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New and notable books on architecture, culture, and design.
May 2002
The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition
By James Howard Kunstler
Free Press, 272 pp., $25.00
Urbanist and prose provocateur Kunstler profiles eight cities--Paris,
Atlanta, Mexico City, Berlin, Las Vegas, Rome, Boston, and London--delving
deeply into the history of those places in an attempt to assess their current
states of health. The result is a lively, intelligent book, but the author
apportions too much blame (and power) to the Modernist movement that he
so clearly reviles.
Cities from the Sky:
An Aerial Portrait of America
By Thomas J. Campanella
Foreword by Witold Rybczynski
Princeton Architectural Press, 128 pp., $50.00
Bringing together over 125 photographs taken over five decades by the
Fairchild Aerial Survey Company, this book provides a fascinating look at
how our major cities have evolved. Campanella's sharp descriptions place
the photos in historic context. Organized geographically, Cities from
the Sky starts in New England and works its way across the continental
United States. Reading it is like taking a plane trip over America during
the first half of the twentieth century.
Ferruccio Vitale: Landscape Architect of the Country Place Era
By R. Terry Schnadelbach
Princeton Architectural Press, 326 pp., $60.00
Italian-born Vitale moved to the United States in 1904 to practice landscape
architecture. His classical private designs--most notably works for country
estates--have been obscured by the naturalistic public projects of his celebrated
contemporaries, the Olmsted brothers. Schnadelbach seeks to restore Vitale
to his proper place in the history of landscape architecture, and the 40-plus
beautifully photographed projects on these pages make a compelling case.
Eco-Tech: Sustainable Architecture and High Technology
By Catherine Slessor
Photographs by John Linden
Thames & Hudson, 192 pp., $29.95
When you look at highly engineered buildings by Thomas Herzog, Santiago
Calatrava, or the three Brits (Foster, Grimshaw, and Rogers), what you see
are the unobscured structural elements. Many of the buildings in Eco-Tech
are dramatic and monumental with soaring halls of glass suspended from complex,
lattice-like steel supports. The physical beauty of these spaces comes explicitly
from the engineering. But they aren't just beautiful--they are among the
most energy-efficient buildings ever built and are extremely sensitive
to their urban sites.
An Eames Primer
By Eames Demetrios
Design by Ph.D.
Universe, 272 pp., $45.00/$29.95
The work and design thinking of Charles and Ray Eames looked at through
the eyes of their grandson, Eames Demetrios, who accessed the designers'
personal archives and interviewed many of their colleagues and associates.
All aspects of the studio's prodigious output are covered, from furniture
and architecture to films and exhibition design. The result is an affectionate
and inspiring portrait.
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