Download or read book Writing About Architecture written by Alexandra Lange and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extraordinary architecture addresses so much more than mere practical considerations. It inspires and provokes while creating a seamless experience of the physical world for its users. It is the rare writer that can frame the discussion of a building in a way that allows the reader to see it with new eyes. Writing About Architecture is a handbook on writing effectively and critically about buildings and cities. Each chapter opens with a reprint of a significant essay written by a renowned architecture critic, followed by a close reading and discussion of the writer's strategies. Lange offers her own analysis using contemporary examples as well as a checklist of questions at the end of each chapter to help guide the writer. This important addition to the Architecture Briefs series is based on the author's design writing courses at New York University and the School of Visual Arts. Lange also writes a popular online column for Design Observer and has written for Dwell, Metropolis, New York magazine, and The New York Times. Writing About Architecture includes analysis of critical writings by Ada Louise Huxtable, Lewis Mumford, Herbert Muschamp, Michael Sorkin, Charles Moore, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Jane Jacobs. Architects covered include Marcel Breuer, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Field Operations, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Frederick Law Olmsted, SOM, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Download or read book A Pattern Language written by Christopher Alexander and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction. After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning, which will we hope replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language. At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people. At the core of the books, too, is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a forma system which gives them coherence. This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. "Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seemly likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.
Download or read book Building the Nation written by Steven Conn and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2003-06-23 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Some anthologies seem slapdash or opportunistic; others are labors of love, informed by a mastery of a particular field and a passion for sharing the heterogeneous richness of their documents. "Building the Nation" is happily one of the latter. . . . Vastly useful."--"Preservation"
Download or read book Beyond Architecture written by Robert Klanten and published by Gestalten. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond Architecture is the first publication of its kind to document the creative exploration of architecture and urban propositions in the contemporary arts. The projects collected in this book demonstrate how not only architects and designers but also artists are taking architecture as a starting point for experimentation. They range from performance, installation art and crafted sculptures to architectural models, alternative ideas for living spaces and furniture, as well as illustration, painting, collage and photography. Through stunning photography, visuals and complementary texts, these visionary concepts reveal the hidden creative potential for architecture and urban environments in inventive ways.
Download or read book Geography Of Nowhere written by James Howard Kunstler and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1994-07-26 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that much of what surrounds Americans is depressing, ugly, and unhealthy; and traces America's evolution from a land of village commons to a man-made landscape that ignores nature and human needs.
Download or read book The Chicago School of Architecture written by Rolf Achilles and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-10 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The birth of the skyscraper in Chicago in the mid-1880s introduced a new direction for city architecture: upwards. But how-and why- was it that Chicago set the standard for high-rise buildings, not only across the USA but all over the world? Rolf Achilles here introduces the style of the First Chicago School from 1880 to 1910, explaining the innovative use of iron frames for strength, height and openness, and the ubiquity of gridded window arrangements. With reference to such famous architects as William Le Baron Jenny and Frank Lloyd Wright, and colorful pictures of, among many others, the Reliance, Brooks and Marquette buildings, this book is a fascinating exploration of the structures that helped to give Chicago its identity, and the world a new way of building.
Download or read book New Public Works written by Mark Robbins and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1999 and 2002 the National Endowment for the Arts's New Public Works program sponsored design competitions in cities across the United States. The forward-thinking designs that emerged have influenced the physical form of major public works projects nationwide. New Public Works presents a history of the program, along with interviews with participants. Special attention is paid to the key role played by private, municipal, and other public funding sources. Case studies of three built projects by Allied Works Architecture, Koning Eizenberg, and Weiss/Manfredi Architecture describe the path of each from competition through construction.
Download or read book American City written by Robert Sharoff and published by Images Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: St. Louis is one of the most architecturally impressive cities in the United States, with a heritage of innovative design stretching back to the early 1800s. This is reflected in the architecture of the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods. More than just about any city in America, St. Louis embraced the imposing forms and lush ornamentation of the Beaux Arts tradition. Indeed, one can make the argument that only Washington, D.C. in the United States has a more impressive collection of classically inspired structures. American City: St. Louis Architecture is the first large-format book on the city's architecture since the 1920s, and includes over 100 new color photographs and text for 50 of the city's most important structures. These range from such 19th Century masterpieces as Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building, Alfred Mullet's Old Post Office and Theodore Link's Union Station, to Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch, Tadao Andao's Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Building and Maya Lin's recently completed Ellen Clark Hope Plaza.
Download or read book Why Buildings Stand Up written by Mario Salvadori and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1990 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a clear and enthusiastic introduction to building methods from ancient time to the present day, illustrated throughout with line drawings. In addition, Mr. Salvadori discusses recent advances in science and technology that have had important effects on the planning and construction of buildings.
Download or read book Working Cities written by Howard Davis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-12 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cities have historically supported production, commerce, and consumption, all central to urban life. But in the contemporary Western city, production has been hidden or removed, and commerce and consumption have dominated. This book is about the importance of production in the life of the city, and the relationships between production, architecture, and urban form. It answers the question: What will cities be like when they become, once again, places of production and not only of consumption? Through theoretical arguments, historical analysis, and descriptions of new initiatives, Working Cities: Architecture, Place and Production argues that contemporary cities can regain their historic role as places of material production—places where food is processed and things are made. The book looks toward a future that builds on this revival, providing architectural and urban examples and current strategies within the framework of a strong set of historically-based arguments. The book is illustrated in full colour with archival and contemporary photographs, maps, and diagrams especially developed for the book. The diagrams help illustrate the different variables of architectural space, urban location, and production in different historical eras and in different kinds of industries, providing a compelling visual understanding for the reader.
