'Tis the season for, among other things, giving. One organization worthy of some year-end loosening of purse-strings is Architecture for Humanity, who are "building a more sustainable future using the power of design." What Do Yo See doesn't just ask for money, it asks people to describe a vision for their own community. Check it out...
...and then DONATE.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Book Review: Building: Louis I. Kahn at Roosevelt Island
Building: Louis I. Kahn at Roosevelt Island by Barney Kulok
Aperture, 2012
Hardcover, 80 pages
Last month the FDR Four Freedoms Park finally opened, close to 40 years after Louis I. Kahn's death, at which time he had completed most of the design. Alongside the pomp surrounding the opening came a number of reviews (all very positive) and lots of photos along the lines of my two batches. While photos focusing on the completed park and memorial are important, documentation of the design's realization is also valuable. For that we can thank photographer Barney Kulok, who was given access to the construction site about a year ago to document the construction.
What I really like about the 49 black-and-white plates collected in this handsome book is the way the construction is not documented through wide-frame images capturing large swaths of the place, but through small-scale details that border on painterly abstractions. This is not a book like Brian Finke's Construction, which focused on the people constructing buildings; rather, Building attempts to give a sense of the whole by examining its parts. Yet, it's not as simple as saying that the essence of the design is found in its details, because many of the details that Kulok documents were subsequently buried or removed.
The sum of the photos in Building is akin to poetry, where interpretation is open-ended because the shots don't settle for easy presentations of what we think of when we think of "construction site"—very little machinery is present, for example, and tools appear as aesthetic objects more than useful objects. I like to think that even the most mundane detail—a guideline tied to a piece of rebar driven into the earth; a haphazard assemblage of wire, cloth, and more rebar closing a hole in a chain-link fence; a piece of wood resting on concrete steps—reveals something about the specific construction process on Roosevelt Island. Each photo is a trace of human action, even as only three of the nearly fifty plates have people within the frame; they tell stories beyond the immediate moment captured.
The most interesting plates border on the composed, and not just in terms of photography—angle, framing, aperture, etc. I wonder if a cubic piece of stone teetering on the edge of a much larger piece of stone was found by Kulok as he traversed the job site, or placed there intentionally, perhaps inspired by something he saw but manipulated to make the ideal photo. Images like these may turn on my skepticism radar, but in the end I don't think it matters if they're staged or not, because they still serve to reveal the construction. A "clean" pile of dirt on stone pavers says just as much about the filling in of the voids between stones as does a "dirty" pile of dirt on stone pavers (you'll have to trust me on this one). But the former is just a better photograph, a piece of poetry rather than part of a documentary.
For those interested in hearing Kulok speak about the book, he'll be in conversation with Joel Smith this evening at Aperture Gallery and Bookstore, 547 West 27th Street, NYC. The event is free and a book signing will follow the conversation.
US:
CA: 
UK: 
Aperture, 2012
Hardcover, 80 pages
Last month the FDR Four Freedoms Park finally opened, close to 40 years after Louis I. Kahn's death, at which time he had completed most of the design. Alongside the pomp surrounding the opening came a number of reviews (all very positive) and lots of photos along the lines of my two batches. While photos focusing on the completed park and memorial are important, documentation of the design's realization is also valuable. For that we can thank photographer Barney Kulok, who was given access to the construction site about a year ago to document the construction.
What I really like about the 49 black-and-white plates collected in this handsome book is the way the construction is not documented through wide-frame images capturing large swaths of the place, but through small-scale details that border on painterly abstractions. This is not a book like Brian Finke's Construction, which focused on the people constructing buildings; rather, Building attempts to give a sense of the whole by examining its parts. Yet, it's not as simple as saying that the essence of the design is found in its details, because many of the details that Kulok documents were subsequently buried or removed.
The sum of the photos in Building is akin to poetry, where interpretation is open-ended because the shots don't settle for easy presentations of what we think of when we think of "construction site"—very little machinery is present, for example, and tools appear as aesthetic objects more than useful objects. I like to think that even the most mundane detail—a guideline tied to a piece of rebar driven into the earth; a haphazard assemblage of wire, cloth, and more rebar closing a hole in a chain-link fence; a piece of wood resting on concrete steps—reveals something about the specific construction process on Roosevelt Island. Each photo is a trace of human action, even as only three of the nearly fifty plates have people within the frame; they tell stories beyond the immediate moment captured.
The most interesting plates border on the composed, and not just in terms of photography—angle, framing, aperture, etc. I wonder if a cubic piece of stone teetering on the edge of a much larger piece of stone was found by Kulok as he traversed the job site, or placed there intentionally, perhaps inspired by something he saw but manipulated to make the ideal photo. Images like these may turn on my skepticism radar, but in the end I don't think it matters if they're staged or not, because they still serve to reveal the construction. A "clean" pile of dirt on stone pavers says just as much about the filling in of the voids between stones as does a "dirty" pile of dirt on stone pavers (you'll have to trust me on this one). But the former is just a better photograph, a piece of poetry rather than part of a documentary.
