphs. The authors seems to be a die hard traditionalist, very critical and at times mildly insulting to designers that chose to remodel the old barns in the modern way and deviating from what the original builders did. But at times understanding that the modern style is a better fate than total destruction of a old old structure.

2 comments about A History of American Architecture: Buildings in Their Cultural and Technological Context.

1. This is easy reading with appropos illustrations. Just the right amount of detail for the traveller who is interested in architecture.



2. I found Mr. Gelernter's book in the public library as I was researching a project. After reading it, I thought it was so useful that I decided to buy it for my own library.

   Many art and architecture books are just recitations of dry facts, dates and theories, with no historical or sociological context. Not so Gelernter's "A History of American Architecture."

   The correlation of buildings with their context, and the inclusion of early Native American architecture, make this a thought provoking introduction to the history of architecture in America.

4 comments about Heidegger's Hut.

1. I found this book when the summer was still young, read every page several times over, with greatest pleasure! What a thinkers' paradise Heidegger's wife built there for her husband (a sign in Todnauberg contradicts Sharr's book, suggesting that Heideggers wife built the hut from her inheritance -- she was familiar with the village from ski holidays).
   
   Here one finds embodied in a building Zengetsu's suggestion for the Zen student, "Poverty is your treasure. Don't exchange it for an easy life".
   
   Of course it is difficult for anyone, including Heidegger himself, to really make sense of the place. It has significance only for Heidegger the thinker, as a place that came to support and sustain his thinking, in which he could be creative, in which he felt comfortable. He probably dind't know himself why this place "worked" for him and it probably would not work for anyone else (unless you grew up near the High Black forest and were intimately familiar with the landscape and its people). For Nietsche it was the Engadin, for Heidegger the High Black Forest -- German thinkers seem to have a long tradition of attachment to place and so do Japanese. So, does Sharr's book really have any significance beyond the pretty pictures?
   
   I think it does. It made me contemplate when and where I will build my own hut. It made me understand embodiment. The simplicity of the philosopher's hut keeps reminding me of what is truly essential and strips away everything else. Here Heidegger could dwell directly in the elements of unpolluted-by-modernity-life itself -- the wind, the trees, the rocks, the traditions of the region.



2. This book is really nice small book, well written, illustrations throughout the book, etc. As some of the finer details concern a.o. the colours of the hut, the colours (?) of Heidegger's thinking and his direct environment, it should have been done in full colour. This book gave me some brilliant insights and saves me a lot of time. I'm now sure I will never read anything from Heidegger, sorry Martin.



3. If you have an interest in Heidegger, this is a clever little monogram on the place where Heidegger wrote or was inspired throughout the course of his career. The funny thing is, it is such a meager, crappy little hut that I guess he had no choice but to think profoundly. As architecture - well, it's laughably German: bare essentials, hardly comfortable, no cross ventilation, no indoor plumbing. And somehow that last factor takes the wind, so to speak, out of all that hermeneutics. Nothing like imagining Martin bent over a log to de-mythologize one of humanity's greatest thinkers.
   The hut is still in the hands of his family, so it is not really a tourist site, but there is enough interest for the local government to signpost it and then ask everyone to respect the family's privacy. The black and white photos are collected from a series done in the sixties, and the author notes that they are somewhat staged. That's alright. It gives you the impression of how close the quarters were. Spartan is far too luxurious a concept. Nonetheless, this is where Martin came to follow those paths that led to the clearings wherein he began to consider how to uncover what had been appropriated. And all that is to say, that for its barren uncomfortableness, it is all the more remarkable that it was in such a setting that such piety was contemplated.
   In short, the hut had precious little to do with it, I suppose. The landscape must be spectacular. Considering who came to visit him here, it is all the more remarkable. The place must have reeked. My estimation and admiration for both Elfride Heidegger and Hannah Arendt has increased exponentially. If you have had any experience travelling with Germans over the summer, you'll know what I'm talking about.
   Against this setting is also a consideration of the more suburban digs Martin and his brood occupied in Freiburg. It seems more comfortable and while I gather Marty wasn't as keen on it, at least there was running water. The two settings compose an almost Monty Python pastiche of the life of Martin Heidegger - a bit like the Sartre sketch Cleese and Idle did: "OW, 'e's in his room sulkin again - all what about I dunno".
   Much is made about Heidegger's brief flirtation with the Nazis, and his banishment to Todtnauberg (mostly self imposed, mind you), and as an ardent student of his work, I think it's time for a reality check: one, he gave up the Nazi post within a year, and in fact five years before Kristallnacht (ever wonder why? Of course not, it would force you to admit and forgive), and two, Hannah forgave him for being pissed at Jewish students who were annoying him and stating incredibly stupid propoaganda policies. And if she could forgive him, that's good enough for me.
   Besides, look who is ghetto-izing and annhilating a minority now - as Victor Hugo would have it, those who refuse to learn from history.....
   In any case, yer not likely, mate, to find hidden swastikas and egyptian icons writ backwards and cryptic messages stating "Paul is the walrus" anywhere around. This was a simple, really basic, unattractive hut in a beautiful setting that Martin found ideal for his enterprises. Hardly sacred space, but sacred enough for him.
   The book is a quick read, but file it definitely under the cult of personality studies that seek vicarious approximation to glory in fetishizing the most insignificant details that have nothing to do with the heart of being, Being, Martin.



