5 comments about The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Modern Library Series).

1. In spite of the modest shortcomings that have emerged with age, I still have a deep and abiding fondness for this book... after all, it is what decided me on a career change into urban planning. And unlike much of the specialist literature that I've had to read since then, this book is thrilling, passionate, accessible, and inspiring.
   
   For me, at a certain point -- probably about 2/3rds of the way through Death and Life -- Jacobs seems to start to repeat herself a bit, but many of her insights as to what creates vibrant neighbourhoods and vibrant cities remain as applicable today as they were when she was feuding with Robert Moses over the future of the West Village. This book should be required reading for all planners, highway engineers, and developers; many neighbourhood associations would also probably be the better for having a copy to hand.
   
   But Jacobs' greatest strength, I believe, is that she combines great insight with clear prose that is devoid of the 'fancy' specialist terminology that practicing planners and academics use to talk about the forces driving change in neighbourhoods, towns, and metropolises. Anyone can read this book, and everyone should.



2. My son is a college senior who is taking a seminar class in urban studies. He was born in Manhattan so it was not a surprise that he should develop an interest in the subject. While I was purchasing another 'leisure read' to send to him, I saw this book as a suggested other possibility. It got very high marks in all the reviews and I thought it would be a great addition to his collection of books in this area. I was not wrong. He loved the book and when he brought it to class, his professor was delighted that he had a copy and called it "the classic for studies of cities". He has even introduced me to Jane Jacobs' work as he reads more and more of this book. I hope to read it from cover to cover when he brings it home from college later this year.



3. Jacobs argues masterfully against the popular assumption that urban density leads to slums and decay. Instead she describes how a dense concentration of people gives a city vitality and provides a built-in source of security through "eyes on the street". Throughout the book she discusses various ways to achieve this density and manage the vitality it brings, all the while challenging misconceptions about how cities work.



4. Living in Detroit in 2009 I find the book quite relevant since we are now on a journey to remake the city.



5. I bought this book as a required reading for school. It was very easy to read and covered many interesting topics. I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in learning more about the urban environment.

5 comments about A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series).

1. This book provided very valuable insight into the type of home that we wanted to build. We ultimately bought a home that we did not design, but this book helped us to develop values that would assist us in finding a home that would nurture us and our environment.



2. Lent it to a client and of course, never got it back. Bought it originally back in college. Everyone in the design field should be required to read this book.



3. This classic architecture work contains abundant wisdom and practical direction for living for every thinking person. I first read it nearly thirty years ago and used its principles to create a garden that delights to this day. When I found it again, I was eager to read the parts I had skipped over the first time. To my sorrow, the book is no longer relevant to the way most people now live. There is barely any nod to electronic communication or entertainment. If you want to be overwhelmed by how much we have lost, or changed, since this was written, I highly recommend it. I hope that, as with other lost arts, a new generation will be fascinated by the old ways people used to live, and will adopt the good and reinvent human spaces. Big box stores, super highways, multiplex cinemas, malls, security-driven barriers and other structures such as looping airport approaches and chaotic store layout, fractured product placement in retail outlets: all were not thought of in this work. The serenity of the human soul was the overriding value. It is easy to see the world today is organized more like a bandit's trap than a serene living arena. Definitely a deep and thought-provoking read.



4. I love to have this book on hand to refer to when I am thinking about making changes to my living space or when I just want to let my imagine roam. Recently we designed a small cottage and found it invaluable as we worked to create the most livable and economical space.



5. An excellent book to peruse before sleeping, as its great wellspring of clear and concise ideas and examples consistently inspire dreams about how - in concrete, practical terms - we can improve the tenor of our daily lives at home and in community.

5 comments about The Smart Growth Manual.

1. This book's laudable objective is to present, very specifically, how smart growth can actually be implemented. A considerable number of elements are presented, some very detailed, in fact similar to building standards, others very general that would be difficult to apply as such. The book is structured in four sections: regions, neighbourhoods, streets and buildings. Strangely for a work with a pro-urban standpoint, downtowns are not treated as such, although passing references are made here and there.
   
