The latest review on A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books:
Post-pandemic Urbanism edited by Doris Kleilein, Friederike Meyer, published by Jovis.
Correction: A link in last week’s newsletter was wrong. Here is the correct link for my review of Celebrating Public Architecture: Buildings from the Open Call in Flanders 2000–21 edited by Florian Heilmeyer (Jovis, 2021).
Architecture Book News:
At Misfits’ Architecture, Graham McKay dissects Non-Referential Architecture by Valerio Olgiati and Markus Breitschmid. (I reviewed the same book in 2019, though now my words seem naive in retrospect.)
Carolina Miranda at the LA Times reviews Alexandra Lange’s new book, Meet Me By the Fountain.
The Bras Basah Complex in Singapore has been a “haven for bookworms” since the mall opened in the 1980s, but now the shops are struggling in the face of online shopping, including Abdul Nasser's Basheer Graphic Books, which specializes in books and magazines on architecture and design.
#archidosereads
Recently I developed and gave an architectural walking tour of one mile of Fifth Avenue, from 40th to 59th Street, talking about long-gone buildings as well as some of the prominent ones there now. One of the striking images I came across in my research is this 1927 photograph of the massive Vanderbilt Chateau at the NW corner of 57th Street (now Bergdorf Goodman) being demolished, spotted in The Vanderbilts and the Gilded Age: Architectural Aspirations, 1879–1901 by John Foreman and Robbe Pierce Stimson:
A few recently received books:
See these and more recently published and forthcoming architecture books on my blog and on my Bookshop.org page.
Giveaways:
I have one copy of MCHAP The Americas 2: Territory & Expeditions that I’m giving away to one person living in the United States (this is due to shipping costs, sorry readers in South America and parts of the world). My review is forthcoming, so visit Actar’s website to learn more about the book that came out in May.
If you’d like to win a copy, just reply to this newsletter (by Sunday, June 26) indicating your interest and answering one question for me: Would you be willing to pay to subscribe to a version of this newsletter that includes giveaways, potentially on a more frequent basis? Your answer is me testing the waters and will not influence the winner, who will be selected at random and notified one week from now.
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— John Hill
Thanks for sharing the piece about Bras Basah. I'm living in Singapore temporarily and I go there all the time. As a whole it's a fascinating HDB (public housing) complex. Abdul Nasser's store is amazing...one of the most comprehensive collections of design and architecture books I've ever seen in one place.
(Somehow I always catch your posts "live" when I'm working away in the PM, Singapore time. Anyway, keep them coming!)