Book Review: The Landscape Imagination

The Landscape Imagination: The Collected Essays of James Corner 1990-2010 edited by James Corner and Alison Hirsch
Princeton Architectural Press, 2014
Hardcover, 320 pages



Recently I visited the office of James Corner Field Operations to do a studio visit for World-Architects. Like other studio visit features, I carried out a little bit of research beforehand to get in the right frame of mind and have the foundation for a better conversation, in this case with Mr. Corner himself. One part of my research consisted of reading some of his essays collected in this handsome book released earlier this year. Previous to this I had read Corner's Taking Measures Across the American Landscape (with photographer Alex S. MacLean) as well as essays in The Landscape Urbanism Reader and other collections. So I had some familiarity with Corner's writings, particularly when it came to aerial representation and landscape urbanism, but I soon discovered these areas are just a small part of his writing output.


[High Line at the Rail Yards | Photo: John Hill]

As I explained in the studio visit, "Corner came to professional practice in a deliberate way by combining teaching and writing with practice as a means of advancing a particular approach to landscape architecture and urban design." To put it another way, he did not dive into practice, churning out one residential landscape after another or, as he put it to me, "just planting beds around buildings." He used writing, hand-in-hand with teaching, to create an intellectual foundation for his practice and define a way forward for his practice and the larger profession. It's no wonder that he became one of landscape urbanism's strongest proponents, since it requires a particular way of thinking – a theory – about the city, industry, ecology, and landscape; this theory was developed through essays and books that came at a time when landscape architecture was lacking in them.


[High Line at the Rail Yards | Photo: John Hill]

The foundations of Corner's positions are found the in the first section of the book, Theory, which is followed by three more that take a roughly chronological path through his career so far: Representation and Creativity, Landscape Urbanism, and Practice. I found the second and fourth sections the most interesting, as the aerial and other representations are extremely interesting to me, and Corner's writings on practice are the most recent and therefore the most pertinent to projects like the High Line, Fresh Kills, and the many others just completed or underway. For those interested in his writings but not sure where to start, Alison Hirsch's lengthy but very clear introduction takes the reader step by step through these phases of Corner's writings. And it's clear from the book's subtitle (the essays end in 2010, four years before publication) that these writings may have reached some sort of resolution. For with Field Operations busy and growing, and more of Corner's time devoted to practice, writing essays has been sidelined. These essays then serve as a good example, among other things, of how writing can inform practice by being an important part of it.

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Book Review: Nordic Light

Nordic Light: Modern Scandinavian Architecture by Henry Plummer
Thames & Hudson, 2014
Paperback, 256 pages



Last year I included Henry Plummer's Cosmos of Light, a record of three religious buildings designed by Le Corbusier, in my list of notable books of 2013 at Designers & Books. I must admit that even though Plummer contributes both the words and the photographs, be it Cosmos of Light or Nordic Light, the subject of this review, it's the photographs that sway me toward a deep liking of his books. While Plummer's love of what he is documenting in words and images is clear, I find his text flowery, full of adjectives that are trying really hard to convey the qualities of light that come across in particular buildings or places. But I'd argue that his photographs convey those qualities so much better; such is the skill of his shooting, particularly his framing and his patience in waiting for the right light. The cover of Nordic Light – Kaija and Heikki Sirén's Student Chapel in Otaniemi, Finland (1957) – makes this much clear.


[Juha Leiviskä's Myyrmäki Church in Vantaa, Finland, 1984]

In this coffee table book, available both in hardcover and paperback, Plummer documents 45 buildings in Scandinavia, with 14 in Denmark, 22 in Finland, 5 in Norway, and 4 in Sweden. The buildings are split into nine thematic chapters that describe how the architecture in these northern countries responds to the conditions of sunlight: whiteness, rhythm, journey, carving, forest, transparency, tranquility, diffusion, and darkness. While these chapters are listed in the table of contents, the buildings are not, meaning the book is a voyage of discovery more than a reference for highlighting particular buildings. This goes hand in hand with Plummer's patient and almost meditative way of photographing and discussing the projects. Not surprisingly, as is hinted in the cover photo and two other photos included here, Plummer has something for churches, which populate the book in large numbers. This makes sense, given that churches are an architectural typology ripe for exploring the literal and metaphorical role of light, and therefore they are perfect for Plummer's studied lens.


[Matti Sanaksenaho's St. Henry's Chapel in Turku, Finland, 2005]

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Book Review: Constructing Europe

Constructing Europe: 25 Years of Architecture edited by Diane Gray, Fundació Mies van der Rohe
Actar Publishers, 2013
Hardcover, 308 pages



In 2013 the Mies van der Rohe Foundation celebrated the 25th anniversary of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award. Twenty-five years – one quarter of a century – is a typical milestone, but in the context of the prize it might seem a little odd, given that it happens every two years. So while the book, exhibition, and related events celebrate 25 years, it only 13 cycles of the prize happened in those years; the inaugural run happened in 1988 and the first of the new millennium took place in 2001, hence the shift from even- to odd-numbered years. A small and trite point to make, to be sure, but more importantly the decade-and-a-half time frame allows the prize organizers to reflect on the changes and important buildings that occurred in that time.



Graced by a cloud rather than one of the winners, the cover makes it clear that the organizers do not elevate one building over another, even as each year the job of the jury is to do such. Hence, the organization of the book is straightforward: a chronological presentation, in black and white photos, of the winners for each cycle, followed by essays culled from the different prizes. In terms of the latter, those with catalogs to the EU/Mies Prizes, also published by Actar, will recognize these essays, just as they will surely recognize the winners. Given that the winning and shortlisted buildings presented here are known by most fans of architecture, the value of the book is in assembling the essays, which trace the important issues of each cycle and highlight different voices: Kenneth Frampton, Elia Zenghelis, Aaron Betsky, Ricky Burdett, and so forth.