4. It discusses the hut from an architectural perspective, situating it in valley & comparing it to his city home.
   
   It gives a good sense of what it would be like to have used it in the way Heidegger did, without overreaching into architectural determinism.

1 comments about Pueblo Architecture and Modern Adobes: The Residential Designs of William Lumpkins.

1. Many credit William Lumpkins with starting the adobe and pueblo revival movments. His designs are inspired. Lumpkins went back to the cliff dwellings and ancient pueblos looking for organic shapes and forms. His rooms seldom have square corners. Hornos, bancos and nichos (beehive fireplaces, bench seats and wall recesses)abound. There are living and dining rooms modeled after kivas, subterranean ceremonial chambers. Library and bedroom might be found in a three-story tower. Ceilings are made of vigas overset with latillas in herringbone pattern. Doors are carved. The roof-line is never even having an organic look like a range of mountains.
   
   A word of caution. These work best in adobe and similar materials. The designs were laid down in the 1960s and before. Bathrooms and closets are tiny. Utility rooms are nonexistant. Each design needs some reworking to be useful today. They are not inexpensive homes to build. They are spectacular.

1 comments about John Pawson: Themes and Projects.

1. after reading that bruce chatwin had his london apartment designed by john pawson, i went looking for books on pawson's work, and found four. after studying them for a while, i chose this book. it is not the biggest, doesn't have the most pictures, and isn't the cheapest, but it does have beautiful balance. i tried unsuccessfully to wait until after work to look through it, but after a few hours i broke down and skimmed it. i am currently reading through it in detail, and i just love it.

   it has a nice selection of buildings and projects, and with all the various opinions from a variety of different types of people, gives an unusual, but fascinating introduction which leaves me wanting to find out still more. the one regret i have about this book is that there are no pictures of chatwin's apartment, but then none of the others i looked at had them either. there are also a number of useful references to other architects strewn throughout the text, as well as an index to john pawson's body of work. highly recommended.

1 comments about Introduction to Japanese Architecture (Periplus Asian Architecture Series).

1. IF you want 51 more colored photographs, 32 of which are 1- to 2-page spreads, 10 of which are 1/2- to 3/4th-page ones, IF you want what adds up to an additional 3.5 pages of text, THEN you will probably prefer Art of Japanese Architecture, David and Michiko Young's 2007 revision of this book.
   
   If, however, you opt for INTRODUCTION TO JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE, you will still get an excellent overview of the entire history of Japanese architecture. Granted, you will not learn, for example, that since this book was written, a particular site is now a National Treasure or that each sliding door handle of a particular mansion bears the design of the imperial chrysanthemum or that the cost of rethatching a roof is now the equivalent of up to half-a million U.S. dollars. But these are mere details, not major revisions.
   
   Nor, if you opt for INTRO, will you be lacking illustrations, for it does have 320, all in color. In fact, with the exception of the added 51 photos, a handful of photos retaken at a different angle and 9 other minor changes, the illustrations are the same as they are in ART.
   
   If you wish more information, please see my review of ART. I have also included the Table of Contents of both books in the following comment.

1 comments about New American Interiors (New American).

1. This book continues in the series of modern American residential design being done by the Whitney Library of Design. As the name implies, this volume concentrates on interior design. It discusses and illustrated some 20 interior design projects by some of Americas leading firms.
   
   The photography is absolutely top notch, as was the selection of the homes and apartments to be photographed. The description to go along with the photography describes what the designer had in mind when selecting the furniture, art, and colors of the room.
   
   The projects in this book cover a wide range of interior designs from the ultra modern to traditional. It makes it clear that the art of interior design is not dead, although you will certainly have to have a strong bank account to afford some of these rooms. Excellent.

No comments about European Landscape Architecture: Best Practice in Detailing.