   Odd editorial choices were made with respect to the book's production. First, doubtlessly to project a green image, the fibre-packed paper used is very obviously recycled _ as was current when recycling first was introduced decades ago. This leads to a very poor printing quality of the colour photographs _ which are perhaps not all that artistic and telling in the first place. Second, the book is pocket-size, presumably so that it can be easily carried to meetings. This of course restricts importantly the space available for text. As each item is covered on a single page and each is illustrated with a photograph, needless to say that content is not very elaborate. Third, pages are not numbered, most likely to avoid confusion with the hierarchy of the items presented (1.1, 1.2, etc.). This actually makes consulting the book a bit confusing as these section numbers are not written on the right-hand page corners.
   
   At the end of the book, several pages are devoted to listing the addresses of various local groups devoted to the promotion of smart growth in the United States. This list, of course, is liable to being quickly outdated. So, why not refer to a single Web site?
   
   Actually, why not replace the whole book with a Web site where references to other sources could be liberally provided? With BlackBerries and iPhones, its portability would not be reduced and it could constantly be improved and updated.



2. Finally, after a dozen years of discussion about sprawl versus smart growth, the definitive manual is here. Andrés Duany, Jeff Speck and Mike Lydon have written an artfully concise, universally accessible handbook that balances basic concepts with complex details. The book mixes substantial "best planning practice" and development wisdom with brilliant insight. It proves (by describing observable cause and effect), that championing smart growth will result in highly livable places that are also environmentally and economically sustainable.
   
   Each page-long tutorial features a title, a half-page of understandable text and an illustrative photograph or diagram. The subjects are rationally organized by scale, from the region to the neighborhood to the lot and building. The rural to urban transect is described near the beginning as an organizing system for planning. Like the transect itself, the book integrates environmental, design, building development and financial concerns.
   
   The United States has long needed a "how to" catalogue for growth that can also serve to measure the quality of development. This book is it. If followed, it could literally change the American landscape and our long-term future for success.
   
   "The Smart Growth Manual" should be distributed nationwide to elected officials, governments, developers, planners, architects and community activists.



3. This is a great reference manual for those in the design and development worlds as well as a great introduction and reasonably quick education for those who are first being exposed to the principals of Smart Growth. A very comprehensive 'list' of principals and design considerations that EVERY project would do well to take into consideration. This book is delightful in can be easily understood while not skimping on content. Highly recommended.



4. This book is likely to change things. It works from both sides: for planners and politicians to teach themselves and others, and for citizens concerned about what planners might do. It will help planners get new visions across. And help them ease valid citizen concerns and even NIMBY concerns. It conveys concepts by showing reality ... which sounds very good no matter what side you are on. I studied urban planning 30+ years ago and walked away from it as it seemed more wrong than right. This book will go a long way to making things right.



5. I've only had time to skim it so far, but the ideas, the organization - and the brevity - are excellent.

4 comments about Why Architecture Matters (Why X Matters Series).

1. The book was very useful to me as an artist in terms of the power of context and the abstract meanings that can exist in art and music as well as architecture. Goldberg's writing is smooth as silk and very conversational.



2. To our joy, 3 books are recently released by first-rate architectural critics.
   One is the posthumous work of Herbert Muschamp and the rest two are works of
   Paul Goldberger. Critic of New Yorker, his writings flow with delicious flavor.
   
   Child of NJ, studied at Yale, Goldberger's writings grasp what is
   best of American city and suburb and his thoughts hold what is
   best of Yale (intellectually, Vincent Scully's; architecturally, meaning
   of Yale gothic campus). At least, to me personally.
   
   Books like this pays particular examples of great masters of Europe or cities like
   Paris, Rome, or London. Goldberger's writings are valuable because subject
   matter is mostly American.
   
   Buildings like Grand Central and Penn Station in NY are contrastingly reviewed
   to show why one outlived the other and he touches issues of preservation.
   He also compares National Gallery West to East, outlining why John Pope's design
   (though style-wise it was criticized severely by Modernists at the time of erection)
   is better than IM Pei's as a museum.
   
   Stylistically and by personal preference, claims like this could be dangerously partial.
   But, I think that was the very reason his writings as a critic was enjoyable read.
   As a museum, Paul believes west wing was much more exhibition and orientation friendly and
   than Pei's. He explains why good buildings outlive criticism of the day and outlast
   regardless of their style application.
   
