Architecture Books – Week 31/2023
It's been a few weeks ...
From the middle of March, when a family emergency put this blog on hiatus, until the middle of July, when a funeral mass was held for my dad, my life was split almost evenly between my home in New York City and my parent's home in Central Florida. The emergency in March was an incident putting my father in the hospital, and it was followed by numerous diagnoses, the need for him to go into assisted living, and eventually him going back into the hospital, where he died — peacefully, with me, my mother, and my sister at his bedside. Back in March I anticipated, even with his diagnoses, to be helping him in various capacities for a few years, not just a few months. They were difficult and taxing months that found me as relieved as saddened when he passed; the obvious pain and frustration he felt are gone, but memories of him remain and in some ways are stronger and more prevalent now than before.
Over those three months, I managed to eke out a half-dozen posts on this blog: a roundup of some books published during the first part of this year; some thoughts on the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which I managed to attend between trips; a couple work-related posts, one on self-publishing by architecture firms and the other featuring books from my trip to the Venice Architecture Biennale; a "cheater" revisiting an old post as an excuse to explore ChatGPT; and my first installment of "Book Briefs" this calendar year. That sporadic frequency will continue for the rest of the summer, as I take time to do things with my wife and daughter and just generally decompress. But one thing the last three months did, in the context of this first blog post in six weeks, was push me toward a local focus. So here I present two books on the phenomenon of supertall residential towers, the most high-profile ones found along 57th Street, aka "Billionaires' Row."
This week on A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books:
Billionaires’ Row: Tycoons, High Rollers, and the Epic Race To Build the World’s Most Exclusive Skyscrapers by Katherine Clarke, published by Currency, June 2023
Sky-High: A Critique of NYC's Supertall Towers from Top to Bottom by Eric P. Nash, photography by Bruce Katz, published by Princeton Architectural Press, June 2023
Architecture Book News:
Like browsing people’s bookshelves? You’ll love the Judd Foundation’s interactive Donald Judd Library. Of its nearly 100 shelves, the architecture books are found on shelves 049, 050, 051, and 052.
WAF recently announced the winners and commendations in the inaugural Architectural Book of the Year Awards in seven categories (History, Biography/Autobiography, 3 categories for Monograph, Technical, City/Country Guide). The overall winner will be announced at WAF in the fall.
ICYMI: Rowan Moore queried architects (Gehry, Koolhaas, Herzog, etc.) on the legacy of Le Corbusier, whose Vers une architecture — “the most influential book on the design of buildings since Vitruvius wrote his De Architectura” — turned 100 this year.
To me, “summer reading” — light and breezy books to be read at the beach or on vacation — and architecture books don’t jibe, but that doesn’t stop architecture websites from putting lists of them together, including Archinect, Architect, and Domus. (I’ve been guilty of it too.)
#archidosereads
A few recently received books:
See these and more recently published and forthcoming architecture books on my blog and on my Bookshop.org page.
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— John Hill
Sorry to hear about your loss John.
Love the newsletter.