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How did Los Angeles start the 20th century as a dusty frontier town and end up a century later as one of the globe's supercities - with unparalleled cultural, economic, and technological reach? Peter Lunenfeld constructs an urban portrait, layer by layer, from serendipitous affinities, historical anomalies, and uncanny correspondences. One of the book's innovations is(...)
CIty at the edge of forever: Los Angeles reimagined
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How did Los Angeles start the 20th century as a dusty frontier town and end up a century later as one of the globe's supercities - with unparalleled cultural, economic, and technological reach? Peter Lunenfeld constructs an urban portrait, layer by layer, from serendipitous affinities, historical anomalies, and uncanny correspondences. One of the book's innovations is to brand Los Angeles as the alchemical city. Earth became real estate when the Yankees took control in the nineteenth century. Fire fueled the city's early explosive growth as the Southland's oil fields supplied the inexhaustible demands of drivers and their cars. Air defined the area from WWII to the end of the Cold War, with aeronautics and aerospace dominating the region's industries. Water is now the key element, and Southern California's ports are the largest in the western hemisphere. What alchemists identify as the ethereal fifth element, or quintessence, this book positions as the glamour of Hollywood, a spell that sustains the city but also needs to be broken in order to understand Los Angeles now.
Urban Theory
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"Through time and the city: notes on Rome" offers a new approach to exploring cities. Using Rome as a guide, the book follows familiar sites, geographies, and characters in search of their role within a larger narrative that includes the environmental processes required to generate enough space and material for the city, the emergent ecologies to which its buildings play(...)
Architectural Theory
September 2020
Through time and the city: Notes on Rome
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"Through time and the city: notes on Rome" offers a new approach to exploring cities. Using Rome as a guide, the book follows familiar sites, geographies, and characters in search of their role within a larger narrative that includes the environmental processes required to generate enough space and material for the city, the emergent ecologies to which its buildings play host, and the social patterns its various structures help to organize. "Through time and the city" argues that Rome is made and unmade by an endlessly evolving chorus that has, for better or worse, gained geological legitimacy; that the city absorbs and emits countless artifacts in its search for collective identity; that the city is a platform for the constant staging of negotiations between agents (humans, buildings, plants, animals, pathogens, goods, waste, water) that drive and are driven by the entanglements of climate and culture. This book provides textual and visual frameworks for identifying the material traces, emergent patterns, or speculated futures that expose a city as inseparable from its capacity to change.
Architectural Theory
Still beautiful
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David Grandorge’s work is a type of Reconnaissance. In his photographs of cities, architecture appears as part of a network of reciprocal situations. His landscapes evoke a sense of balanced disequilibrium, of great energy and stillness. Natural and man-made aspects of reality seem to occur simultaneously, almost casually, as if discovered by the photographer in a state(...)
Still beautiful
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David Grandorge’s work is a type of Reconnaissance. In his photographs of cities, architecture appears as part of a network of reciprocal situations. His landscapes evoke a sense of balanced disequilibrium, of great energy and stillness. Natural and man-made aspects of reality seem to occur simultaneously, almost casually, as if discovered by the photographer in a state of unselfconscious innocence. This appearance of innocence is beguiling. On reflection, the charm, beauty and stillness of the photographs reveal the complexity and depth of the entanglements of humankind and the world. Comprising essays by Paul Shepheard and David Grandorge, and an interview between the photographer and David Campany, ''Still beautiful'' is a timely and poignant document. David Grandorge’s Arctic photographs, taken in 2007, are a form of witness to what is now a lost world. In 2017 he recorded the effects of mass migration – of global politics – upon the water levels of The Dead Sea. Still Beautiful is an acclamation of wonder: of both the beauty of the world, and of capacity of photography to move us to acknowledge it.
Photography monographs
Once upon a China
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"Once upon a China" is an unconventional architectural story of great beauty, empathy, honour and sadness. The chapters are reimaginations of "Dream of the red mansion," "Journey to the West ," "The water margin," and "Romance of the three kingdoms," and are conceived as specific themes of Chinese identity: domesticity, consumerism, democracy and adaptability. These four(...)