   Buildings of Gilded Age receive new edge, Architects 19 century gets
   new spotlight, and the arc of styles (or life of a building) are re-viewed
   with Vincent Scullian insight and sharpness. Particularly, I appreciated so much
   by the fact that Goldberger focused his buildings and cities in America.
   His writings on Yale campus and his child neighborhood are touching.
   His clips from movies and novels add freshness.
   
   I am eager to re-read his New Yorker collections in his another book.
   I hope Goldberger writes at least 10 more books in near future...



3. Opening a book on architecture tends to put me a bit on edge, since I've come to expect that the author, whoever he may be, is going to be highly opinionated and is going to make a lot of pronouncements that seem arbitrary and (worse) that differ from my own arbitrary opinions. This book was a pleasant surprise. Goldberger doesn't spend a lot of time pronouncing certain examples of architecture as appealing or appalling. Instead, he gives a good overview of what some of the issues are and how various architects handle them: "challenge" versus "comfort", for example, to take what's perhaps his best chapter. There are good black-and-white illustrations in the text, and my only quibble is that there could have been more of them provided (fortunately, it's not hard to find images on the internet). Highly readable and accessible.



4. prose poetry that matches the poetry with which the author describes different architectual structures. am particularly interested in the different architectural forms found in the Americas and the bearing that architectural structures have on impoverished neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side of New York City.

5 comments about The Image of the City.

1. Reading Kevin Lynch is like getting a new pair of glasses. Nothing has actually changed in your surroundings, but you see things differently. Legibility, or readability, is an important part of navigating the city landscape. To study this "we must consider not just the city as a thing in itself, but the city being perceived by its inhabitants" (Lynch 3).
   
   The city is a constantly growing experience. As you move through a city you are experiencing things in an expanding way. "At every instant, there is more than the eye can see, more than the ear can hear, a setting or a view waiting to be explored. Nothing is experienced by itself, but always in relation to its surroundings, the sequences of events leading up to it, the memory of past experiences"(Lynch 1). There is always something more to add to how you experience the city. These memories and experiences of a city become meaningful to the people who live there. To Lynch, visual quality of a city and the mental images associated with it are of upmost importance when studying the urban landscape.
   
   A city can be considered a very important and powerful symbol of a society. In The Image of the City Lynch explores the cities of Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles revealing the knowledge of the inhabitants and how they view their city. When asked to describe a city, any person would say that a city is a collection of "streets, buildings, sidewalks, bridges," but Lynch prefers to describe the city as a interrelated connection of paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. Paths are the channels through which the observer moves and that constitute the predominant element in their image, whereas edges are linear elements that are not paths- they are lateral references, sometimes boundaries. Districts, nodes and landmarks are also prominent parts of a city. Districts are sections of the city that a person "enters" and that have identifying characteristics. Nodes are points within the city that can be used as destinations or points of interest, such as transit stations. Landmarks serve the same purpose as nodes; however, they are physical objects, where nodes can be plazas, intersections or park spaces.
   
   "A distinctive and legible environment not only offers security but also heightens the potential depth and intensity of human experience"(Lynch 5). An environmental image links person to place and gives a sense or emotional security. An environmental image is made up of three components- identity, structure and meaning. First, you must identify the object, then determine the spatial or pattern relation, and assign an emotional value about it.
   
   The importance that you place on a landscape or place is called an environmental image. Lynch ascertains that there are two aspects of an environmental image, what is distinct within the environment, and what the observer thinks and what meaning they associate with their surroundings. "People observe the city while moving through it, and along these paths the other environmental elements are arranged and related" (Lynch 47). Lynch discovered through surveys and interviews from these cities that people tend to adapt to their surroundings, and formulate patterns and identity from what they see and experience every day. People place a significant amount of importance on their personal environmental images, and this can influence their reactions to changes.
   
   
   As planners "we are continuously engaged in the attempt to organize our surroundings, to structure and identify them" (Lynch 90). In designing cities it is always important to acknowledge the importance of legibility and an environmental image. "When reshaping cities it should be possible to give them a form which facilitates these organizing efforts rather than frustrates them" (Lynch 90).