Download or read book Data Cities written by Davina Jackson and published by Lund Humphries Publishers Limited. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1.Introduction; 2. Today's Technologies; 3. Methods (Materials, Modelling, Making); 4. Climate Solutions; 5. Location Solutions; 6. Structural Solutions; 7. Data Cities; 8. Light, Art and Games; 9. Space Architecture; 10. Tomorrow's Architectures
Download or read book Soft City written by David Sim and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society. Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond. Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.
Download or read book Zaha Hadid written by Zaha Hadid and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zaha Hadid's highly inventive and seemingly unbuildable designs have defied conventional ideas of architectural space and construction. The BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany, is no exception. It is the heart of the BMW factory complexthe dynamic focal point of the entire plant that visually, physically, and experientially sustains a sense of animation and motion. With an audacious and abstracted geometry of forms and lines, the BMW Central Building challenges the notion of building as static and is definitive evidence of architecture as art. Zaha Hadid: BMW Central Building, the seventh volume in the Source Books in Architecture series, provides a comprehensive look at this instant modern masterpiece.
Download or read book Building Up and Tearing Down written by Paul Goldberger and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PAUL GOLDBERGER ON THE AGE OF ARCHITECTURE The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by Frank Gehry, the CCTV Headquarters by Rem Koolhaas, the Getty Center by Richard Meier, the Times Building by Renzo Piano: Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Paul Goldberger’s tenure atThe New Yorkerhas documented a captivating era in the world of architecture, one in which larger-than-life buildings, urban schemes, historic preservation battles, and personalities have commanded an international stage. Goldberger’s keen observations and sharp wit make him one of the most insightful and passionate architectural voices of our time. In this collection of fifty-seven essays, the critic Tracy Kidder called “America’s foremost interpreter of public architecture” ranges from Havana to Beijing, from Chicago to Las Vegas, dissecting everything from skyscrapers by Norman Foster and museums by Tadao Ando to airports, monuments, suburban shopping malls, and white-brick apartment houses. This is a comprehensive account of the best—and the worst—of the “age of architecture.” On Norman Foster: Norman Foster is the Mozart of modernism. He is nimble and prolific, and his buildings are marked by lightness and grace. He works very hard, but his designs don’t show the effort. He brings an air of unnerving aplomb to everything he creates—from skyscrapers to airports, research laboratories to art galleries, chairs to doorknobs. His ability to produce surprising work that doesn’t feel labored must drive his competitors crazy. On the Westin Hotel: The forty-five-story Westin is the most garish tall building that has gone up in New York in as long as I can remember. It is fascinating, if only because it makes Times Square vulgar in a whole new way, extending up into the sky. It is not easy, these days, to go beyond the bounds of taste. If the architects, the Miami-based firm Arquitectonica, had been trying to allude to bad taste, one could perhaps respect what they came up with. But they simply wanted, like most architects today, to entertain us. On Mies van der Rohe: Mies’s buildings look like the simplest things you could imagine, yet they are among the richest works of architecture ever created. Modern architecture was supposed to remake the world, and Mies was at the center of the revolution, but he was also a counterrevolutionary who designed beautiful things. His spare, minimalist objects are exquisite. He is the only modernist who created a language that ranks with the architectural languages of the past, and while this has sometimes been troubling for his reputation . . . his architectural forms become more astonishing as time goes on.
Download or read book A History of Architecture in 100 Buildings written by Dan Cruickshank and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2015-10-08 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring over 200 photographs, this stunning book by renowned television historian Dan Cruickshank tells the history of architecture through the stories of 100 iconic buildings
Download or read book London written by Paul L. Knox and published by Merrell. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: London, a fascinating metropolis not just in terms of its history and landmark buildings, is also a city that grew out of villages. Its unique geography is expressed in a mosaic of districts, each with its own distinctive character and pedigree. London's districts, with their patchwork layout of primarily Georgian and Victorian squares and terraces juxtaposed with modern buildings and estates, reflect changing ideals in architecture, urban design and planning as well as shifting values in real estate and the insatiable thirst of its consumers. London is thus both text and context: fossilized social history, layerings of economic, social, and architectural history conveyed in stock brick, stucco, Portland stone, glass and steel. Underpinning this urban landscape is an evolutionary resilience that has maintained the basic spatial framework of the metropolis and sustained its imitable character. The city's institutional framework has been severely ruptured and reinvented time and time again after fires, bombs, floods or wholesale redevelopment. Political unrest and racial conflict have resulted in riots, while successive rounds of investment and disinvestment have replaced elements of the built environment many times over. This book offers an insightful perspective into the distinctiveness of London as expressed through its socially significant buildings and districts.
Download or read book What Adults Don t Know About Architecture written by The School of Life and published by School of Life Press. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children are rarely introduced properly to architecture, but there are in fact few subjects more important – because the quality of the architecture that surrounds us has such an impact on our mood and sense of well-being. The bitter truth is that in modern times, we’ve built a world that’s far too often ugly or uncharming – and we’ve done so because only a very few people ever feel they have the right to comment on what gets built around them. This is a chance for the next generation to develop the tools to talk about architecture with confidence, knowledge and passion. It tells us about what a satisfying building is, what makes a street enticing (or not), why some cities are charming and others repel us – and how we might build going forward in a way that will reliably delight and uplift us. This engaging and beautifully illustrated guide is designed to help children (and their favourite adults) to understand how buildings work and how we might create the better looking world we all crave and deserve.
