Architecture Books – Week 21/2024
Two from Thames & Hudson
This newsletter for the week of May 20 features two books published by Thames & Hudson that are being released this week — one on vernacular architecture and one on modern houses in Australia. Two books on the same subjects are pulled from the archive, while the usual headlines and new releases are in-between. Happy reading!
Books of the Week:
Habitat: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Climate edited by Sandra Piesik, published by Thames & Hudson (Buy from Amazon / Bookshop)
Seven years ago, Thames & Hudson put out Habitat: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Planet, a hefty 600-page book edited by architect Sandra Piesik with contributions by around one hundred experts in vernacular architecture. With its 11-1/2” x 14-1/2” trim size and 9-pound weight, the atlas-sized tome screamed for a compact edition, much in the way David Adjaye and Peter Allison’s African Metropolitan Architecture was given one five years after its 2011 release. I missed the first edition of Piesik’s book, though from what I gather the new compact edition being released this week is simply a pared-down version of the original: It is now 500 pages on smaller, 9” x 11-3/4” pages, and weighs just 4-1/4 pounds, thanks in part to lightweight matte paper. Unfortunately, the scaling-down of the book’s text results in a tiny font that can be hard to read, while the matte paper softens the colors in the book’s many photographs. The new edition omits two appendices from the original but maintains the essays, the hundred or so contributions organized via climatic regions (tropical, dry, temperate, continental, polar), and the nearly twenty examples of “contemporary vernacular.”
Although I describe the book in size as atlas-like, and the book does use maps to organize its contents, really Habitat is more of an encyclopedia. It is a sweeping presentation of the many types of vernacular buildings around the world, from Yanomami villages and urban favelas in Brazil to turf architecture in Iceland and arctic dwellings, with a lot in between. With so many contributions, the different types of vernacular buildings are presented across as few as two pages or as many as six — enough for architects who want to expand their knowledge of vernacular architecture but insufficient for those wanting to know considerably more. For the latter, a bibliography is provided at the back of the book, but the resources are listed generally, by country, rather than specific to each entry; so people wanting resources on Yanomami villages, for example, will have to wade through a long list of books, and they might not even something relevant. But for those who want to be exposed to — and learn from — the many ways people around the world have built in ways appropriate to their climates and cultures, this book is ideal.
The New Modernist House: Mid-Century Homes Renewed for Contemporary Living by Patricia Callan, published by Thames & Hudson (Buy from Amazon / Bookshop)
In addition to these two books sharing a publisher, The New Modernist House echoes Habitat by featuring eight houses designed by “unknown” architects among its selection of 21 mid-century homes that have been “renewed for contemporary living.” Of course, “unknown” is not the same as “vernacular,” but it comes close in a couple of ways: It points to the houses in Patricia Callan’s book, her first, being selected for their qualities rather than their name recognition; and it hints at how vernacular design taps into a common thread, a zeitgeist if you will, permeating a particular place and time. In regards to the first, I’ll admit I recognized few if any of the names of the house’s known architects, and architectural media last century complicates the latter statement while also revealing how mid-century modern is hardly limited to the United States — the houses in Callan’s book show a prevalence of the style in another country sharing America’s embrace of single-family houses: Australia.
The New Modernist House grew out of Modernist Australia, the blog (2008–2019) and now Instagram project by Callan, who grew up “in a classic 1970 McGlashan and Everist house in the suburbs” of Geelong, Victoria. Callan renovated and expanded her family’s home, an experience that informs “Renovating a Mid-Century Modern Home,” a particularly helpful essay early in the book, as well as the book in its entirety. “One overarching foundation to any successful project,” she writes in the essay, is “a grounding of integrity. Integrity is applied honesty.” Mid-century modern houses may have shared characteristics that make them recognizable as mid-century modern, but each one has its unique quirks — arising from its architect, or lack thereof, its location, its clients, etc. — and therefore the best restorations stay true to those origins.