2. Lynch's studies of residents in Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angeles during the 1950s reveal the effects of changes in land use and planning during the first half of the 20th century. What makes a place memorable, unique, or "imageable?" Lynch teaches basic spatial lessons for anyone trying to decode a modern city. These lessons are as fresh and applicable today as they were fifty years ago.



3. Given that this book was written in the 1950's, it is still relevent to current urban design thinking. It must have been very innovative in the 1950's.
   
   Once the reader gets past the unusual layout of the book and the out of date language, there are many useful urban design concepts to be found in this little book.
   
   Pathways, boundaries, disconnects and nodes are all discussed from varying points of view, using notable USA cities as examples.
   
   One point of relevance is the statement that there is not one city in the USA that could be considered a great example of urban design (as stated in the 1950's). As an Australian, I could say the same of Australian cities. The Australian cities of Sydney and Brisbane are terrible examples of urban sprawl. The north-south spread of Greater Sydney now covers almost 200 kilometres.
   
   The principles stated in this book are still relevant to urban designers today.



4. The urban setting is a composition of nodes, landmarks, paths, edges and districts, accorsing to Lynch. This physical summary of urban landscape may not be satisfactory for some. However, for others, including me, this book is a great help in forming a design perspective at the city level. It does not matter at all if you have just started forming your perspective or working on the final details. The book should be in your library, and the design guidelines should be in your mind, not only when designing a peace of urban space, but also when you are just wondering around.



5. This book describes mental maps obtained from residents in several cities such as Boston, Los Angeles and Jersey City. The mental maps were materialized on paper through an interview process and combined with maps from many individuals. And the results are surprising. Each map is a composite image of the city (and hence, the book's title) that reveals not only the character of the place, but gives you a feeling for it. In Boston for example, the streets are very disorganized, so people give directions by using landmarks almost exclusively. On the other hand, in Jersey City, with extremely uniform architecture, directions are given by street number and points of the compass. An unusual discovery concerns very long streets in Boston. They appear on the map with missing sections - these sections are totally invisible to the people interviewed. In many cases individuals were unaware that Washington street in one neighborhood is a continuation of Washington Street in another neighborhood. These blind spots affect how people move around, it affects the directions they give to others and it contributes or reinforces fears they may have about certain neighborhoods. The book moves from these maps and observations and tries to develop rules of thumb for urban design. People feel more comfortable and perhaps more anchored if they know where they are in space and in relation to visible landmarks. Some cities provide this comfort level more effectively than others - this book tries to find root causes. It's no wonder this is a classic.

5 comments about Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan.

1. The author presents in concise fashion his own version of New York City's urban development history.
   
   One may or may not be convinced by his thesis that there is a specific New York City psyche that is reflected over time in a wide variety of constructions.
   
   But one can only be enthralled by his intimate knowledge of the City and of projects ranging from Coney Island to the Empire State Building to the 1964 World Fair.
   
   The surprising and at times bizarre illustrations add to the incredibly rich text. They include for instance a vintage photograph of famous architects actually costumed as their own creations: the Fuller Building, the Waldorf-Astoria, the Squibb Building, the Chrysler Building, etc.
   
   Written over 30 years ago and thus also a reflection of the 1970's, this work is definitely a classic well worth reading today for anyone interested in New York or in cities in general.



2. While "Delirious" has its fair share of archispeak, Mr. Koolhaas pulls off an intelligent, fun and thought-provoking take on the early 20th century building culture of New York.
   
   One of the quirkier (and frankly, awesome/bravadoish) aspects of "Delirious" is Mr. Koolhaas's analysis of Coney Island: an "incubator for Manhattan's incipient themes." As a reader, one initially questions the inclusion of such a trashy place in such a lofty manifesto. However, as the chapter progresses, you start to see Mr. Koolhaas's iconoclastic brilliance. He pays an amazing homage to "the laboratory" that was Coney Island, illuminating the vital role it played in the building philosophies that would emerge later in Manhattan.
   
   Scattered throughout "Delirious," also, are compelling supporting images that Mr. Koolhaas clearly spent a lot of time digging up. In fact, flipping through the book for the images alone makes for a near-equivalent, and fun, learning experience.
   