For those interested in hearing Kulok speak about the book, he'll be in conversation with Joel Smith this evening at Aperture Gallery and Bookstore, 547 West 27th Street, NYC. The event is free and a book signing will follow the conversation.
US:
CA: UK:
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Architecture on the Edge of Darkness
In 2011 I served on the jury for the eVolo Skyscraper Competition, an experience I recounted about a year ago in a review of the massive eVolo Skyscraper book. One thing in particular that I mentioned then was "the visual darkness of the entries, the apparent gloom that seems to accompany thinking about the future." Upon receiving the eVolo Skyscraper Competition Poster, which features stamp-sized renderings of over 600 entries, I had the same thought. But actually looking at the front and back of the whole poster, below, it seems that maybe lightness is more prevalent than darkness; an optimistic turn in one year?
[eVolo 2012 Skyscraper Competition Poster | image source]
While I attributed the darkness in eVolo entries to dystopian visions of the future where skyscrapers remedied the environmental ills we created, a similar darkness is found in some of the winners and finalists for the 2012 Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition, or KRob for short.
[Winner - Robert Gilson's Best in Category - Professional Digital/Mixed | image source]
Darkness does not pervade the majority of the drawings featured this year—and it's probably less of a defining characteristic of the drawings than terms like mixed-media or moody—but where I found it, it was fairly heavy, damp even. The above winner is a case in point: The sun is out, but the shadows are deep, the air is smoggy, and the tree-like overhead constructions sit over broken-down caravans; all of it adds up to a fairly bleak scene.
[Finalist - James Blair, Cornell University - Student Digital/Mixed | image source]
The finalists above and below are from fairly subterranean vantage points, natural places for darkness to be a companion. In each case light filters down, but not enough to escape the heavy blacks and grays.
[Finalist - Joshua Harrex, University of Technology, Sydney - Student Digital/Mixed | image source]
The last example below, which comes from my alma mater, is basically a dusk or night scene where the darkness is made even thicker by the driving rain. It's like a film noir, and we are taking shelter under the canopy; we notice the building across the street but also the clock near us and the man who is holding an umbrella. The architecture is almost secondary to the feeling and the setting, both of which are much heavier than the typical rendering.
[Finalist - Justin Pohl, Kansas State University - Student Digital/Mixed | image source]
[eVolo 2012 Skyscraper Competition Poster | image source]
While I attributed the darkness in eVolo entries to dystopian visions of the future where skyscrapers remedied the environmental ills we created, a similar darkness is found in some of the winners and finalists for the 2012 Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition, or KRob for short.
[Winner - Robert Gilson's Best in Category - Professional Digital/Mixed | image source]
Darkness does not pervade the majority of the drawings featured this year—and it's probably less of a defining characteristic of the drawings than terms like mixed-media or moody—but where I found it, it was fairly heavy, damp even. The above winner is a case in point: The sun is out, but the shadows are deep, the air is smoggy, and the tree-like overhead constructions sit over broken-down caravans; all of it adds up to a fairly bleak scene.
[Finalist - James Blair, Cornell University - Student Digital/Mixed | image source]
The finalists above and below are from fairly subterranean vantage points, natural places for darkness to be a companion. In each case light filters down, but not enough to escape the heavy blacks and grays.
[Finalist - Joshua Harrex, University of Technology, Sydney - Student Digital/Mixed | image source]
The last example below, which comes from my alma mater, is basically a dusk or night scene where the darkness is made even thicker by the driving rain. It's like a film noir, and we are taking shelter under the canopy; we notice the building across the street but also the clock near us and the man who is holding an umbrella. The architecture is almost secondary to the feeling and the setting, both of which are much heavier than the typical rendering.
[Finalist - Justin Pohl, Kansas State University - Student Digital/Mixed | image source]
Monday, November 26, 2012
sLAB Costa Rica, Part 2
Back in April I featured sLAB Costa Rica, a design-build project of NYIT that aims to build a communal recycling center in Nosara on the country's Pacific coast. Their initial Kickstarter campaign was successful, allowing students to travel over the summer to help in the project's construction. But, as professor Tobias Holler states on their new Kickstarter page, "the project is far from completed, and much work remains to be done before the building is ready to help with the local waste management problem." Holler and his students are hoping to return between semesters in January 2013 to continue volunteering on the construction site.
Check out the above video for more on the project, and please visit the sLAB Costa Rica Part 2 Kickstarter page for even more information and to donate before the December 13 deadline for this worthy project.
Check out the above video for more on the project, and please visit the sLAB Costa Rica Part 2 Kickstarter page for even more information and to donate before the December 13 deadline for this worthy project.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Monday, Monday
A Weekly Dose of Architecture Updates:
This week's dose features Écomusée du Pays de Rennes in Rennes, France, by Guinée*Potin:
The featured past dose is the Apprentice Formation Center in Saint Maur des Fossés, France by AIR:
This week's book review is Architecture: From Commission to Construction by Jennifer Hudson:
(R): The featured past book review is Towards Zero-Energy Architecture by Mary Guzowski (now in paperback).