In addition to the photos and essays are a handful of new essays that look back on the prize's first 25 years and a foldout timeline that situates the winning buildings within a larger European context of politics, culture, and science. As an entirety, the book's content serves to elevate the importance of the prize to both a European audience and those outside of Europe. To date, the rule of awarding prizes to European architects realizing designs on European soil has narrowly restricted the influence of architects from Europe. When the prize returns in 2015, that limitation may be extended (per comments from the Mies Foundation's director at the Biennale this year) to European buildings overseas, something that would acknowledge the exportation of ideas and the cross-border movement of architects. Perhaps in another 25 years, the retrospective catalog will be called Constructing the World.

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Book Review: Architectural Drawing

Architectural Drawing by David Dernie
Laurence King Publishing, 2014, Second Edition
Paperback, 208 pages



In addition to the author's own drawings, the first 30 pages of David Dernie's inspirational and practical guide to architectural drawing features a watercolor by Steven Holl, a computer rendering by Zaha Hadid Architects, one of Coop Himmelb(l)au's closed-eye sketches, a Lebbeus Woods hand rendering, and a photomontage by Eric Owen Moss, among others. The variety evident in these pages, which encompass the introduction and part of the first chapter, Lines, prepares the reader for the rest of the book, which does not elevate one form of drawing over another (hand drawing over computer rendering, for example). Instead, Dernie embraces the multitude of techniques today to "explore the fluidity and continuity of drawing as a creative process of 'materializing thoughts'."



The second edition of Architectural Drawing, first published in 2010, is one of publisher Laurence King's "student skills" series of books in architecture. The series also includes a title on modelmaking, reviewed here in 2010, and books on CAD, digital fabrication, technology, construction, and history. Although much of the content in the drawing and modelmaking books is from the UK, they have enough general ideas and international content to make them suitable to a much wider audience than the publisher's home country.



Dernie's book is split into three sections – Media, Types, Places – to cover as much ground as possible in 200 pages. Media is further broken down into Line, Render, and Mixed Media, with numerous step-by-step lessons covering pencils, Photoshop, charcoal, collage, and other ways of using different media. Types moves from sketches to perspectives, from the quickest to the most laborious, again presented with a number of step-by-step lessons on both hand and computer techniques. Finally, Places looks at how drawings are used to describe interiors, landscapes, and urban settings. Inserted between the many practical lessons throughout the book are case studies, highlighted by gray pages; these supply the inspiration that rounds out Dernie's intended balance of practice and inspiration.



While clearly aimed at students in architecture, the book should also appeal to young architects, given the wide range of media and techniques explored. Students are at the whims of their professors more than their own desires or interests, meaning there will be gaps in their education that this book can partly fill. I for one never ventured into linocut or screenprinting, and my experience in the computer environment tended to be narrow, having found one way over time that worked for me. For Dernie, expression isn't limited to one type or method, and his openness to the various ways of drawing should make students and young architects that much more adventurous.

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Book Review: Three Books for Kids

Sunrise to High-Rise: A wallbook of architecture through the ages by Lucy Dalzell
Cicada Books, 2014
Hardcover, 24 pages

Who Built That? Modern Houses by Didier Cornille
Princeton Architectural Press, 2014
Paperback, 84 pages

Who Built That? Skyscrapers by Didier Cornille
Princeton Architectural Press, 2014
Hardcover, 84 pages



I'm a big fan of architecture books geared toward children, mainly because knowledge of architecture in the years before college could use a boost. My background was an exception, with some classes in high school, but for kids in grade school and middle school, architecture isn't talked about as much as it should be. Books geared to them can range from fables and other stories to biographies and sketchbooks. Together, kids books about architecture convey an understanding of the subject's history, but also how to think like an architect in terms of spatial understanding and representation. The three books reviewed here are aimed at kids around 10-12 years of age, since the titles are interested with giving a sense of architectural history and conveying how buildings evolved over the years.


[Bordeaux House, Rem Koolhaas. Spread from Who Built That? Modern Houses | Photo by John Hill]

First is one of two "Who Built That?" books by Didier Cornille; this one is focused on houses and therefore takes a landscape format, while the one on skyscrapers appropriately uses the portrait format. Cornille starts with Gerrit Rietveld's Schröder House (1924) and ends ten houses later with Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till's Straw House (2002). While the title asserts the importance is in the "who," the drawings and text are really more concerned with the "how" and the "why," which is important considering that modern and contemporary houses can be more perplexing than traditional houses in these terms. Didier's drawings are colorful and have a playfulness that is commendable, though the portraits of the architects are a bit off; they capture the features of Wright, Mies, Gehry, and the rest, but nevertheless look only a little bit like their namesakes.


[Torre Agbar, Jean Nouvel. Spread from Who Built That? Skyscrapers | Photo by John Hill]

Much of the same can be said about Cornille's second "Who Built That?" book, which is about skyscrapers. Yet given the complex technical requirements of tall buildings, there is an even larger emphasis on how they are built. For example, the above spread, showing Jean Nouvel's design for Torre Agbar in Barcelona, describes the sequencing of the construction and a section of its concrete core tied deep in the watery soil. Given the need for more space for the explanations, and the inclusion of additional examples by the same architects (also present in the modern houses book, but not to the same degree), the book features only eight skyscrapers, unlike the ten houses that are featured in the same amount of pages. Nevertheless, the book does not delve as deep as, say, David Macaulay in Unbuilding, but it does give enough variety in the forms and locations of the eight skyscrapers that any child should find one of interest.


