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New and notable books on architecture, culture, and design.
June 2002
The Politics of the Artificial:
Essays on Design and Design Studies
By Victor Margolin
Designed by Renate Gokl
University of Chicago Press, 274 pp., $60.00/$20.00
One of the pioneers of design studies, Margolin explores such issues here
as the role of the end user, sustainability, and research. Whether he's
talking about the experience of using products, design history, or the fascinating
collection of Mickey Wolfson, the author demonstrates a thorough understanding
of the nature and practice of design, and navigates easily from the theoretical
to the practical.
Skin: Surface, Substance, + Design
By Ellen Lupton, with essays by Jennifer Tobias,
Alicia Imperiale, Grace Jeffers, and Randi Mates
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution/Princeton
Architectural Press, 240 pp., $35.00
The catalog for the eponymous exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt, Skin
is an exploration of surfaces, both human and human-made. Though occasionally
(like its subject) superficial, this compendium of products, furniture,
fashion, architecture, and media offers surprising insights into our relationships
with the increasingly complex "skins" that surround us.
Hot Dirt Cool Straw
By James Grayson Trulove, with Nora Richter Greer
HBI (an imprint of HarperCollins), 192 pp., $39.95
Often when people picture houses that are designed specifically to
be green, they imagine yurts or geodesic domes. As fine as those forms
may be, technological innovations in recent years have made livable design
fully compatible with eco-friendly function. Twenty-four such homes, mostly
from North America, are presented here in photos, drawings, and plans.
Stalking Detroit
Edited by Georgia Daskalakis, Charles Walkheim, and Jason Young
ACTAR, 158 pp., $39.00
Spurred by the birth of the automobile, Detroit's population between 1900
and 1950 exploded from 285,000 to more than 1.8 million. But by 2000 the
population had declined by half and vast swathes of the city were razed.
Stalking Detroit--a collection of photographs, essays, and design
projects--proposes that Detroit's history is that of "the most modern
city in the world...in the sense that this city has exemplified the
assumptions of enlightened modernity like no other."
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Isamu Noguchi: Sculptural Design
Edited by Alexander von Vegesack,
Katarina V. Posch, and Jochen Eisenbrand
Vitra Design Museum, 320 pp., $48.00
The catalog for the Vitra Design Museum's latest coup--a retrospective on
American sculptor, designer, and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi--is proof
that a German institution has a better hold on Modernism than any American
museum does. Noguchi was one of the most versatile of Modern experimenters,
and this visually comprehensive book pays close mind to the philosophical
connections between his art pieces and functional designs.
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