Once upon a China
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"Once upon a China" is an unconventional architectural story of great beauty, empathy, honour and sadness. The chapters are reimaginations of "Dream of the red mansion," "Journey to the West ," "The water margin," and "Romance of the three kingdoms," and are conceived as specific themes of Chinese identity: domesticity, consumerism, democracy and adaptability. These four seminal pre-modern fictions contain diverse voices and philosophical perspectives on history as well as satires that have defined past developments of Chinese societies, politics and the built environment. Comics is an unorthodox but extraordinary medium for architectural speculations. The eccentric characteristics of comic-inspired drawings in this book enrich the processes of conception and conceptualisation of design – their fragmented yet sequential nature proves versatile in the imagination of spatial experiences, enabling the complex stories of place, brief and building to materialise. At the same time, the politicisation of architecture through comics engenders a sense of optimism to reappraise Chinese design futures and critical thinking beyond the exuberance of non-contextual Western capitalist models.
Contemporary Asian Architecture
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The ocean is rising and with it sea level, water temperature, acidity, algal blooms, and storm surges. Also on the rise are the metrics of accelerated human activity. How are we to fathom the political, aesthetic, and epistemological rise of the oceans from centuries-long invisibilization and forgetting? What ideas and memories do the oceans hold in their depth and(...)
Oceans rising: a companion to “Territorial Agency: Oceans in Transformation”
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The ocean is rising and with it sea level, water temperature, acidity, algal blooms, and storm surges. Also on the rise are the metrics of accelerated human activity. How are we to fathom the political, aesthetic, and epistemological rise of the oceans from centuries-long invisibilization and forgetting? What ideas and memories do the oceans hold in their depth and reanimate, when the earth's ecosystems suffer? Asking different questions and using multiple registers of sensing expand the possibilities to engage with the oceanic at this precarious moment and rethink its relations to the terrestrial. This volume is a companion reader to "Territorial Agency: Oceans in Transformation", an independent oceanic research initiative commissioned by TBA21–Academy and operating out of Ocean Space in Venice. It offers forty-one thoughtful contributions by artists, scholars, scientists, and ocean activists in response to the rapidly changing oceans. Writing from places of conflict and concern, the contributions reveal the magnitude and urgency of ecological devastation, but more important, they provide alternative narratives that strengthen our knowledge communities and contribute to worldmaking practices from an oceanic perspective.
books
July 2021
Environment and environmental theory
Drivers of change
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Conceived and designed by the Foresight, innovation and incubation team at Arup, the influential consulting firm that advises on all aspects of the built environment, this card set features seven topics that have been chosen as headings for further discussion: energy, waste, climate change, water, demographics, urbanization and poverty. The 189 cards are divided into five(...)
Drivers of change
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Conceived and designed by the Foresight, innovation and incubation team at Arup, the influential consulting firm that advises on all aspects of the built environment, this card set features seven topics that have been chosen as headings for further discussion: energy, waste, climate change, water, demographics, urbanization and poverty. The 189 cards are divided into five domains known as the steep framework: societal, technological, economic, environmental, and political. Each card represents a single driver of change-for instance urban migration, ageing population, austerity-along with a challenging and thought-provoking question. The flip side of the card provides pertinent data to expand on the question, as well as maps, graphs, and other illustrations. An accompanying booklet offers tips on how to use these cards independently or in a group setting. Whether brainstorming for new ideas or facilitating a discussion, these graphically sophisticated cards are an excellent resource for anyone interested in the future of technology, design and sustainability or indeed the way we might live in the years to come.
Green Architecture
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The Finnish architect Pekka Helin created his first firm in 1979. In his design approach, he draws in a specifically Scandinavian manner both on functionalism as well as on the organic architecture of Aalvar Alto, Viljo Revell, and Heikki Sirèn, but also Arne Erve. The building material wood plays a prominent role in this extremely clear architecture. The firm creates(...)
Architecture in context: Helin workshop
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The Finnish architect Pekka Helin created his first firm in 1979. In his design approach, he draws in a specifically Scandinavian manner both on functionalism as well as on the organic architecture of Aalvar Alto, Viljo Revell, and Heikki Sirèn, but also Arne Erve. The building material wood plays a prominent role in this extremely clear architecture. The firm creates residential buildings -- often right next to water, where the structure's embeddedness in nature plays an important role in its sight lines -- but also office buildings, for example Nokia's corporate headquarters and the Finnish Modular Office, the tallest wooden office building in Europe. The firm's work also encompasses public buildings such as the Finnish embassy in Moscow and the concert hall and library in Espoo, and even town-planning projects, such as the master plan for the redesigning of the grounds of the former Oslo airport. This book presents twenty-four of the firm's projects organized by typological task, with the focus on life in nature, urban public buildings, residential structures, and various types of workspace.