[Spread from Sunrise to High-Rise | Photo by John Hill]

The third children's book here isn't really a book at all; it is a concertina binding that opens like an accordion, telling the history of architecture through buildings on one side and through styles/periods on the other. The latter is fairly dry, with text and one example highlighting everything from neolithic architecture (10,000-2000 BC) to contemporary architecture (unfortunately, postmodern architecture (1960-1990) incorrectly highlights OMA's CCTV tower, which is neither postmodern nor fitting within the timeframe), but the former's colorful panorama by Lucy Dalzell is especially beautiful, particularly when it's unfurled to over 90 inches.

The buildings – from the Göbekli Tepe in Turkey in 10,000 BC to Lacaton Vassal's Tour Bois le Prêtre in France (2006-2011) – overlap and blend into each other to create an undulating, architectural horizon line. Sure, the buildings are not scaled relative to each other, creating odd and ever-changing depths of field, but the whole expressively tells the story of major monuments over time. It is an international history that has some suspect building and layout choices here and there (Rural Studio's small Yancy Chapel is a refreshing choice, but it towers over buildings by Gehry, Libeskind, Foster, Nouvel and others in a somewhat jarring manner), but it is for the most part a well-rounded selection. It's not often that children's books have the option of becoming wall art, but in this case it's clear the illustrator and publisher wanted the history of architecture to be an ever-present part of a child's bedroom.

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Book Review: Two Books about Writing

The Architect's Guide to Writing: For Design and Construction Professionals by Bill Schmalz, illustrations by Bob Gill
Images Publishing, 2014
Paperback, 160 pages

Writing Architecture: A Practical Guide to Clear Communication about the Built Environment by Carter Wiseman
Trinity University Press, 2014
Paperback, 230 pages



I am an architect first and a writer second. Educated as an architect and urban planner, I find myself devoting most of my time to writing, be it for this blog, online publications or printed matter. While my situation is different than most architects who run or practice in firms, I share an educational background where studio comes first and writing comes much later – certainly not second but maybe fourth or fifth. This condition makes sense, given the need to express ourselves through drawings and models, the need to understand structures and materials, and a general reliance of the visual over the written word in explaining ideas to others. This condition also means that the writing of architects who came out of the system could be much improved. I like to think my writing has improved over the years, considering I do a lot of it every day, but for practicing architects it's helpful to have aids when it comes to the task of writing. These two books, although they sound similar, are very different from each other; in concert they offer broad and detailed advice for the many architects in need of help in expressing themselves through writing.

The broad strokes come from Carter Wiseman in his book Writing Architecture. Wiseman, a former architecture critic for New York Magazine, teaches classes at Yale, one of them on architectural writing. Much of that class lays the foundation for this book, and occasionally the author uses examples culled from the class. If writing is directed at addressing certain questions (who, what, when, where, how, why), Wiseman's book deals with the what, the how, and the why. What is defined in the chapters that take different types of writing as their subject: criticism, scholarship, literature, presentation, professional communication. How comes in the form of positive examples that Wiseman quotes and discusses within the chapters; most often these are architects and writers, but sometimes they come from his students, and sometimes the examples are how not to write. Why is basically the whole book, which argues that clear communication is integral for successful architecture, since words have an important part in expressing ideas, and because any architect will admit they write much more than they ever would have anticipated.

With Wiseman broadly addressing who, how, and why, Bill Schmalz, a principal at Perkins + Will's L.A. office, hones in on the how, but not in the same way that Wiseman does. In The Architect's Guide Writing, Schmalz examines vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, style, spelling, and other highly detailed ways of writing the English language. Given the many pages devoted to clearing up errors that shouldn't happen with educated people (its versus it's, for example), it's clear that the author believes architects are poor writers, or perhaps good writers struggling through bad habits. Therefore the book functions like a crash course in getting reacquainted with written English in order to write more clearly, free of jargon, and primarily free of errors (it's hard to be completely free of them). More seasoned architect/writers, myself included, may find the advice to be basic, but I was amazed at how many questionable things appear in my own writing (such as "in order to" in the previous sentence, which could just as effectively be shortened to "to").

So even though two books on writing for architects were released within weeks of each other, their different approaches to the topic mean they do not step on each other's toes, and they actually work together quite well. Traits that both share include the goal of better writing for architects and conveying that goal through clear writing; their books are their best examples, in other words. Wiseman's book relies on other voices to a large degree, reminiscent of Alexandra Lange's Writing About Architecture, and this helps to infuse the book with variety and some references to actual architecture. Schmalz, on the other hand, uses humor (in his writing, but also in Bob Gill's illustrations) as a way to make what are at times remedial lessons go down easier and become memorable. Another commendable trait they share is that they are both quick reads, and for architects out there who would rather spend their time on anything but reading and writing, that should make their lessons go down that much easier.

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Book Review: Furniture by Architects

Furniture by Architects edited by Driss Faith
Images Publishing Group, 2013
Hardcover, 208 pages



The appeal of furniture for architects – both as something to use to improve a space and something to tackle as a design problem – is undeniable. But it's also been said (by Mies van der Rohe, most famously) that designing a chair is much more difficult than designing a building. Perhaps that is why architects have created so few masterpieces of furniture, especially when compared to their raison d'etre of buildings. Sure, in the former camp, the Barcelona chair by Mies comes to mind, as does Marcel Breuer's Wassily chair and Eero Saarinen's Womb chair, but the hits are few. Still, this does not stop architects from trying, especially if they have an enlightened client who is willing to pay for an architect's experimentation with furnishings, experiments that can move from the custom realm to mass production. This book collects over 80 pieces of furniture by contemporary architects, a collection that runs the gamut in terms of who, what, why and where.


