Rem Koolhaas has been part of the international avant-garde since the nineteen-seventies and has been named the Pritzker Architecture Prize for the year 2000. This book, which builds on six canonical Koolhaas projects [Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture; Ville Nouvelle Melun-Sénart; Maison à Bordeaux; Dutch Embassy; Seattle Public Library; and CCTV], traces the discursive practice behind the design methods used by Koolhaas and his office OMA. It uncovers recurring key themes—such as wall, void, montage, trajectory, infrastructure, and shape—that have structured this design discourse over the span of Koolhaas's oeuvre. The book moves beyond the six core pieces, as well: It explores how these identified thematic design principles manifest in other works by Koolhaas as both practical re-applications and further elaborations.
In addition to Koolhaas's individual genius, these textual and material layers are accounted for shaping the very context of his work's relevance. By comparing the design principles with relevant concepts from the architectural Zeitgeist in which Koolhaas has operated, the study moves beyond its specific subject—Rem Koolhaas—and provides novel insight into the broader history of architectural ideas.
Herman Hertzberger (b.1932) is one of the most important and critically influential figures in international architecture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. A constant champion of fundamentally humanist modern architecture, Hertzberger is rightly regarded as the world’s foremost designer of schools, a building type he has almost single-handedly redefined.
Hertzberger believes that architecture is above all else a shared, collective discipline. His world famous lessons in architecture involve ethics and edification, engagement of the built legacy of those who lived before us, and the fundamentally optimistic and constructive intention to make the world a better place for the people who live in it. With a foreword by Kenneth Frampton, this monograph by acclaimed international author Robert McCarter examines Hertzberger’s most important architectural works through analysis of the design process and guiding ideas, particularly as these reflect Hertzberger’s engagement with the Modernist tradition, architectural history, urban space and the way we experience it.
A new graphic biography by Pierre Christin and Olivier Balez recounts the achievements of one man who changed the the face of an entire city. Robert Moses: the mastermind of New York.
From the subway to the skyscraper, from Manhattan’s Financial District to the Long Island suburbs, every inch of New York tells the story of one man’s mind: Robert Moses, the architect who designed it all. Now, in Christin and Balez’s graphic biography, the rest of Robert’s story will be told.
(but cheaper to buy direct from Cinema Guild on DVD and Blu-Ray.)
The War of Streets and Houses is named after General Thomas Bugeaud's 19th century essay; the first manual for the preparation and conduct of urban warfare. The text greatly influenced Baron Haussmann’s famous re-development of Paris, and the planning of modern cities. In 2012 the author participated in the massive Montreal student strikes. In the midst of protesting crowds and police kettles, the military origins of urban planning suddenly became an undeniable reality. Sophie Yanow’s most ambitious work to date deftly melds the history of urban planning, theories of control with personal experiences of political activism.
Collage and Architecture is the first book to cover collage as a tool for design in architecture, making it a valuable resource for students and practitioners. Author Jennifer Shields uses the artworks and built projects of leading artists and architects, such as Le Corbusier, Daniel Libeskind, and Teddy Cruz to illustrate the diversity of collage techniques. The six case study projects from Mexico, Argentina, Sweden, Norway, the United States, and Spain give you a global perspective of architecture as collage. Collage is an important instrument for analysis and design, and Shields’s presentation of this versatile medium draws on decades of relevance in art and architecture, to be adapted and transformed in your own work.Or maybe I'm just a sucker for a timeline chart (from the introduction, best viewed large):
