Architecture Books – Week 47/2023
It's starting to look a lot like you-know-what
This week on A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books:
This year's roundup of books to give to discerning architects for the holidays is presented in pairs. While at least one book in each pair is new, the other one isn't necessarily so — new, old, or not-so-old, it is related to the first in some manner, as explained in my descriptions. A few of these books will receive longer reviews next month. In the meantime, with this lengthy post and Thanksgiving coming up later this week, I'll be taking next week off, resuming the newsletter the first week of December.
Head to my blog to read about these books, or click on the titles of the books listed below to visit the publishers’ websites. Amazon/Bookshop links may earn me affiliate commissions.
HEADY STUFF FOR BRAINY ARCHITECTS AND ARCHITECTURE HISTORIANS:
Architecture after God: Babel Resurgent by Kyle Dugdale, published by Birkhäuser, February 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
Inhabited Machines: Genealogy of an Architectural Concept by Moritz Gleich, published by Birkhäuser, February 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
TWO COOPER HEWITT TOMES:
An Atlas of Es Devlin Es Devlin, edited by Andrea Lipps, published by Thames & Hudson, December 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
Making Design: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Collections by Cara McCarty and Matilda McQuaid, published by The Cooper Hewitt, February 2015 (Amazon / Bookshop)
THE NEW YORK WILLIAM B. HELMREICH KNEW SO WELL:
The Bronx Nobody Knows: An Urban Walking Guide by William B. Helmreich, published by Princeton University Press, August 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City by William B. Helmreich, published by Princeton University Press, October 2013 (Amazon / Bookshop)
A BEAUTIFULLY MADE SERIES ON CAROSO ST JOHN CONTINUES:
Caruso St John Collected Works: Volume 2 2000–2012 by Caruso St John, published by MACK, October 2023 (Amazon)
Caruso St John Collected Works: Volume 1 1990–2005 by Caruso St John, published by MACK, October 2022 (Amazon)
THE CHICAGO SKYSCRAPER HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED:
Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City by Thomas Leslie, published by University of Illinois Press, June 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871-1934 by Thomas Leslie, published by University of Illinois Press, May 2013 (Amazon / Bookshop)
ADVENTURES IN HOUSING:
Cohousing in Barcelona: Designing, Building and Living for Cooperative Models edited by David Lorente, Tomoko Sakamoto, Ricardo Devesa and Marta Bugés, published by Actar Publishers and Ajuntament de Barcelona, August 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
Housing Redux: Alternatives for NYC's Housing Projects by Nneena Lynch, James von Klemperer, Hana Kassan and Andrei Harwell, edited by Nina Rappaport and Saba Salekfard, published by Yale School of Architecture, December 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
MONOGRAPHS WITH A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA:
Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism by MODU (Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem), published by Hatje Cantz, October 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
Quiet Spaces by William Smalley, published by Thames & Hudson, November 2018 (Amazon / Bookshop)
CAPTURING AMERICA'S PAST IN PHOTOGRAPHS:
Lost in America: Photographing the Last Days of our Architectural Treasures by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, published by CityFiles Press, November 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
Richard Nickel Dangerous Years: What He Saw and What He Wrote by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, published by CityFiles Press, December 2015 (Amazon)
ILLUSTRATED STORIES FOR KIDS — AND GROWN-UPS:
Modern New York: The Illustrated Story of Architecture in the Five Boroughs from 1920 to Present by Lukas Novotny, published by Rizzoli, September 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
Shigeru Ban Builds a Better World by Isadoro Saturno, illustrated by Stefano Di Cristofaro, published by Tra Publishing, September 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
CHANGING ZURICH (AND ITS ENVIRONS):
Urban Change Over Time: The Photographic Observation of Schlieren 2005–2020 Reveals How Switzerland Is Changing edited by Meret Wandeler, Ulrich Görlich and Caspar Schärer, published by Scheidegger and Spiess, October 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop)
New Housing in Zurich: Typologies for a Changing Society, edited by Dominique Boudet, published by Park Books, April 2018 (Amazon / AbeBooks)
Architecture Book News:
It’s also time for year-end best-of lists. Unfortunately, Edwin Heathcote’s list of seven architecture and design books at the Financial Times will probably be behind a paywall by the time this newsletter lands in your inbox.
Speaking of lists, Thomas Heatherwick selected the “five best books on building design” for the Wall Street Journal, but it’s already behind a paywall and all I can see is A Pattern Language, the 1977 book by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein.
Speaking of Thomas Heatherwick, I reviewed his new book, Humanise: A Maker's Guide to Building our World, for World-Architects, taking issue with its regurgitation of tired arguments against modern architecture and its simplistic language.
A heads-up: If you'll be in or near Brooklyn on Friday, December 8, Head Hi is hosting the fourth event in the New York Architecture + Design Book Club, a discussion of The Advanced School of Collective Feeling by Nile Greenberg and Matthew Kennedy.
#archidosereads
My latest find: first edition tabloid-size spiral bound of William Morrish's Civilizing Terrains: Mountains, Mounds and Mesas, published by Design Center for American Urban Landscape (now Minnesota Design Center) in 1989. The book's 49 geo- and topo-focused drawings were republished later in a smaller format by William Stout (click and swipe to peek at some of the drawings):
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— John Hill