Publications: The Latest Architecture and News

“Established initially in London in 1980 and based in Germany since 1988 the architectural office of Bolles + Wilson has firmly established itself as an international practice underpinned by thorough research and theoretical discourse. This monograph chronicles a variety of projects alongside more than 25 recent buildings that are surveyed through different chapters that cover such areas as urban planning, projects in different foreign countries, library architecture and specific designs for the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Accompanied by texts from Julia Bolles-Wilson and Peter Wilson, the survey is generously laid out with colour photographs, technical drawings, models and sketches. Works and projects featured include: the Suzuki House, Tokyo; the Masterplan Falkenried, Hamburg; the Spuimarkt Block, The Hague; DGM Quartier, Magdeburg; the Kaldewei Kompetenz Center, Ahlen; the Münster City Library; and the New Luxor Theatre, Rotterdam.”

Sited on the coastal edge of the Bay of Bengal, Golconde, a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, was designed by architects Antonin Raymond and George Nakashima. Golconde is a remarkable architectural edifice, seemlessly negotiating between the tenets of early modernist architecture while addressing the pragmatic impositions of a tropical context. Espousing radical economy and uncompromising construction standards, it proposes environmental sensitivity as a foundation for the design process. Completed in 1942, Golconde was the first reinforced, cast-in-place concrete building in India and celebrates the modernist credo: architecture as the manifest union of aesthetics, technology, and social reform.

Credits, Contents and more photos after the break.

We recently featured the companion to this book, Louis Kahn On the Thoughtful Making of Spaces. This large format book draws together over two hundred—mostly unpublished—drawings of Kahn’s Dominican Motherhouse. It offers a fascinating look into Kahn’s design process and his struggles with ideas about space. It shows the project changing over the years and goes straight to the heart of one of Kahn’s most quoted sayings, “A building is a struggle, not a miracle.”

We recently received the book Reveal: Studio Gang Architects. This monograph takes an in-depth look at several of firm’s extraordinary projects. Archdaily has featured many of the same projects, but our pieces are mere shadows of what is presented in this book. If you enjoyed the glimpses on our website you will love this book. It is rare that I find a monograph that goes into such great depth. Beside the standard plan, section and photographs, each project is accompanied by notes, research, sketches, histories, philosophies, and more. This allows for a much more rewarding conversation than the standard glossy monograph. By the end of each chapter you can easily understand why each design decision was made and how meticulous this studio is. The Aqua Tower, for example, without any additional knowledge holds its own amongst the architecturally cherished Chicago skyline; however, after you read about the design process behind it the tower becomes that much more wonderful. I highly recommend this book.

P.S.: You can watch our interview with Jeanne Gang.

In this book Michael Maltzan holds conversations with a photographer, architects, a landscape architect, a futurists, and a urban planner about Los Angeles’s recent past and its near and distant future. For Maltzan, Los Angeles is currently in a delicate moment of transformation “where past vocabularies of the city and of urbanism are no longer adequate, and at this moment, the very word no longer applies.” In order to guide this transformation in a positive direction Maltzan asserts that “architects, urban theorists, architects, designers, planners, and city leaders requires keen investigation to produce forms that represent this city and and its culture, as opposed to importing other urban models.” The conversations along with the photographs by Iwan Baan presented in this book are part of the keen investigation Maltzan advocates for. This makes for a very engaging book for anyone interested in Los Angeles and shaping the future of cities in general.

I recently read Detail Magazine’s latest issue about Digital Processes. The issue is divided into three parts. The first part deals with digital planning technologies that include mapping techniques for analysis, terrestrial laser scanning, and geographic information systems among others. The second section delves into digital production technologies such as CNC laser cutting, hot wire cutting, and jointed-arm robotics. The final piece brings these together by showcasing six projects that utilize these technologies. In its totality, the issue is a good overall look at the present and future opportunities digital technology offers the profession.