Architecture Monographs
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Governor-General award winning architect Jeremy Sturgess recently celebrated thirty years in practice in Calgary, where he has been based his whole career. During that time, Sturgess has made a major contribution to transforming the architectural face of the city, from individual houses to large-scale public projects such as the Calgary Water Centre, the Grand Theatre,(...)
Canadian Architects
October 2010
Full spectrum : the architecture of Jeremy Sturgess
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Governor-General award winning architect Jeremy Sturgess recently celebrated thirty years in practice in Calgary, where he has been based his whole career. During that time, Sturgess has made a major contribution to transforming the architectural face of the city, from individual houses to large-scale public projects such as the Calgary Water Centre, the Grand Theatre, and Calgarys most recent downtown LRT stations. This publication provides a comprehensive and multifaceted examination of Sturgesss architecture and urban design, and assesses his contribution to Canadian architecture generally and Calgary architecture in particular. Editor Geoffrey Simmins has gathered perspectives from a number of individuals with whom Sturgess has enjoyed long-term professional relationships - an artist, an urban designer, an architect colleague, an architectural critic, and a journalist. Along with reflections on Sturgesss personality, philosophy, and creative growth, these contributors provide in-depth discussions of a number of Sturgesss most celebrated projects. Simmins himself has drawn on Sturgesss papers and several personal interviews to craft an insightful introduction to the volume. Illustrated with architectural line drawings and with photos by photographer Robert Lemermeyer.
Canadian Architects
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Wilkinson perceives the landscape of Singapore for the lush fertile rainforest that it is: a vast Henri Rousseau painting in which he can build. In his houses, the boundaries between inside and outside are blurred, a reciprocal relationship with the landscape is established, and a tropical ideal has been created. The architecture is always expressive and each of(...)
Tropical arts and crafts: the houses of Guz Wilkinson
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Wilkinson perceives the landscape of Singapore for the lush fertile rainforest that it is: a vast Henri Rousseau painting in which he can build. In his houses, the boundaries between inside and outside are blurred, a reciprocal relationship with the landscape is established, and a tropical ideal has been created. The architecture is always expressive and each of Wilkinson’s houses is defined by a set of formal gestures that are both playful and practical: a tactile indulgence is always underpinned by a commitment to sustainability and respect for the environment. Landscaping, planting and the use of water are crucial to these houses, which draw upon the whimsy and decorative detailing of Arts and Crafts architecture, and the spatial freedom of such architects as Schindler and Wright. This monograph feature twenty-one of Wilkinson’s houses, built over the last decade. Each project is illustrated by colour photography, and is documented with formal drawings, concept sketches and project descriptions. An introductory essay examines the architecture in the context of 21st century Singapore, and documents Wilkinson’s background, influences and design philosophy.
Architecture Monographs
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In northwest Russia, in a small village called Alekhovshchina, Nadia Sablin's aunts spend the warmer months together in the family home and live as the family has always lived chopping wood to heat the house, bringing water from the well, planting potatoes, and making their own clothes. Sablin's lyrical and evocative photographs, taken over seven summers, capture the(...)
November 2015
Aunties: the seven summers of Alevtina and Ludmila
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In northwest Russia, in a small village called Alekhovshchina, Nadia Sablin's aunts spend the warmer months together in the family home and live as the family has always lived chopping wood to heat the house, bringing water from the well, planting potatoes, and making their own clothes. Sablin's lyrical and evocative photographs, taken over seven summers, capture the small details and daily rituals of her aunts surprisingly colorful and dreamlike days, taking us not only to another country but to another time. Alevtina and Ludmila, now in their seventies, seem both old and young, as if time itself was as seamless and cyclical as their routines working on puzzles, sewing curtains, tatting lace, picking berries, repairing fences and as full of the same subtle mysteries. Sablin collaborated with her aunts to recreate scenes she remembered from her childhood and to make new images of the patterns of their days. In these photographs, Sablin combines observation and invention, biography and autobiography, to tell the stories of her aunts life together, and in the process, quilts together a thoughtful meditation on memory, aging, and belonging.