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
**NOTE: The next weekly dose will be 2012.12.10.**
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
World-Architects.com U.S. Building of the Week:
Uptown in Cleveland, Ohio, by Stanley Saitowitz / Natoma Architects:
This week's dose features Écomusée du Pays de Rennes in Rennes, France, by Guinée*Potin:
The featured past dose is the Apprentice Formation Center in Saint Maur des Fossés, France by AIR:
This week's book review is Architecture: From Commission to Construction by Jennifer Hudson:
(R): The featured past book review is Towards Zero-Energy Architecture by Mary Guzowski (now in paperback).
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
**NOTE: The next weekly dose will be 2012.12.10.**
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
World-Architects.com U.S. Building of the Week:
Uptown in Cleveland, Ohio, by Stanley Saitowitz / Natoma Architects:
Friday, November 23, 2012
2012 Holiday Gift Books
As in the last seven years, I'm presenting a list of gift books just in time for the holidays. This year the list includes 39 titles, sorted alphabetically by publisher. Mouse over the cover images to get more information and click to see the listing on Amazon. Below the cover list is a text list, keyed to the covers by number.
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- Bricks and Balloons. Architecture in Sequential Art by Melanie Van Der Hoorn, 010 Publishers
- 0-14: Projection and Reception by Reiser + Umemoto, edited by Brett Steele; AA Publications
- Design Like You Give a Damn [2]: Building Change from the Ground Up edited by Architecture for Humanity, Abrams
- New York City Landmarks by Jake Rajs, text by Francis Morrone; ACC Distribution
- The Sniper's Log: An Architectural Perspective of Generation-X by Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Actar
- Eames: Beautiful Details by Eames Demetrios, et. al.; AMMO
- Wiel Arets: Autobiographical References by Robert McCarter, Birkhäuser
- Atlas: Geography, Architecture and Change in an Interdependent World edited by Renata Tyszczuk, Joe Smith, Nigel Clark, and Melissa Butcher; Black Dog Publishing
- Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture edited by Giovanna Borasi and Mirko Zardini, CCA
- Sky High by Germano Zullo, illustrated by Albertine; Chronicle Books
- RCR Arquitectes 2007-2012. Poetic Abstraction, El Croquis
- Big: Recent Project, Global Architecture
- Going Public: Public Architecture, Urbanism and Interventions edited by R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, S. Borges, L. Feireiss, Gestalten
- Elemental by Alejandro Aravena, Hatje Cantz
- Masterpiece: Iconic Houses by Great Contemporary Architects by Beth Browne, Images Publishing
- Good Urbanism: Six Steps to Creating Prosperous Places by Nan Ellin, Island Press
- Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities edited by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumoner, Lars Müller Publishers
- Architectural Inventions: Visionary Drawing of Buildings by Matt Bua and Maximilian Goldfarb; Laurence King Publishers
- Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit edited by Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar, Natasha Chandani; Metropolis Books
- Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America edited by Joan Ockman, MIT Press
- Contemporary Follies by Keith Moskow and Robert Linn, The Monacelli Press
- Cycle Space: Architectural and Urban Design in the Age of the Bicycle by Steven Fleming, nai010 Publishers
- Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook by Jonathan Solomon, Clara Wong, Adam Frampton; ORO Editions
- The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth: A Struggle Between Two World-Systems by Christopher Alexander with HansJoachim Neis and Maggie Moore Alexander, Oxford University Press
- Building Stories by Chris Ware, Pantheon
- 20th-Century World Architecture: The Phaidon Atlas by the editors of Phaidon
- Ove Arup: Philosophy of Design edited by Nigel Tonks, Prestel
- Le Corbusier Redrawn: The Houses by Steven Park, Princeton Architectural Press
- Italy: Modern Architectures in History by Diane Ghirardo, Reaktion Books
- Architecture Concepts: Red is Not a Color by Bernard Tschumi, Rizzoli
- Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture by Rory Hyde, Routledge
- The Architecture of the Barnes Foundation: Gallery in a Garden, Garden in a Gallery by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Skira Rizzoli
- Christo and Jeanne Claude: The Mastaba, Project for Abu Dhabi by Matthias Koddenberg, Taschen
- Joseph Cornell's Manual of Marvels: How Joseph Cornell reinvented a French agricultural manual to create an American masterpiece edited by Dickran Tashjian and Analisa Leppanen-Guerra, Thames and Hudson
- A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain by Owen Hatherley, Verso
- White Cube, Green Maze: New Art Landscapes by Raymund Ryan, University of California Press
- Human Experience and Place: Sustaining Identity edited by Paul Brislin, Wiley
- Long Island Modernism 1930-1980 by Caroline Rob Zaleski, W. W. Norton
- Ezra Stoller, Photographer by Nina Rappaport and Erica Stoller, Yale University Press
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