“… if someone who has a valid point of view wants to give it an audience, he has no choice but to start a magazine.” - Eno Dailor On Pamphlet Architecture 1-10

San Rocco Magazine is a new architecture magazine conceived under a five-year plan which researches on their creators fields of interest. Their second issue covers the subject of ISLANDS in whatever meaning you can imagine for the word “island”. As they wrote:

An island is any piece of land that is surrounded by water. An island is any object lost in an endless extension of a uniform element. As such, the island is isolated. The island is by definition remote, separated, intimately alternative. The island is elsewhere. Islands can be natural or artificial: atolls, rocks, volcanoes, oases, spaceships, oil rigs, carriers.

Based on Gilles Deleuze book, L’île Désert et autres textes, the magazine is divided in two main blocks: oceanic and continental islands. Can we talk, then, about the possibility of architectural islands? More after the break.

When coming across Delugan Meissl Associated Architects’s newest book I first noticed its sheer weight and size. The second thing I noticed were the words Vol. I. Most architects would be happy/lucky enough to fill a book a quarter the size with their work. The projects range from chairs and small houses to the Porsche Museum and master planning of healthcare campuses. The introduction by Karl Jormakka gives a nice lens in which to view their work. Their work is constantly trying to elicit physiological responses “from a visceral juxtaposition of the human body with the architectural setting,” says Jormakka. In this way their work differs from many of the avant-garde architects who tie their work to French philosophers or abstract ideas from the natural sciences. Viewing DMAA’s work in this light, readers can easily explore how each project attempts to physiologically engage its users.

When I first read John Adams by David McCullough a few years ago I could not decide if I liked Mr. Adams for Mr. Adams or if I liked him for Mr. McCullough’s writing. After viewing Iwan Baan’s newest book, Living with Modernity, I have the same ambiguous feeling about Brasilia and Chandigarh. Baan’s photography of these controversial cities is both subtle and disarming. “ do not show how Le Corbusier and Niemeyer thought their cities would look; they show what the cities look like now, fifty to sixty years later.” Without arguing any particular point, Baan documents “what happens when the chilly, impersonal drawing from the past is populated by real, live human beings.” Some discomforting images are reminiscent of what happens when a child places his Tonka Trunk in the middle of an anthill; life follows in and out of structures that relate very little to the realities of daily life. Spaces are simply co-opted for purposes that stand in stark contrast to the intended purpose of the structures. At the same time Baan captures fascinating and brilliant moments of beauty that Niemeyer and Le Corbusier never could have planned for–or the did. As difficult as it is to put stunning photography into words, the short accompanying essay by Cees Nooteboom certainly comes close and is well worth a read. The book closes with a succinct but informative piece by Martino Stierli. Stierli gives the background, historical context, and controversy surrounding the two cities. In the end, I am still ambivalent on whether or not I admire such a ambitious/hubris top-down approach to design, but after seeing the cities in Baan’s book I am certainly fascinated by them—perhaps enough so that I will travel there some day in the future.

I recently got the chance to review Pamphlet Architecture Coupling / Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism. From bringing a terminal lake back to life and using landfills as an open space connectors to actively anticipating the future of the Caspian Sea’s oil rig field and turning Canada’s northern regions into a more active destination, this work explores ways infrastructures can become soft multivalent systems instead of the hard systems we see today. This challenges the antiquated ideas of buildings simply being geometric formal objects. With the interconnected world, buildings themselves have become infrastructural to the larger systems. Keller Easterling states, “No longer simply what is hidden or beneath another urban structure, many infrastructures are the urban formula, the very parameters of global urbanism.”

Table of Contents following the break.

Architects Andreas Fuhrimann and Gabrielle Hächler recently published a monograph detailing seven buildings and their design philosophy. It is easy to get caught up in the mesmerizing images of this book. With little more than plywood and concrete, they bring spaces to life in a way that few can. They demonstrate how “spatial quality is by no means merely an issue of the materials employed.” That being said, make sure you pull yourself away from the images as the text should not be missed. Besides their own contributions, other authors include, Kurt W. Forster, Marie Theres Stauffer, Gianni Jetzer, and Hubertus Adam.

More on the monograph after the break.

“Environmental issues such as sustainability, the protection of resources or reducing emissions have long been the focus of politics, industry and the economy. High time, then, to examine their role in the world of architecture more closely.

