1 comments about Design and Landscape for People: New Approaches to Renewal.

1. This book was a disappointment for me. As one who has appreciated Small Is Beautiful, 25th Anniversary Edition: Economics As If People Mattered: 25 Years Later . . . With Commentaries and Human Scale I was not expecting so much fine print and examples, even through grouped into the following five categories, struck me as kludgy:
   
   Utility
   Citizenship
   Rural
   Identity
   Urban
   
   My notes:
   
   + Imagination alone can work miracles in the absence of resources.
   
   + Worlds of planning, commerce, culture, technology, and politics are disconnected BUT the authors see a massive shift emergent toward participatory culture. I am reminded of Paul Hawkin's Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World and Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace.
   
   + There are a lot of buzzwords among the fine print, such as creative engagement, adaptive transformation, etcetera. This is where I begin to think this has crossed the line toward kludge.
   
   + I am *very* impressed with the small section that focuses on children play power, connecting a merry-go-round to pump water to a gravity storage container.
   
   + Page 17: What many of these strategies shared was the principle of putting information clearly in the public domain and drawing togetyher a debate between a public, political and professional audience to unlock different perspectives and produce different solutions. I am reminded of Jim Rough's brilliant work Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
   
   + Art in public spaces inspires new forms of social networks. Rivers can have "Save My River Chapters" all along its path, I am reminded of the Salmon Nation the future-oriented denizens of Eco-topia have put into place.
   
   The book does downhill from there, in part because the small print is annoying, in part because while the photos are truly beautiful, this book does not convey what the Germans call "the feeling in the fingertips."
   
   I am however very impressed toward the end when the book talks about OASIS (Open Accessible Space Information System) and the discussion the authors offer of how training children and citizens to map their neighborhoods at the sapling level in unleashing enormous stores of energy. I am especially impressed by a map on page 158 that shows "Desireable Places to Plant a Tree." THIS IS PERFECT. Now imagine a Global Range of Gifts table at the sapling and ceramic refrigerator level for the whole planet, so the 80% of the individuals that do not do planned giving can give a sapling or a cell phone or a month's worth of medicine. I this coming and pray it will arrive sooner.
   
   The book re-engaged me at the end where there is a superb discussion of how we should plan neighborhoods with running water so that the poor can upgrade as they improve their condition, rather than vacating. Grow wealth locally.
   
   This book is offered at a very fair price and on that basis am taking it up to four stars instead of three. If you love this topic, this is book by two people who care, offered by a publisher who has the integrity to price it affordably.
   
   I read this book with A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World and The Porto Alegre Alternative: Direct Democracy in Action (IIRE (International Institute for Resear) and in a fascinating way all three hung together--Civilization of Love ends by pointing out that the future Church is going to comprised of young urban poor; and the Porto Alegre book, an edited work, ends compellingly by saying that we should not have to choose between statism and the market, it is possible to put everyone's eyes on the whole of the budget, and dramatically redirect how our tax dollars are spent. I agree, but not in 2008. That just became another lost epoch. See my review of Obama - The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate and of course Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It.
   
   With my last remaining link, I recommend All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents).

No comments about Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development (Questioning Cities Series).

2 comments about Suburbanization of New York.

1. this book is not only timely, but thoughtfully done -- a wide variety of essays, questions, thoughts. Accessible to non-academics, and not pedantic at all.



2. The question asked by the book is whether New York can maintain a culturally unique and compelling identity. Or perhaps it will just become like Anyplace USA? Here, suburbanisation is not taken as a compliment. The text suggests that homogenisation is a real peril. But that New York will still, somehow, retain enough of a global cachet to remain on the cutting edge of cultural and fashion trends. The arguments pro and con are not conclusive. Somewhat vague to measure, on either side. Readers from more quantitative fields may wince at the sheer qualitativeness and ephermeral nature of much of the arguments or trends.
   
   Still, at least the discussion is interesting. Lets you step back for a while from current events and try to discern broader long term patterns.

1 comments about Landscapes of Privilege: The Politics of the Aesthetic in an American Suburb.