[UNStudio's MYchair Lounge]

Before delving into more words about the book, I'll admit that I'm a sucker for the idea of architects designing furniture; I wrote a piece for World-Architects that surveys the designs produced by W-A member firms, such as UNStudio's MYchair Lounge (also included in the book reviewed here), and I even own a catalog on a 1980s Whitney exhibition of furniture by American architects. Like the Whitney's Shape and Environment book, I was hoping for an overview that also put today's architect-designed furniture in context. Instead, this book from Images Publishing Group is basically a catalog of products, more marketing than insightful commentary, pulling text from architects alongside photos of the pieces. Thankfully, most of the photos show the furniture in context, and only occasionally floating on a white background.


[SLHO and Associates' Modular Outdoor Furniture]

If you are looking for a source with numerous furniture designs, unlike me, then this book will do the trick. As I mentioned, it includes a wide variety of furnishing – different authors (who), different types (what), different approaches to design (why), and different contexts (where) – with names that range from the famous (Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, UNStudio) to the less-so (FINNE Architects, Griffin Enright, and Saaj Design have some of the most pieces in the book).

Aside from highlighting a wide variety of primarily good furniture designs, the book could have been improved in terms of organization and cross-referencing. Even though "architects" is in the title of the book, the furnishings are arranged alphabetically by name, an odd tactic considering how arbitrary these names can be and how this disperses an architect's pieces throughout the book. An index of architects is given at the back with simply the page numbers where their furnishings appear, but it's too little, especially when their creations could have been cross referenced, as could have similar types of furnishings (chairs, benches, dining room tables, light fixtures, etc.). Instead each piece floats in a vacuum, making the book a catalog without prices when it could have been so much more.

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Book Review: 2012 Competitions Annual

2012 Competitions Annual edited by G. Stanley Collyer with Daniel Madryga
The Competition Project, 2013
Paperback, 240 pages



At the start of the 1990s, Competitions magazine began publishing quarterly issues with notices and results on architectural competitions. In 2011 the publication went the way of many magazines and is now online-only, though its print output has segued to an annual book that collects the results of some prominent competitions. The second edition, covering competitions in parts of 2011 and 2012, features the winners and runners up for 16 competitions.

Competitions is based in Kentucky, so it's no surprise that the (now e)magazine tends to focus on the United States, but as the back cover attests: "the majority of competitions for real projects in this volume reflect not only the institutional commitment of foreign nations to this process, but the dire economic straits our governing bodies find themselves in." This quote points to an emphasis on "real" competitions versus "ideas" competitions, while indicating that U.S. competitions in the annual are few; in fact only 5 of the 16 projects are located in the United States, 7 if we broaden the criteria to North America by adding Canada. But of course competitions in any locale are geared to entice as many architects from different countries (often pairing up with local architects) to enter, hopefully leading to more ideas and potentially bigger names. Therefore U.S. participation, as the Annual attests elsewhere in its pages, goes far beyond the locations of competitions.


[OMA: Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec. Image: © OMA, rendering by Luxigon]

That said, the U.S. competitions tend to be less flashy and with fewer (or no) big names. This doesn't mean these competitions don't have value, but the mix of international/local and famous/not-so-famous in the book broadens its appeal to a wider spectrum of architects and fans of architecture. An example of the international/famous side of things is the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec competition, won by OMA, with Allied Works, David Chipperfield and others as runners up. On the local/not-so-famous side can be found the Atlanta History Center competition, won by Pfeiffer Partners, with Stanley Beaman & Sears, MSTSD and others as runners up. Given Competitions' focus on results in its annual, we do not learn what really happened to these and other "real" projects. In these cases, OMA's design, officially called the Pierre Lassonde Pavilion, started construction in 2013 and is slated for a 2015 opening, while Pfeiffer Partners' winning design was shelved in favor of an arguably inferior design by Atlanta's MSTSD, but not their runner-up entry they did with Kallman McKinnel & Wood.


[Pfeiffer Partners: Atlanta History Center. Image via waltercrimm.com]

But the big question, the elephant in the room if you will, is the obvious one: What is the value of the Annual in the age of Arch Daily, Bustler, and other websites featuring competitions results with plenty of images and text from the architects? The answer is threefold: The first has already been alluded to, as the book includes competitions that these websites do not feel the need to feature (Arch Daily's coverage of the Atlanta competition is solely a 2011 call for architects announcement, for example). The second is that Competitions includes editorial commentary and jury comments, which these websites don't include and sometimes include, respectively. Third is having the winner and the runners up in one place, which makes it easy for comparison and to have a mental picture of reactions to the competition brief, easier to achieve in a book than on separate web pages online; often websites highlight only the winner and/or only it and a couple runners up. Even if every notable competition isn't covered (an appendix with other competitions, some of them ideas competitions, and their winners is included) the thoroughness of the 2012 Annual should be commended.

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Book Review: Three Books about Chicago

AIA Guide to Chicago edited by Alice Sinkevitch and Laurie McGovern Petersen
University of Illinois Press, 2014, Third Edition
Paperback, 568 pages

Building Ideas: An Architectural Guide to the University of Chicago by Jay Pridmore
University of Chicago Press, 2013
Paperback, 160 pages

Chicagoisms: The City as Catalyst for Architectural Speculation edited by Alexander Eisenschmidt with Jonathan Mekinda
Park Books, 2013
Hardcover, 184 pages



Recently I received review copies of three books on Chicago, so it seems appropriate to put them together into one review, discussed in alphabetical order.

Having produced my own guide to architecture in New York City, and therefore having researched many guidebooks, one of my pet peeves with guidebooks (architectural or otherwise) is when they are not designed with their use in mind. By this I mean being carried around, having easy-to-find entries and easy-to-navigate maps, and giving the reader something of interest while seeing the site in person. Although the AIA Guide to Chicago excels in many respects (to be discussed soon), the third edition actually takes a step back from the 2004 edition in one important area: maps. The new edition forgets one thing the previous edition was aware of: books have folds where information gets lost, so don't put anything within about 1/4" or 1/2" of the fold. Unfortunately the maps don't heed this advice, so many streets and buildings in the two-page maps are lost, only to be found by those that break the binding or cut the book apart. This is unfortunate, more a mistake for a first edition than a third, especially when the second edition got it right.