   However, unlike his tasteful use of images, Mr. Koolhaaas's flamboyant use of scholarly English makes his writing difficult to digest at times:
   
   "It is probably inevitable that a doctrine based on the continual simulation of pragmatism, on a self-imposed amnesia that allows the continuous reenactment of the same subconscious themes in ever new reincarnations and on inarticulateness systematically cultivated in order to operate more effectively..."
   
   Given Mr. Koolhaas's journalism background (and assumed mastery of writing), I suspect he made the conscious decision to remain somewhat inaccessible to preserve his "lofty" image. While such a decision may be understandable, his brilliance as a writer often gets overshadowed by the sheer irritation of trying to understand him.
   
   Ultimately, "Delirious" proves itself to be a very intelligent synopsis---just as delirious and congested the themes Mr. Koolhaas puts forth. For the most part, it's a pleasure to read, and it also reflects the exhaustive research on Mr. Koolhaas's end. Much like Mr. Koolhaas's buildings, "Delirious" is on the cusp of being as grand as it intends to be.



3. through the exhaustive historiography of the phases of congestion coney island brought to manhattan, koolhaas provides a rather cynical view of the Grid as being an ulimatley neutral zoning system of constraining ideas that represent the continual decline of a phantastically realistic civilization, represented as mutated symbols of architecture in the "void" of repeated "pregnancies."
   
   it's really well written. funny. uses, like above, a somewhat inefficient vocabulary but remains in the same vein throughout. it is also a graphic design hubris consuming every page, even the left-justified text, showing off koolhaas's interpretation of the importance to combine scholarship and marketing.
   
   buy it. it's a very good book.



4. A very inventive concept of New York's "culture of congestion" and how people are affected by the architecture they create. It is heavily researched and exhaustive, and after pretty much the third page I agreed with his concept of NY being "totally fabricated by man". What could of been a fascinating article becomes a spastic, heavy-handed read with a sledgehammer effect to your brain. (However,for those of us reading it for school, there are plenty of pictures that fill up the almost devastatingly vast 300+pages quickly.) It will scramble your brain with its thousands of nearly bumper-stickerish statements ("It hides life." "The Mountain MUST become architecture.") written with pretentious glee. However, I believe an independent scientific study has concluded that when pretending to read this book on the train people around you will assume your IQ is 40% higher than truth.



5. koolhaas is a bit over-the-top for me, but this I think is is best work. it's worth checking out if only for the story of coney island. once you get past blisteringly pretentious phrases like "coney island is a fetal manhattan", you'll find it gloriously entertaining as both a narrative and theoretical work.

5 comments about Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream.

1. I am a college student, and as many people know college book prices are outrageous at the college's bookstore. Therefore to save a little money I go to Amazon to buy mine. I ordered my book appx a week before my class were to begin, and the same day I order another book from another carrier. I NEVER received my book that I ordered. I went back multiple times to make sure I put in all the correct information and I had. The other book that I ordered the same day came about a week later. The worst part of this scenerio, I had to borrow someone's book to complete my assignments and the class that this book was for has already finished using it, so even it if did come at some point it would be of no use to me. I wasted money and I will NEVER order from this carrier again.



2. New Urbanism is not for everyone - and there is much to critique about it - but this book goes beyond the designs of new urbanism and critically analyzes the built environment from post WWII developments to shining examples seen in so many US cities. You may hate suburbia or you just might love it, but many people often lack the necessary critical eye in assessing the components that go into making suburbia - to which this book gives great insight into.
   
   Many will definitely be left thinking about the welfare of our cities well after reading this book. This book does not criticize suburbs, however, it very critical of suburbia which are two different things that are often conflated.



3. Sadly, this book has not become a classic but on the contrary has aged prematurely.
   
   The ideas presented are nothing new anymore and the solutions suggested are now themselves subject to founded criticism.
   
   Current ecological or health issues had not been foreseen by the authors and what appeared visionary ten years ago is now incomplete, repetitious and almost bland.
   
   Therefore, it would difficult to recommend anyone to invest time and money in reading this book in 2009 or later.



4. The authors do an excellent job of both outlining ways to develop that do not induce sprawl, promote neighborhoods, and encourage people to both create and live in places that are the antithesis of sprawl. I appreciated their anecdotes and stories about things that have worked, good ideas that failed, and bad ideas that failed in an epic manner.
   
