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What makes an architect tick? What is the state of architecture today? How do architects view each other's work? No one can answer these questions better than the practitioners themselves. In this publication Cecil Balmond, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Philip Johnson, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, I. M. Pei, and others offer a wide-ranging assortment of(...)
Talking architecture: interviews with architects
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What makes an architect tick? What is the state of architecture today? How do architects view each other's work? No one can answer these questions better than the practitioners themselves. In this publication Cecil Balmond, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Philip Johnson, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, I. M. Pei, and others offer a wide-ranging assortment of perspectives on contemporary architecture and the architects' roles in shaping the state of the art today. Each interview focuses on the unique contributions of its subject and is accompanied by images of their most important works. With a no-holds-barred approach the author obtains interesting details about their ideas on architecture in general, from where they get their inspiration to what formative experiences led them to become architects in the first place. Updated with new images, this informative, accessible, and endlessly fascinating collection offers a chance to compare, contrast, and get to know the architects that are shaping the world we live in.
Architectural Theory
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National parks are the places that present ideas of nature to Americans: Zion, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone bring to mind quintessential and awe-inspiring wilderness. By examining how rhetoric - particularly visual rhetoric - has worked to shape our views of nature and the "natural" place of humans, "Observation Points" offers insights into questions of(...)
Observation points : the visual poetics of national parks
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National parks are the places that present ideas of nature to Americans: Zion, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone bring to mind quintessential and awe-inspiring wilderness. By examining how rhetoric - particularly visual rhetoric - has worked to shape our views of nature and the "natural" place of humans, "Observation Points" offers insights into questions of representation, including the formation of national identity.
Landscape Theory
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When we think of segregation, what often comes to mind is apartheid South Africa, or the American South in the age of Jim Crow—two societies fundamentally premised on the concept of the separation of the races. But as Carl H. Nightingale shows us in this history, segregation is everywhere, deforming cities and societies worldwide. Starting with segregation’s ancient(...)
Segregation: a global history of divided cities
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When we think of segregation, what often comes to mind is apartheid South Africa, or the American South in the age of Jim Crow—two societies fundamentally premised on the concept of the separation of the races. But as Carl H. Nightingale shows us in this history, segregation is everywhere, deforming cities and societies worldwide. Starting with segregation’s ancient roots, and what the archaeological evidence reveals about humanity’s long-standing use of urban divisions to reinforce political and economic inequality, Nightingale then moves to the world of European colonialism. This publication lays bare our troubled past, and sets us on the path to imagining the better, more equal cities of the future.
Urban Theory
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Chicago is a city dedicated to the modern—from the skyscrapers that punctuate its skyline to the spirited style that inflects many of its dwellings and institutions, from the New Bauhaus to Hull-House. Despite this, the city has long been overlooked as a locus for modernism in the arts, its rich tradition of architecture, design, and education disregarded. Still the(...)
Chicago makes modern: how creative minds changed society
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Chicago is a city dedicated to the modern—from the skyscrapers that punctuate its skyline to the spirited style that inflects many of its dwellings and institutions, from the New Bauhaus to Hull-House. Despite this, the city has long been overlooked as a locus for modernism in the arts, its rich tradition of architecture, design, and education disregarded. Still the modern in Chicago continues to thrive, as new generations of artists incorporate its legacy into fresh visions for the future. Chicago Makes Modern boldly remaps twentieth-century modernism from our new-century perspective by asking an imperative question: How did the modern mind—deeply reflective, yet simultaneously directed—help to dramatically alter our perspectives on the world and make it new?
Architectural Theory
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In On the Animation of the Inorganic, Spyros Papapetros examines ideas about simulated movement and inorganic life during and after the turn of the twentieth century--a period of great technical innovation whose effects continue to reverberate today. Exploring key works of art historians such as Aby Warburg, Wilhelm Worringer, and Alois Riegl, as well as architects and(...)
On the animation of the inorganic: art, architecture, and the extension of life
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In On the Animation of the Inorganic, Spyros Papapetros examines ideas about simulated movement and inorganic life during and after the turn of the twentieth century--a period of great technical innovation whose effects continue to reverberate today. Exploring key works of art historians such as Aby Warburg, Wilhelm Worringer, and Alois Riegl, as well as architects and artists like Fernand Leger, Mies van der Rohe, and Salvador Dali, Papapetros tracks the evolution of the problem of animation from the fin de siecle through the twentieth century. He argues that empathy--the ability to identify with objects of the external world--was repressed by twentieth-century modernist culture, but it returned, projected onto inorganic objects such as machines, automobiles, and crystalline skyscrapers.
Architectural Theory
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Nestled between Santa Monica and Marina del Rey, Venice is a Los Angeles community filled with apparent contradictions. There, people of various races and classes live side by side, a population of astounding diversity bound together by geographic proximity. From street to street, and from block to block, million dollar homes stand near housing projects and homeless(...)