With that out of the way, the positive aspects of the guidebook are many, building upon the previous edition (also edited by Sinkevitch) with better navigation (page-end tabs make the chapters easy to find), thorough histories of the city and neighborhoods, commendable fact-checking (unlike the AIA Guide to New York, as I wrote in my review), and good additions with the many contemporary buildings that are once again making Chicago an exciting place to be an architect and archi-tourist. Things were not so optimistic when the previous edition came out in 2004, timed, like the third edition, to the AIA Convention descending on the city.

I'll admit that in the decade I worked as an architect in Chicago (1997-2006), there was a general malaise with architects in the city, brought on by important projects going to outsiders and bland buildings being erected by locals (Millennium Park was just completed in 2004, so its impact was not yet felt). There were bright spots with Jeanne Gang, John Ronan, Wheeler Kearns, and Brininstool + Lynch, among others, but mediocrity was the norm over the design excellence Chicago is known for, rose-colored glasses or not. But positive momentum has been in swing as Gang, Ronan (below photo) and others have received more commissions and created some of the best architecture in the city, with buildings that are drawing attention to far-flung parts of the globe – Gang's Aqua Tower, the most obvious expression of this, graces the cover for good reason. Of course, there is much more to see than Aqua, and this book (warts and all) is a good companion to exploring the city from what's left of its 19th-century origins to the present.


[Poetry Foundation, John Ronan Architects, 2011 | Photo by John Hill]

When a review copy of Building Ideas: An Architectural Guide to the University of Chicago landed on my doorstep, the first thing my wife asked was, "what do they say about the Smart Museum?" where we got married in 2006. Turns out the answer was "nothing." I could find the museum labeled #2 on a map near the front of the book, but when I flipped through the book to find the same, thinking it might be arranged in order of the 31 buildings on the map, I couldn't find it. The chapters are chronological/thematic, moving from "The Gothic Campus" to "Building Ideas with Modern Architecture," so projects are out of sync with the numbering on the map. OK. But looking in the index, the only mention of the Smart Museum of Art is for the two-page spread of the map. I checked the 30 other buildings and discovered only one other building (International House) in the same predicament; every other building is discussed at some length in the book.

So what does the inclusion of the Smart Museum in the map but its omission from any description say about the book? First, combined with the somewhat large size of the book (10"x9"), it's not an "architectural guide" in the sense of the AIA Guide to Chicago or any other portable, keyed-and-mapped guidebook. A more accurate subtitle would have been "an architectural history of the University of Chicago," given the way the chapters are arranged, the narrative flow of Pridmore's writing, and the way the reader learns about the planning and evolution of the physical campus. Most people will not notice the omission of the Smart Museum from the text, but if they used it as a guide to the campus, as the subtitle indicates, they most certainly would have noticed. (That said, Pridmore did produce an architectural tour of the campus in 2006 as part of PAPress's campus guide series, a more traditional guide that predates the university's latest building boom.)

Aside from the quibble of "guide" versus "history," how is the book? While it does a great job in describing the evolution of the campus from its origins, selection of architect/planner, and even selection of style (less obvious and more important in the late 1800s than today) to its modern plans by Eero Saarinen and Edward Larrabee Barnes (he was architect of the Smart Museum, but in the book's one mention of the museum – not by name – it and other Barnes-era buildings "did not meet expectations") and the latest boom with buildings by Helmut Jahn, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, and Valerio Dewalt Train. But when it comes to the overall tone of the book and descriptions of the individual buildings, the book is more "booster" than either history or guide, as if the book is a promotion for the school rather than a scholarly or independent voice on it. Regardless of the Smart Museum's omission, people like me, with a fondness for the school in their hearts (this goes for alumni, professors and others who have spent time there for whatever reason), will find the book rewarding, but those looking for a proper guide should go with the AIA Guide, which devotes nearly 20 pages to more than 80 buildings on its Hyde Park campus.


[Chicagoisms exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago | Photo by John Hill]

Chicago is a city whose mythologies are more prevalent to foreigners than other cities. In my travels in Europe in the mid-1990s, just about everybody I met and told I came from Chicago replied with something about Al Capone and the mob ("stick 'em up, bang, bang!), or personalities like Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan, or its great architecture being limited to Frank Lloyd Wright and the "birth of the skyscraper." Even today, people tell me that it makes sense I'm an architect/architectural writer, considering I came from the city. People's impressions of Chicago are colored by personalities whose contributions were great but which overshadow the complexities and realities of the city. Many histories repeat these myths and simplifications, but this great book thankfully goes the opposite route, dismantling some of those myths and putting Chicago in an international context that shines a light on its influences.

The dismantling of myths starts right away with the first essay (of eight), Penelope Dean's comparison of two contemporaneous exhibitions in 1976: 100 Years of Architecture in Chicago: Continuity of Structure and Form and Chicago Architects. The first, organized by SOM's Peter Pran and Mies biographer Franz Schulze, was representative of the myth (still strong) that painted Chicago architecture as starting with the Chicago School, moving through Mies, and then culminating (at the time) with corporate modern firms like SOM. The second, on the other hand, argued that such a simple view was misleading, ignorant of the variety in Chicago architecture that was portrayed in the show; Stanley Tigerman and Stuart Cohen, among others, were responsible for the oppositional exhibition. Dean's analysis examines the two exhibitions but also how people in places like New York reacted to the shows and how they viewed architecture in Chicago.