1. In this book, Nancy and James Duncan probe deeply into the landscape of the affluent town of Bedford Village, New York to expose its role in the production and "performance" of the townspeople's identity and the attendant social ramifications. The authors assert that class and status are at the heart of a series of struggles for control of Bedford Village's landscape. By insisting upon the retention of a particular aesthetic for the town, enforced through laws, zoning, advisory boards, and social pressure, the people of Bedford Village are for the most part able to successfully cloak class, race, and power struggles in aesthetic terms that are less volatile and seemingly apolitical. By this they manage to create and sustain a place-based identity that isn't always savory, although--and this is an important point--this would surprise the residents of Bedford as much as it would surprise many others who took such a hard look at where and how they live.
   
   The Duncans rightly place class at the center of Bedford's issues and, with almost equal force, money. This seems right as it pertains to Bedford, where houses cost up to millions of dollars and yet where there are long-time residents who, while living much more modestly, engage just as strenuously in the pressure to sustain the particular pastoral character of the town's landscape. But maintaining the "look" of the land masks other issues. In Chapter Two the Duncans assert that "[i]n capitalist societies...where identity is linked to possessions, the aesthetic often plays an important role in depoliticizing class relations" (p. 25). The residents of Bedford cling tightly to a vision of their town as a rural, historic, Colonial town and landscape, drawing from it all the symbolic force of the New England Village (cf Meinig) from which they claim to descend and using it as the primary locus and signifier of their identity. They resist at nearly every turn the pressures of development and modernization while taking full advantage of the amenities of the modern world just beyond the borders. To a great extent Bedford Village still looks rural, still has its pastoral charm and its romantic vistas. It even has dirt roads (maintained at great expense). This is (of course/ironically) what makes Bedford the perfect place to live. Its perfection _for a certain category of people_ is confirmed in the language of the real estate ads that amount to coded appeals to Anglo sensibilities, 19th-century English nostalgia, and an invented historicism. In sum, the web of issues that surround the production and sustenance of Bedford's landscape constitutes an aestheticized view of the world and is so powerful and pervasive it seems simply natural, without malice, "uncontestable" (p. ? --sorry).
   
   When class relations are centered on aesthetics, other consequences that reach into arenas beyond landscape and beyond the town are hidden even if they are unintended. Residents of Bedford frame the most important issues in terms of protecting the environment, protecting the rural character of the town, or protecting its historic structures, trees, and greenspaces; arguments typically accepted (here, in the U.S.) as benign, even noble. While the Duncans don't go so far as to say that they never are, it is fascinating to follow them as they probe how this framework obscures an inherent hegemony of class and, worse, can lead to a latent racism against "Guatemalans" in Chapter Eight. Bedford was largely built on exploited labor and is increasingly maintained by it, even if both facts are equally inadmissible to the dominant sensibility. Although "popping Bedford's bubble" wasn't the direct aim of the authors, by the end of the book I was convinced that nearly everything about Bedford was artificial in some way, the result of a complex interweaving of class and social forces that go mostly unnoticed. I especially like the authors' use of the term "performance" to describe the interplay of these forces and their materialization on and production through the landscape. It seems to strike squarely at how Bedford is more than just a place; it is the resulting effect of many individual "actors" including people, the land, the market, the immigrants, the history, the buildings, class relations, etc. In combination these constitute the thing that is "Bedford." In this way, every place is artificial (i.e., "denaturalized") if you want to think of it that way.
   
   The Duncans write clearly and forcefully and for the most part, jargon-free. They strive (as professional geographers at Cambridge) to retain an objective viewpoint. This book is not meant to tattle or to reduce people to sets of selfish causes. I imagine other places could have served as well, but in this book Bedford Village is taken as a case study upon which to build the theoretical argument that aesthetic claims serve as convenient and effective codes for political and cultural issues.

3 comments about Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings (Library of New England).

1. Despite many mistakes in the layout and composition of this little book, the author has done an admirable job of researching and presenting a dauntingly diverse subject, except for the inadequate photography. One imagines him spending many hours taking and cataloguing and captioning the numerous photos, which are essential to understanding the subject and its details. Too often, however, the camera is too far away or the photos are reduced to such small size that the reader comes away with an impression, rather than a clear idea. It's evident the book suffers from budgetary constraints, and in this instance those constraints have hurt badly.
   A final complaint -- the title is misleading. Despite the inclusion of a few Connecticut tobacco barns, this is a guide to NORTHERN New England barns. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine barns are well represented.