   They are clear to show examples of how unintended consequences have derailed previous idealistic methods of combating sprawl, as well as examples of how (typically their) ideas have successfully fought sprawl. Adding parking to streets - slows down traffic - makes the area livable again. Who would have thought!?
   
   All in all, an excellent history of why we live in sprawl, how we can work against it, and a great book for developers and architects to understand that their business doesn't have to be all suburban office park & subdivision focused.



5. I really enjoyed the book. I gave it a 4 and I think it is very well deserved. Reading my review may lead you to think otherwise because there is a lot of sharp criticism of particular aspects of the book. Overall though, the book really points out the folly of suburban planning and it helped me better understand why I am leaving the suburbs for an urban lifestyle. There are some great insights that I don't think I would have ever heard anywhere else. For example, he attributes the fact that most streets are unwalkable to firetrucks. The fire chief has to have the biggest and best firetruck so the roads have to be built to accomodate that firetruck when it is traveling to an emergency so the roads are large enough to allow everyone to speed in even the most residential areas.
   
   Like most of us, Duany is a one tool kind of carpenter. Since he only has a hammer, everything is a nail. Mr. Duany's hammer is Seaside, Florida which he thinks is the solution to every problem. For example, when I heard him speak concerning the revitalization of midtown Atlanta, his only criticism was the fact that there were only a few developers on Peachtree street and they were all building 20 to 35 story high-rise condominiums as opposed to much smaller developments such as townhouses. He ignored the fact that land costs on Peachtree Street would make a townhouse completely unaffordable. He also seemed to have missed the fact that one block off Peachtree Street in any direction there is an abundance of single-family housing, low-rise condominiums, townhouses, etc.
   
   I get the impression that he doesn't understand that Seaside and many of his other developments are not economically sustainable. Seaside exists because people make money somewhere else, take it to Seaside and use it to pay for a little peace of nirvana. While Seaside is certainly a great place, it would be non-existent or a slum if people didn't invest money earned elsewhere. I know he has worked on many projects and many are filled with residents that live and work in what might be calles "real jobs" as opposed to a tourist economy. However, even in those environments, the economy is supported by people that wake up in one of his bedroom communities and commute to a real city to make money.
   
   That's my complaint in a nutshell, however, if you want a basic overview of what is wrong with Suburban America and one of many ideas how to fix it, I encourage you to take a read. The one other comment I would have about his work is that he seems to advocate pre-war bungalow style architecture above and beyond every alternative. If that is what you are looking for great, however, it is completely lacking in innovation and would eventually drive me crazy. Seaside was featured in the Truman show for a reason, because it is sickeningly sweet and completely artificial just like all the other characters.

5 comments about S M L XL.

1. This book was crushed in shipping.
   A new book was sent in exchange.
   The damaged book was returned, but we did not get a credit for the shipping on the returned book.
   My son likes the book, though.



2. Well, to some this is the "bible" of architecture (i find that simply hilarious - must be a second-year student) and to others a complete piece of rubbish. I saw one review call it Corbusian, but did not mean that as a complement. While Corbu did have a flair for the grandiose, he's was much more intelligent and thoughtful than Rem.
   
   I have to say I find this book rather dull. The opening piece from AA was like a more boring version of anything done by Superstudio - though it was nicely spruced up with poor grammar and a youthful exuberance for syllables.
   
   Mau's offices' contribution is also somewhat typical to me. The silver cover is cliche. Any zine made by some small-time punk has more interesting imagery and provocative material. I give this a C, because at least it gets the Corbu-hater upset. That's always a nice thing.



3. I am grateful and happy to have in my presence one of the greatest urbanism clasic books of 20th century. Remarkable book. I learn a lot! Rem is outstanding and extraordinary.



4. please, i have not gotten my book yet. give me an information about it. Glenda



5. I received a copy of this book as a christmas gift. As an architect, I tell you the guy who gave it to me scored some major brownie points from me that holiday.
   
