1 comments about The Art of Placemaking: Interpreting Community Through Public Art and Urban Design.

1. THE ART OF PLACEMAKING: INTERPRETING COMMUNITY THROUGH PUBLIC ART AND URBAN DESIGN is a pick for any college-level art or urban issues library and for professionals interested in public art and urban affairs. It's an exploration of works within the public imagination and explores trends in public art, from 'mural towns' and street furniture to public areas arts, documenting two decades of public arts projects from around the country. Color photos throughout feature the projects while descriptions survey interactions with public agencies, officials, and decision-makers in the process of bringing art into the public eye and making design choices.

1 comments about Designing Greenways: Sustainable Landscapes for Nature and People.

1. For the price, this book is a great overview to designing greenways. I use this as a reference in my studies frequently--I am a student of Landscape Architecture and see this resource as highly valuable.

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.

3 comments about Planning and Urban Design Standards (Wiley Graphic Standards).

1. This book is tremendously broad in its coverage of planning topics, though not in depth. Most topics get only 2 pages, though some get 4-5. References are listed for each topic to help you find more detailed information. The book is well organized and indexed. It's loaded with illustrations such as graphs, diagrams, flow charts, line art, photographs, and maps. Most are black and white, but there are 16 color plates that are grouped together and stuck in a seemingly arbitrary position in the middle of an unrelated topic.
   
   Some information is already out of date. For example, on page 580 it says that the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) expired in 2003 and Congress was still debating reauthorization. The new act (SAFETEA-LU) was enacted in August 2005 and is not mentioned.
   
   My only real complaint is that the type is quite small and can be difficult to read for 40+ year-old readers. On the other hand, I understand that if they used larger type this huge, heavy book would be even bigger and heavier.
   
   I also got the electronic, online version of the book and was disappointed in that, again because of the small type. Even using a 20" monitor I had a very hard time reading it. The viewer application that Amazon uses has very limited capability to zoom in on the text so it does not help.



2. This is a mandatory book in an urban planner or college bookshelf, for it has all the necessary information to complete urban projects. It is my handbook and that says all. It is also very well presented with a hardcover in good leather. The only shortcoming that I see is the absence of folded pages with urban plans in a larger scale, or renderings of zoning plans.



3. An excellent resource for anyone involved in public sector land-use planning. Contains great detail on many different subjects. Good illustrations throughout. Not the best resource for site planning, though.

1 comments about The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely.

1. "Brilliant...Anthony Vidler is a conceptual conjurer of formidable skill." - J. Mordaunt Crook, New York Times Book Review

   "The Architectural Uncanny presents an engaging and original series of meditations on issues and figures that are at the heart of the most pressing debates surrounding architecture today. Anthony Vidler interprets contemporary buildings and projects in light of the resurgent interest in the uncanny as a metaphor for a fundamentally "unhomely" modern condition. These essays are at once historical and theoretical, opening up the complex and difficult reltionships between politics, social thought and architectural design in an era when the reality of homelessness and the idealism of the avant-garde have never seemed so far apart."

   "Anthony Vidler has proved himself among the most lucid of contemporary architectural historians,always writing with vigor and clarity, and allying perception with structure...There is wit, intelligence, and a host of shrewd observations." - Peter Blundell Jones, Architectural Review

No comments about New Waterscapes: Planning, Building and Designing with Water.

1 comments about Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities.

1. This is an excellent resource for physical planning in relationship to environmental sustainability. If you buy this book , buy also Skinny streets and green neighborhoods.

No comments about The Urban Design Reader (Routledge Urban Readers).

2 comments about Readings in Planning Theory (Studies in Urban and Social Change).

1. The autors present a superb choice of classical texts on the field of urban planning. I recommend it to all of those who want a good reference on some of the most important ideas that have shaped this field until now.



2. This book is a very good beginning for a student interested in urban and regional planning. The selections are great, one example is the classic article from Lindblom "The science of muddling through", with several arguments in favor to 'incrementalism'. Another classic is Davidoff's "Advocacy and pluralism in planning", and the text from Beauregard, Krumholz, Healy and Harvey.

1 comments about Reshaping the Built Environment: Ecology, Ethics, and Economics.

1. A comprehensive analysis and commentary on America's physical and social infrastructure, Kilbert has compiled an impressive list of authors/environmental policy specialists. They speak to issues as seemingly diverse as the moral burdens being placed on future generations by short sighted environmental policy to practical solutions ( the Brownfields initiative)for reusing old industrial land in the inner city--a valuable text for anyone involved in shaping public policy in the near future.