The recycling, and with it the re-introduction of materials into the cycle of matter takes place in different forms in the construction industry. The projects presented in the magazine range from the recycling of entire building components (e.g. from concrete), to the use of waste products (e.g. wood) and demolition waste (e.g. stone) or even the completely invisible use of recycling materials like façade panels made from old glass.

In the »Discussion« section, chemist M. Braungart describes the principle of »cradle to cradle«, which questions ecological efficiency and calls instead for intelligent design. He believes that products must be designed so that instead of becoming waste at the end of their lifetime, they can be used to create new things. He shows how this can be done in architecture with several already completed examples.”

Further information, photos, plus the full table of contents after the break.

When architectural journalist Robert Sharoff and photographer William Zbaren created the series American City, the intention was to celebrate some of the States’ most architecturally impressive cities. For their St. Louis publication, the team has produced a beautiful large format book highlighting 50 projects scattered across the city. Organized with incredible photographs and insightful text, the book is the first of its kind, since the 1920s, to document the architecture of St. Louis.

More about the publication after the break.

For Jenn Kennedy’s recent publication, Success by Design, the author/photographer has chosen to explore how architectural firms survive the trials and tribulations of the fluctuating market. It is a focused work outlining the history of 25 architectural firms scattered across California. The book offers great insight for starting a firm, provides inspiration to persevere during difficult times, and truly allows the personalities of the architects to shine through.

More about the book after the break.

Edited: Bryan Bell, Katie Wakeford First Edition: 2008 Language: English ISBN: 1933045787

“This is the Barack Obama of books. It tells a story about the change we need in the fields of architecture and urban design, professions that have lost their way, easily seduced by wealthy clients. And much like the presidential Democrat, this book of slightly radical ideas is attractively packaged in a way that can’t be easily dismissed. Editors Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford have compiled 30 essays by leading architects and designers across the U.S. – all accompanied by gorgeous photography. Each focuses on issues of social justice and design, and most succeed in making a compelling case for architects, urban planners and landscape designers to stop whatever they’re doing and begin working for the greater public good…The authors’ earnest and passionate voices come through in almost every paragraph, making this book a heartfelt journey as much as an educational one.”

- Matthew Blackett, AZURE Magazine –AZURE Magazine November/December 2008

Full contents index and more photos after the break.

Interesting book on patterns in architecture written by Paul Andersen and David Salomon.

We first heard from Paul, founder of !ndie Architecture, when he was on the short list for the 2009 P.S.1 YAP competition with his entry Lawn Life, a surburban-inspired synthetic turf lawn related to Paul’s studies on suburbia.

The book analyzes projects from several firms (Atelier Manferdini, BIG, Ciro Najle, EMERGENT/Thomas Wiscombe, Foreign Office Architects, Jason Payne and Heather Roberge, Herzog & de Meuron, J. Mayer H. Architects, Reiser+Umemoto, Responsive Systems Group, and !ndie architecture) to discover the relation of patterns in architecture at several scales.

Full index, editorial and photos after the break.

“t is the territory that becomes the privileged protagonist of the post-industrial economy, acting as a place for working out the weak and diffuse energies of a powder-fine productivity.”

- Andrea Branzi, “Architecture and Agriculture”

Weak and Diffuse Modernity

An almanac, in its simplest form, is a book containing a calendar that includes notations for holidays and holy days, as well as astronomical information such as the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the phases of the moon and high and low tides, as we can read at Almanacs. Inspired by the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the editors of the first issue of Bracket had released a sort of almanac in the sense of those publications used during 19th century. With a series of contents that seeks to interrogate the fertile territory where architecture, environment, and digital culture collide, Bracket presents complete overview of what is architecture in the current times. As Mason White and Maya Przybylski pointed on the introduction On Farming: “Architecture is not only a byproduct of predictions, but Architecture itself is a prediction machine.”

We recently received this large format monograph on the work of Bohlin Cywinsky Jackson, one of the most renowned US firms. Their works include the Grand Teton Discovery and Visitor Center in Wyoming, several Apple Stores around the world, Pixar Studios, and a long list of award winning public and residential projects.

More info about their monograph after the break.