Venice: a contested bohemia in Los Angeles
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Nestled between Santa Monica and Marina del Rey, Venice is a Los Angeles community filled with apparent contradictions. There, people of various races and classes live side by side, a population of astounding diversity bound together by geographic proximity. From street to street, and from block to block, million dollar homes stand near housing projects and homeless encampments; and upscale boutiques are just a short walk from the (in)famous Venice Beach where artists and carnival performers practice their crafts opposite cafes and ragtag tourist shops. In Venice: A Contested Bohemia in Los Angeles Andrew Deener invites the reader on an ethnographic tour of this legendary California beach community and the people who live there. In writing this book, the ethnographer became an insider; Deener lived as a resident of Venice for close to six years. Here, he brings a scholarly eye to bear on the effects of gentrification, homelessness, segregation, and immigration on this community.
Urban Theory
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In Waterfall, Brian Hudson explores the many myths and legends waterfalls have inspired in cultures ranging from Native American to Celtic and Indian, and how they have been depicted in art, literature, film, and music. He also examines their influence on architecture and landscape design, as manmade waterfalls begin to be a staple of parks, gardens, and backyard(...)
Waterfall: nature and culture
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In Waterfall, Brian Hudson explores the many myths and legends waterfalls have inspired in cultures ranging from Native American to Celtic and Indian, and how they have been depicted in art, literature, film, and music. He also examines their influence on architecture and landscape design, as manmade waterfalls begin to be a staple of parks, gardens, and backyard landscaping. Hudson also discusses the ecology of waterfalls and the conflict that arises from their importance as both a source of hydroelectric power and tourist attractions in many countries. As erosion takes its own toll, the additional environmental impacts of human exploitation could be devastating.
Landscape Theory
A philosophy of discomfort
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A Philosophy of Discomfort explores the idea of comfort and discomfort as a historical and philosophical concept – a constant push and pull of opposing forces. Discomfort is a relative state, changing as the idea of well-being shifts through different epochs and cultures. Yet Jacques Pezeu-Massabuau claims that discomfort is of greater importance than comfort, even as we(...)
A philosophy of discomfort
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A Philosophy of Discomfort explores the idea of comfort and discomfort as a historical and philosophical concept – a constant push and pull of opposing forces. Discomfort is a relative state, changing as the idea of well-being shifts through different epochs and cultures. Yet Jacques Pezeu-Massabuau claims that discomfort is of greater importance than comfort, even as we maintain the constant struggle to evade pains and privations. He explores notions of comfort over time, and considers examples of housing and interiors, from Japanese homes to the Moroccan casbah and modern city apartments, in which aspects of discomfort – the physical lack of well-being – are tolerated and accepted. In so doing, he also unravels the myths of modern comfort. While instinct demands we avoid it, the author insists that we recognize discomfort as central to our existence. He suggests we should learn to utilize it in order to find our way to its opposite: be it pleasure, hedonism or well-being.
Architectural Theory
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In 1975, when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat Phai Rong Wua, a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom, he felt he had wandered into a demented Disneyland. One of the world's most bizarre tourist attractions, Wat Phai Rong Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues depict violent and(...)
The fate of rural hell : ascetism and desire in buddhist Thailand
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In 1975, when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat Phai Rong Wua, a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom, he felt he had wandered into a demented Disneyland. One of the world's most bizarre tourist attractions, Wat Phai Rong Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues depict violent and torturous scenes that showcase what hell may be like. Over the next few decades, Anderson found himself transfixed by this unusual amalgamation of objects, returning several times to see attractions like the largest metal-cast Buddha figure in the world and the Palace of a Hundred Spires. The concrete statuaries and perverse art in Luang Phor Khom's personal museum of hell included, 'side by side, an upright human skeleton in a glass cabinet and a life-size replica of Michelangelo's gigantic nude David, wearing fashionable red underpants from the top of which poked part of a swollen, un-Florentine penis,' alongside dozens of statues of evildoers being ferociously punished in their afterlife. In The Fate of Rural Hell, Anderson unravels the intrigue of this strange setting, trying to discover what compels so many Thai visitors to travel to this popular spectacle and what order, if any, inspired its creation. At the same time, he notes the unexpected effects of the gradual advance of capitalism into the far reaches of rural Asia.
Art Theory
Mountains and memory
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From Egypt’s Abu Simbel to South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore to Tan Swie Hian’s Earth Art Museum in China’s Quingdao National Forest, mountains have long been shaped to resemble human personages, including pharaohs, presidents, and painters. Mountains and Memory explores this practice and traces the history of anthropomorphism—the attribution of human qualities to non-human(...)
Mountains and memory
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From Egypt’s Abu Simbel to South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore to Tan Swie Hian’s Earth Art Museum in China’s Quingdao National Forest, mountains have long been shaped to resemble human personages, including pharaohs, presidents, and painters. Mountains and Memory explores this practice and traces the history of anthropomorphism—the attribution of human qualities to non-human nature—as expressed in the form of carvings on mountainous rock formations.
Architectural Theory