The following essays take further in-depth, scholarly looks at Alvin Boyarsky, the Museum of Modern Art's 1933 exhibition on Chicago, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Burnham's Plan of Chicago, and of course Mies van der Rohe, among other subjects. Each one ties Chicago to another Place (London, New York, Berlin, etc.) as a means of lending alternative viewpoints to the city as, among other things, a testbed for innovations in architecture and urban design. Aiding the essays are 20 short-form pieces (each one a two-page spread on a pink background) that focus on a particular project from an atypical perspective (buildings by Mies, Bertrand Goldberg, and SOM, as well as projects by the likes of Greg Lynn, Sean Lally, and others). All tolled, the book is one of the freshest recent books on architecture in Chicago, one that inspired the Art Institute exhibition of the same name, in which some voices from the book use the essays as frameworks for speculating on Chicago's future evolution. Perhaps a future edition will combined the book and the exhibition to make an even better document of Chicago's realities and potential realities.

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Book Review: Building as Ornament

Building as Ornament by Michiel van Raaij
nai010 Publishers, 2014
Paperback, 240 pages



Before he took the helm at Dutch website Architectenweb, Michiel van Raaij penned one of my favorite architecture blogs, Eikongraphia (Iconography), which looked at buildings united through their resemblance to other things, things outside architecture. Projects, many not yet built at the time, were given a title that made it clear what sort of building-size iconography was in place: Gherkin, by Foster and Rocks, by Mazzanti, to name just a couple of the built projects. Michiel's comments were always in-depth and insightful, but much of the fun was in seeing the sheer number buildings being designed in such a way.

That was 5 or 7 years ago (the posts stopped in the middle of 2010), and today the prevalence of what Michiel calls "building as ornament" is much more widespread. It's hard to go a week without seeing a just completed building or just unveiled project on Arch Daily that resembles this symbol or that animal or this fruit or whatever the case may be. Michiel actually contends that we are witnessing the second generation of iconographic buildings, which are more nuanced than the attention-getting iconographic buildings of the first generation that he was covering on his blog.

While the trend of building as ornament can be grasped by many people, there is a good deal of disagreement over whether these second-generation icons are good or bad. Michiel sees them as unavoidable, not going away anytime soon. Therefore, he argues, architects should be deliberate and careful with how they design buildings as large-scale communication devices. Enter the interviews, which enable him to discuss the intentions of designing recognizable icons with eight prominent architects and two historians. There's Auke van der Woud, Denise Scott Brown, and Charles Jencks in the "iconographic detail" section; Adriaan Geuze, Michiel Riedijk, Alejandro Zaero-Polo, and Ben van Berkel in the "layered iconography" section; and Steven Holl, Winy Maas, and Bjarke Ingels in the "singular iconography" section. The interviews are bookended by two projects sections with numerous renderings and photographs of designs by other architects, and interspersed with two collage sections, one on "alphabet" buildings and one on "island" projects.

Occasionally in the interviews Michiel is met with resistance by the architects, ones who don't want to be known for designing "buildings that look like X or Y." While the author is able to clarify his intentions and then eke out some insight from his subjects, the end the chapter with Winy Maas's interview is telling of the precariousness of "building as ornament." It shows the reader MVRDV's controversial design for The Clould in Seoul from 2011, when comparisons to the destruction of the Twin Towers spread like crazy through the media, although the architects denied any intention as such (Michiel's interview happened before the design was released, and not surprisingly MVRDV did not return the author's later requests for comment). The design is a lesson in regards to the precariousness of iconography and confusion of messages across cultures; it certainly points to more nuanced design moving forward, along the lines of what Michiel is calling for.

Are we witnessing the end of icons or just a hiccup toward something else? Or to put it another way, is this book a snapshot of a brief period or a polemic for the evolution of icons? We will know in the coming years, as the answer lies with the architects (many in the book) that are fulfilling the wishes of clients around the world for buildings that stand out and get attention.

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Book Review: Book Mountain Spijkenisse

Book Mountain Spijkenisse: Biography of a Building by Nicoline Baartman, Winy Maas
MVRDV/nai010 Publishers, 2013
Hardcover, 260 pages



Book-length case studies of buildings are great for giving more space than a monograph or magazine in explaining the history, design, realization, and in some cases post-occupancy of a particular building. But this type of book begs the question: Who writes it and who is it for? The first could be the architect (the most common), or perhaps the client, or even a freelance writer commissioned by one, both, or neither. And in most cases the answer to the second is "other architects." The answer to the first for this "biography" of MVRDV's Book Mountain in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands, is "all of the above"; and for the second it is "everybody."


[Photo: Jonas Klock/Flickr]

The library is part of a district in the admittedly unexceptional town of Spijkenisse near Rotterdam, which also includes residences designed by MVRDV (photo above). The project's evolution from a library into something larger is explained in the book, as is the history of the town, something that the hip-roofed form of the library taps into. What is most interesting about the book is that the story of the library is told in three intertwining ways:

1 - A narrative by journalist Nicoline Baartman,
2 - A photographic essay by Marcel Veldman,
3 - And a pictorial documentation by the architects.

Further, #1 and #3 occupy two sides of the same pages, as MVRDV's contribution is found entirely within gatefolds, in the vein of Diller Scofidio + Renfro's large book on Lincoln Center. Therefore one can read Baartman's text without ever encountering MVRDV's visual essay. Veldman's photos, on the other hand, happen in five spots spaced throughout the book on glossy b/w pages; they are hard to miss.


[Photo: Jonas Klock/Flickr]

The contributions are three ways of telling roughly the same story: painting a picture of the town and its people, describing the building, and speculating on the place's future now that it has this special library. The book therefore is greater than the sum of these parts, at least when readers take the time to read each piece or parts of each piece. Sure, there is some overlap in terms of what is learned, but these areas point to what is important, what it is about the place and the building that the architects and Baartman felt the need to discuss. As can be expected, I found myself focusing on certain parts and skimming others for both; MVRDV's visual history of the place does a great job of explaining Spijkenisse, as do Baartman's interviews with residents, particularly the ones she talked to inside the library.