   Rem Koolhaas defies tradition both in his architecture and his literature. He is foremost a journalist before fully shifting gears to architecture. In this book, he engages the reader by making you realize that while an immediate impression of intimidation engulfs you at first glance of its sheer density, once you start flipping the pages, you realize that you don't have to follow any order in reading it. There are no rules or boundaries on how you read the book: you can flip, you can toss, you can flicker, and in each and every method you will find amusement with the visual eye candy the images, graphics, and text, this book gives you. Nice addition to any architecture book collection/library/coffee table.

5 comments about Robert Venturi: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.

1. This book is less a manifesto than it is a very interesting look at how architecture has evolved over the last 2000 years. Venturi evocatively shows that there was no straight line approach to architecture, but rather an ever-changing and ambiguous path that Modernists chose to make short cuts through. In this sense, Venturi really does capture the complexity and contradiction in architecture in that there are many lessons to be learned, making this book as valuable today as it was in 1966 when it first appeared.
   
   Being one of the early "gray" architects, Venturi inspired a movement that eventually became characterized as "Post Modern." His early architectural work left a lot to be desired, since it seems less inspired by the many historical examples he favored, like Frank Furness, in this book and more by the banal trends in contemporary architecture at the time, eventually leading to Learning from Las Vegas (1972), where the concept of a building being a "duck," or a decorated shed, emerged.
   
   This book's most appealing aspect is that it is immediately accessible. You don't have to be an architect to understand where Venturi is coming from, much less a grad student working on a dissertation. Venturi avoids all that senseless jargon that characterized architectural theory at the time and later came to engulf Po-Mo talk as well.



2. Didn't even open this book but if you are an architectural major this might be a great book.



3. "I like complexity and contradiction in architecture." That's how Robert Venturi starts this superb book. No great proclamation. It was an age tired of great proclamations. Instead, Venturi takes us through an impressively learned tour of his favorite things, a grand overview of great architecture, with acute formal analysis of facade and plan composition, sectional variety, and an accumulating realization that complexity is an inevitable force in the tumult of human, urban life.
   Postmodernism has come and gone, but modernism looks as it does today because of this book.



4. Now that the bottom of postmodernism has actually fallen out and is being dragged along the street by the chains of American capitalism, it's "alright" for students of architecture to return to that misjudged canonical textbook of post-modernism, C+C by Venturi. While not as engaging as his other main work "Learning from Las Vegas", this book still leads the reader into a meticulous analysis of the physical composition of major pieces of architecture, and the composition of the thoughts that made them. After reading it, I found myself unconciously applying it's main dichtomy of complexity and contradiction to much of the architecture around me, if that is any testament to its power.



5. I had to read this book for a class specifically regarding Robert Venturi and the postmodernism movement that he became a leading proponent of. However, this book is NOT a manifesto for a postmodern vacabulary- rather, this book looks at all architecture from the Parthenon to the common family home. Let me say that I have read many architectural theory books, but nothing that really inspired me to look at a building and really see what the architect intended like Complexity and Contradiction. This book really focused my attention on the possibilities for great architecture on any level- from museum to treehouse. I feel that anyone with an interest in appreciating architecture should certainly read this book. Because of my studies of Robert Venturi and his contemporaries, I have pursued a degree in architecture and certainly plan to incorperate his ideas and philosophies into my work.

5 comments about Time-Saver Standards for Interior Design and Space Planning, 2nd Edition.

1. This is a great reference book for designers and architects. It arrived very timely,in excellent conditions and I could not ask for a better price.



2. This book is packed with info on furniture design, drafting tips, and use of theme for virtually every type of space. Perfect for students! Accompanied by plenty of illustrations to reference.



3. This textbook was required for my Basic Drafting class. It was cheaper to go through Amazon than my school's bookstore. I recieved the textbook in great condition and in time for class to start. Very happy with this seller.



4. HUGE ASSET! This book has everything in it and has been extremely helpful. It is a big book, therefore, it is not easy to carry around. I take it to school occasionally-I have chosen to lug it around in a rolling cart--most helpful for all those books and drawing tools, etc. One downside, sometimes the print is so small you may have to have a magnifying glass to see what is written.
   Purchasing this book on Amazon saved me a lot of money. I highly recommend this book for Interior Design students and Designers.



5. This book is a must for all in Interior Design.[[ASIN:0071346163 Time-Saver Standards for Interior Design and Space Planning, 2nd Edition]
   
   It is very informative and best guide ever