2. Having just purchased an old barn, I found precious few resources to assist in gleaning a history. Visser's book was concise, informative, and a pleasure to read. It provides valuable insight to the development of agricultural styles, and valuable clues to dating the agrarian landscape. Excellent source.



3. The following is an excerpt from a review in Vernacular Architecture Newsletter, Feb. 1999.

   The outbuildings of rural dwellings have customarily received less attention than the dwellings themselves. The fields of architectural history and historic preservation have long focused on dwellings, for such reasons as their sheer abundance and the fact that they may have been repositories of the fanciest and trendiest architectural detail. But visitors to rural areas will often find that a farmstead's ensemble of outbuildings may overshadow the dwelling in size, number, or visual prominence. The outbuildings reflect past activities of people and animals, and connect the dwelling to the system of fields, fences, driveways, and other farmscape elements.

   Thomas D. Visser, Associate Professor and Interim Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Vermont, recognizes that barns and other outbuildings are far more important than as mere picturesque elements of the rural landscape. From the massive barn to the lowly privy, "each has a story to tell." In his Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, Visser provides "clues for deciphering the many layers of history spread over the rural landscape... to help observers... realize the wonderful insights that can spring from an understanding of the evolution of our rural heritage."

   Visser's book may be used two ways, as a reference book and as a handy, portable field guide. It stands alone as a good concise history of New England farm buildings with an understandable concentration on barns, the most necessary structure of a farmstead other than the dwelling. The specific fieldwork for this volume took two years and was concentrated in areas preselected for their relevance. The fieldwork not only made possible this excellent guide to identifying, understanding, and appreciating farm buildings, but recorded a dwindling cultural resource. Visser has for years encouraged the preservation of barns, building interest among their owners. This book, it is hoped, by increasing awareness of these often neglected structures, will advance the cause of their preservation.

   The Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings will prove informative and entertaining to a wide audience, from agricultural historians to New England residents who haven't truly appreciated the value of farm buildings as cultural resources.

1 comments about Conversations with Mies van der Rohe.

1. Sorry but you'd reconsider about purchasing of this book, if you're outside the US. Like me, item has never been delivered to you.

2 comments about Green Development: Integrating Ecology and Real Estate.

1. An excellent overview of the evolving movement towards green development. The book is somewhat dated and lacks in-depth coverage in some areas. Regardless effectively gets you into the space.



2. This book throughly presents sustainable real estate development. It answers the basic questions of how, what, when, why and who with text and photos illustrating numerous case studies.

   It is written for a wide and concerned audience, composed of real estate professionals, financiers and designers. This book is not technical. It is a conceptual book and guides the reader toward sustainable solutions.

   This subject is very large and this book is necessarily a summary, which includes recent projects.

   This book does not "preach to the choir". It addresses difficult obstacles to the sustainable development paradigm and provides workable solutions.

2 comments about City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch.

1. This is THE BOOK for anyone -not exclusively urban planners- who wants to understand not only the physical form of the city, but how its citizens interact with the urban landscape. Through his experience and observation, Lynch reminds us that the most important component of a city -the reason why they are built- are its inhabitants.



2. Michael Southworth and Tridib Banerjee, former students of Kevin Lynch at MIT's School of Urban Studies and Planning, have organized a brilliant collection of most of Lynch's works. Here we can find his seminal ideas pointed out trough his researches in the field of environmental perception, as well as his urban design projects. The book still presents a good biography of Lynch and serves as a very interesting complement to the books that this fundamental author wrote. It is an extremely important work both to architectural and urban design students as well as to professionals and researches.

1 comments about Worthy of the Nation: Washington, DC, from L'Enfant to the National Capital Planning Commission.

1. This is a revised and updated reissue of the book that first appeared three decades ago. I have always been fascinated with the physical planning and development of the city where I was born (and again work in today)---and this is by far the best single history of that process over more than two centuries. Essentially focused on the work of the National Capital Planning Commission first formed in 1926, the study begins with the initial laying out of plots in the late 1790s, and then traces how the city has grown and changed in the decades since. Sometimes this development has been a matter of good planning, but almost as often that has not been the case. The overlapping concerns of local and federal government bodies (such as the older Commission of Fine Arts) is made clear, as is the central importance of both L'Enfant's original plan, and the 1901 McMillan Commission report that lay the ground for today's modern city. Well illustrated, this is a readable story of how the nation's capital city came to be the way it is.

No comments about Memory and Architecture.