[Photo: Jonas Klock/Flickr]

This experiment of sorts for telling multiple stories about a building is not the only one for MVRDV; they also created a "biography" of the Glass Farm, a similar forward-thinking/vernacular-formed building in Holland. Like the buildings themselves, the books have a strong public component, in that they strive to make architecture understood by a larger audience (the forms, and in the case of the Glass farm the graphics, make modern architecture easier to digest). I'm all for broadening architectural appreciation, without dumbing things down of course. Book Mountain Spijkenisse is commendable in this regard, and I hope other architects and publishers take note.


[Photo: Jonas Klock/Flickr]

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Book Review: Leftover Rightunder

Leftover Rightunder: Finding Architectural Potential in Found Materials by Wes Janz
Half Letter Press, 2013
Paperback, 96 pages



I've often written that small things don't necessarily equate with small impacts, be it buildings or other projects. It's the ideas embedded within a design that are important, not necessarily their physical size or visibility. The work of Wes Janz certainly fits within this statement, given his predilection for small projects (heck, his studio is even called onesmallproject), as well as the fact Leftover Rightunder is a compact expression of his various studies, installations and buildings that are focused on "finding architectural potential in found materials."


[Green Springs | Photo: Wes Janz]

Flipping through the book is like rummaging through the mind of Janz, a professor at Ball State University in Indiana. The book starts with the "leftover lexicon," a collection of terms (some of them defined, most of them not) that offer "a more useful vocabulary" from the normal way of thinking about architecture. But the list of terms gives way to photos of dumpsters, "small architectures" and other found objects, only to pick up later in the book, interspersed with student projects, installations, an essay, more found objects, and a garage built almost entirely from pallets (more on that later). The book bounces all over the place, but somehow it works. Kudos should go to book designer Jerome Daksiewicz, who took Janz's voluminous photographic documentation (over 9,000 photos on Flickr!) and distilled it into a readable book that really stresses the huge amount of waste in the United States that could be put to good use.


[Arbor in Indianapolis | Photo: Wes Janz]

But what to do with an old couch? Or a mattress? Or pallets? These are the three main sources of material for Janz and his students. One of the most impressive projects in the book is Green Springs, an exhibition at the Sheldon Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, where designer Azin Valy and fabricator Brian McCutcheon worked with Janz to fashion trellises for plants from old bed springs. Other projects include an arbor made from branches downed by storms and materials from Janz's late parents' house, resulting in a construction "of memory and love."


[Timber Pallet Workshop | Photo: Wes Janz]

About one-half of the book is devoted to pallets, which makes sense given their ubiquitousness, orthogonal shape and materiality; they are much easier to transform into architecture than couches and mattresses. Janz worked with students to fashion pavilions made from pallets, but then he designed a garage made with pallets, what he calls "the first and only permanent building in the United States to be constructed almost entirely of timber pallets and authorized with a building permit." Not only does the small project express Janz's idea of finding potential in found materials (close to 200 million pallets are disposed of every year), it does so beautifully, thanks in part to how it interfaces with other materials – most notably the corrugated translucent plastic on the exterior – but also in how the pallets are detailed, so they don't look simply like pallets slapped on the wall.


[Pallet Garage | Photo: Wes Janz]

Ultimately Janz's work – both his teaching and his architecture – can be seen as an inversion of the usual direction of influence, which goes from first world countries to third world countries. He works the other way around, finding inspiration in the methods of third world countries, where resources are scarce and creativity is a matter of finding the right uses for what is available. As well, materials don't have a limited shelf life, after which they are discarded; they are reconsidered after fulfilling their primary use. Pallets, therefore, are not thrown away after carrying boxes of dry goods, or whatever the case may be, for a period of time; they are fixed up to become walls, floors and even roofs for different types of shelters. It's an admirable position that should be more widespread, and perhaps this small book will help.

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Book Review: Torre David

Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities edited by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, Urban-Think Tank Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, ETH Zürich; photographs by Iwan Baan
Lars Müller Publishers, 2013
Hardcover, 416 pages



Think of "informal housing" and most likely the slums of cities like Mumbai, Lagos, Rio and Caracas come to mind. Built from corrugated metal, CMUs, plastic and other readily available materials, these informal settlements share a condensed, horizontal orientation, following the land they are built upon. But think of vertical versions of the same and only two places come to mind, at least to me: Kowloon Walled City and Torre David in Hong Kong and Caracas, respectively. Each construction arose from particular conditions of place and time: KWC evolved over about a century by its occupants, thanks to it being located in an in-between zone separate from Chinese and Hong Kong rule; and the unfinished Torre David was occupied by residents due to a number of factors, including the death of its developer David Brillembourg, a contemporaneous economic crash in Venezuela, and a political leader eager to house all of its country's residents. Now that the residents of Torre David have left the downtown tower, it seems like a good time to look at this book that documents the unique conditions of the place.


["Torre David" installation at 2012 Venice Biennale | Photo by John Hill, image source]

The book is a result of Urban Think Tank's (UTT) years spent studying the tower as it evolved from an unfinished part of the skyline to a partially occupied "vertical community," and of Iwan Baan's visual documentation of the place. Their contributions to the project were also made part of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, where Baan's photos were hung on brick walls that echoed those built by residents to "complete" the unfinished tower's exterior walls, and a cafe turned the middle of the Arsenale into a bustling spot. Curator Justin McGuirk, who has just written his own book, Radical Cities, on Torre David and other settlements in Latin America, transplanted the essence of Torre David – the improvisation, the materials, the vitality – to Venice. The Biennale jury was impressed enough to award it the Golden Lion for the Best Project of the International Exhibition Common Ground.