Yet, even while mid-century modern in Australia and elsewhere is diverse, the 21 examples in The New Modernist House have a noticeable visual consistency across its 280 pages. Some of this can be attributed to the architectural photography and interiors staging, both of which are similar from house to house, but mostly it has to do with the faithfulness of the contemporary architects to the originals — the applied honesty. For someone like me, who is a hardcore fan of modernism but not necessarily enamored with mid-century modern’s particular nuances, the book’s visual consistency is too repetitious. But for people who make pilgrimages to Palm Springs for Modernism Week and love hanging out in tiki bars, The New Modernist House is a treasure trove of respectful renovations.
Books Released This Week:
(In the United States, a curated list)
Atlas of Never Built Architecture by Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin, published by Phaidon (Buy from Amazon / Bookshop) — The latest in the authors’ series of “Never Built” books — going global after Los Angeles (2013) and New York (2016).
Deutsches Architektur Jahrbuch 2024/German Architecture Annual 2024 edited by the German Architecture Museum (DAM), published by DOM Publishers (Buy from Amazon / Bookshop) — This book features the winner of the DAM Prize, the Study Pavilion on the campus of the TU Braunschweig, plus the two-dozen other shortlisted projects.
Food for Architects: Steib Gmür Geschwentner Kyburz – Exponents of Excellent Housing edited by Steib Gmür Geschwentner Kyburz Partner, published by Park Books (Buy from Amazon / Bookshop) — This monograph on Zurich’s Steib Gmür Geschwentner Kyburz is presented in a handful of books: a “five-course menu” with 65 key buildings and projects spanning 30 years.
Full disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, AbeBooks Affiliate, and Bookshop.org Affiliate, I earn commissions from qualifying purchases made via any relevant links above and below.
Book News:
By coincidence, a mid-century modern Little Free Library recently opened in Palm Springs; unfortunately the illustration in this story is not the one “with familiar butterfly roofline, designed by local architecture students.”
Oliver Wainwright digs into Atlas of Never Built Architecture, “a bulging compendium of dashed hopes and broken dreams that charts a fascinating alternative universe of ‘what ifs.’”
Wallpaper* rounds up some new architecture books published this spring, “from meaty monographs to themed explorations and lots of immersive visuals.”
From the Archives:
Back in 2010, a book written by freelance journalist John May, edited by Anthony Reid (a teacher of vernacular architecture who studied under the great Paul Oliver), and conceived, designed, and produced by Ivy Press (now part of Quarto), was released as Handmade Houses and Other Buildings: The World of Vernacular Architecture (Thames & Hudson) in the UK and Buildings Without Architects: A Global Guide to Everyday Architecture (Rizzoli) in the US. I reviewed the latter on my blog in July of that year, writing that it “follows in Oliver's footsteps, offering the reader an introductory guide and global tour of some of the 80% of buildings created without architects. […] Calling itself introductory, the book is nevertheless thorough in the scope of buildings presented, making it a welcome addition to any library with titles by Rudofsky, Oliver, Lloyd Kahn, and the like.” Compared to either version of Habitat by Sandra Piesik, Buildings Without Architects is a space-saver, thanks to pages that are just 5-1/2" x 8-1/2".
When I think of modern residential architecture in Australia, I gravitate, not to mid-century modern (sorry, Patricia Callan), but Sean Godsell. His houses, as the cover of Sean Godsell: Houses makes pretty clear, feature wood slats and other ways of veiling modern glass boxes. (They make me slat happy!) In my review of the 2019 book from Thames & Hudson, I called it a “beautifully produced book” that traces “the concise refinement of Godsell's residential architecture over two decades.” It is a large coffee table book, documenting nine of Godsell’s houses with descriptions, sketches, and hand drawings on smaller lightweight pages inserted between the many pages of glossy color photographs. I summarized: “Fans of Godsell will not be disappointed with the care and craft of a book that is a perfect parallel to the care and craft of his architecture.”
Thank you for subscribing to A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books. If you have any comments or questions, or if you have your own book that you want to see in this newsletter, please respond to this email, or comment below if you’re reading this online. All content is freely available, but paid subscriptions that enable this newsletter to continue are welcome — thank you!
— John Hill