[The unfinished 45-story tower is the third tallest in Caracas | Photo by Iwan Baan, image source]

In order to convey the qualities of the place without the benefit of creating a space that can be occupied temporarily, the book relies on Baan's photographs to a great deal, as well as UTT's descriptions and drawings. Both are necessary to understand the extents of the construction (Torre David, for example, is actually made up of multiple buildings, not just one tower), the layout of the informal residences, how services are integrated into the unfinished building, and how people have improvised homes in 28 of the tower's 45 floors. To put it another way, where the drawings describe the place, the photograph's describe the lives within the place. In this sense, the two means of visualization are necessary to each other.


[A basketball court has been inserted in the gap between the tower and the parking garage | Photo by Iwan Baan, image source]

It's important to note that UTT's efforts weren't limited to capturing Torre David and its residents as a situation, nor were they interested in promoting the residents' efforts as the ideal. UTT made proposals for making the settlement permanent, focused primarily on sustainability, so that all of the tower's floors could be used and each resident would have safe access to water and power. But as recent news has made clear, the squatter's lives inside Torre David were numbered. Initial rumors indicated that a Chinese bank bought the building and thereafter evicted the residents, with the goal of restoring the building to its original function as an office building and bank center. Yet other reports say the buildings will be torn down and replaced with cultural buildings. Whatever the case, most of the roughly 1,000 families have been moved to new housing outside of Caracas.


[Only one stair is available for ascending the tower | Photo by Iwan Baan, image source]

That the book/exhibition/project did not result in getting the residents and city to work together to make this iteration of Torre David more permanent does not mean the book is meaningless. Far from it. The book's greatest value – much like Greg Girard's and Ian Lambot's great book, City of Darkness, on KWC – is to break down the myths of the place (that it's crime-ridden, unsafe, etc.) and describe to readers how it really worked. That Torre David had security guards on the ground floor, a community hierarchy of leadership, community services within the building, small business catering to transit and other needs (the list goes on), shows that there was a great deal of organization in the seemingly chaotic and improvisatory creation. Those traits, to a greater or lesser degree, will follow in the families new homes, even as the circumstances will be very different.


[Inside one of the units in the tower | Photo by Iwan Baan, image source]

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Book Review: Eastwest

Eastwest: Nabil Gholam Architects edited by Warren Singh-Bartlett and Ana Corberó; main text by Warren Singh-Bartlett and Nabil Gholam; essays by Kenneth Frampton and Gökhan Karakus
Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers, 2014
Hardcover, 496 pages



Even before cracking the spine on this monograph on Lebanese architect Nabil Gholam (NGA), it's clear that the book is something special. Yes, it is a large book, but beyond size alone the cover gives this impression, as it is made up of no less than three layers: blue velum comprises the outermost layer, with the title and the name of the firm embossed in silver; the second layer is a stiffer dust jacket printed with a checkerboard of images (mountains, bricks, a rainbow on a carpet, leaves, faces, sketches, etc.) on both sides, with more personal ones on the inside; the last layer is the hardcover itself, a shiny silver surface with blue text (the inverse of the vellum) that reflects a rainbow to the reader depending upon the angle of view. Immediately these physical layers reveal that NGA's architecture has layers, a complexity hiding behind the modern exteriors.


[Clouds – Faqra, Lebanon]

This superficial interpretation is corroborated by historian Kenneth Frampton, who says in his introductory essay that NGA's work "defies easy classification...it may be regarded as a competent, late modern global practice ... [that is] capable of creating works that possess a uniquely grounded, local character at a variety of scales." This ability to create a grounded, local character is most immediately evident in the Clouds, a housing estate of eleven villas in Faqra, Lebanon (above spread). Called "rock nesting" in the book (each project is further titled by a 2- or 3-word phrase by the architects), the villas are perched upon stone-walled terraces that raise the wood volumes high enough to give the residents distant views.


[Platinum Tower – Beirut, Lebanon]

So if the clouds project is representative of NGA's ability to embrace and exploit the natural features of a place, what about the late-modern globalism that Frampton refers to? The title of the monograph offers a hint: "Eastwest" picks up on on Gholam's background – born in Beirut, educated in Paris and New York, taught in southern China, worked in Barcelona before starting his practice back home in 1994 – and how this crisscrossing of the globe has impacted what the 50-strong NGA produces. One way Gholam's east-west-east movement has influenced their designs for Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries is through a modern architecture that embraces local elements. For example, the Platinum Tower (above spread) that NGA designed with Ricardo Bofill (his old Barcelona employer) resembles a 21st-century residential high-rise in cities as distant as New York, but its corner loggias are so generous – a response to climate and the way people live in the city – that it could not exist in another such place as is. Further, the backlit glass gives the tower overlooking the Beirut marina a distinctive stacked-cube appearance that has made it a local landmark.


[Skygate – Beirut, Lebanon]

Across its nearly 500 pages, the monograph moves from one such project to the next, from house to tower, from small-scale to large-scale, from built to unbuilt. There is an apparent ease with which NGA shifts scales, typologies, geographies, and materials (thankfully stone is as prevalent in his design as glass). In some cases a motif or large-scale gesture reappears, bridging different projects and different places. One example is the corner notch found at the top of the Jeddah Tower (below spread) as well as taking a bite out of the Doha Oasis. But these occasional gestures do not result in a distinctive Gholam-style. Instead, working within an orthogonal modernist palette (with the occasional oval or other curve), NGA crafts designs that respond carefully to program and context. This monograph captures that skill, though with so many unbuilt projects in the mix, I look forward to the next one when Gholam and company has built that much more.


[Jeddah Tower – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia]

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