Skip to content

Category: REVIEWS


Categories:

NOTSOF [p.1-11]

NOTSOF [p.1-11]
Post date:
Author:

“In 1954, Alexander was awarded the top open scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge University in chemistry and physics, and went on to read mathematics. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and a Master’s degree in Mathematics. He took his doctorate at Harvard (the first PhD in Architecture ever awarded at Harvard), and was elected a fellow in 1961. During this period he worked at […]

Categories:

Architecture In The Emirates

Architecture In The Emirates
Post date:
Author:

Architecture In The Emirates is one of those TASCHEN books with words by Philip Jodidio. Published on the 1st of November 2007, it’s an historic document. Given the book’s title, I was surprised to find it included buildings in Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The contents suggest Architecture In The Gulf Countries ought to have […]

Categories:

The Autopoiesis of Architecure Vol. I

The Autopoiesis of Architecure Vol. I
Post date:
Author:

In the March 2015 post Inflationary Tendencies, I tried to make some sense out of the second last chapter of The Autopoiesis of Architecture (Vol.1). How time flew! Last year’s The Massively Big Autopoiesis of Architecture post was an omnibus edition intended to prime readers and myself for an end-of-year finale that never happened. It’s just as well as […]

Categories:

The Atomium

The Atomium
Post date:
Author:

If you’d gone to the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, you probably came back with souvenirs or Kodachrome slides of these next buildings. The Arrow of Civil Engineering – a collaborative design by architect J. Van Doosselaere, civil engineer André Paduart and sculptor Jacques Moreschal. Demolished 1970. The Philips Pavilion – is still sometimes presented as a Le Corbusier design but […]

Categories:

A Consistency of Contradictions

A Consistency of Contradictions
Post date:
Author:

In 1937, Douglas Haskell drove across the US and identified elements of a popular architecture. He thought Route 66 was okay. His 1958 essay “Architecture and Popular Taste” probed what people who were unschooled in architecture said they liked. Haskell has been actively forgotten because he believed in a popular architecture as a true vernacular architecture and not […]

Categories:

The Sheltering Sky

The Sheltering Sky
Post date:
Author:

Last century, mechanical services and artificial lighting enabled environmental control to levels previously unimaginable. Eliminating windows from non-habitable rooms enabled deep office floor plans. Apartment buildings such as Mies van der Rohe’s Lake Shore Drive clustered non-habitable rooms for ease of servicing. [c.f. The Big Brush] With office buildings, reduced surface area allowed volume to be enclosed more […]

Categories:

The Massively Big Autopoiesis of Architecture Post

The Massively Big Autopoiesis of Architecture Post
Post date:
Author:

First some snapshots from the journey so far before moving on to the penultimate chapter. I plan to read the final one within a week or two and bring this autopoietic journey to an end. It’s time. At 439 pages it wasn’t such a long journey but, as I began reading the book in 2012, it wasn’t a quick one. 2012 October 26: The Autopoiesis […]

Categories:

US 7,540,120

US 7,540,120
Post date:
Author:

US7540120 is a United States patent for a Multi-Level Apartment Building. Patent attorneys aren’t likely to be apartment plan geeks so I pity the one whose desk this landed on. Perhaps I shouldn’t, because patent attorneys are skilled in untangling real novelty from mere claims to it. They also understand the importance of precise language because patent language is designed to accurately […]

Categories:

The Shape of Green

The Shape of Green
Post date:
Author:

There’s no lack of ethical or economic arguments for sustainability. Taken in by its promising title, I had high hopes Lance Hosey’s The Shape of Green would finally provide us with an aesthetics of sustainability as part of a larger philosophy of sustainability. Hosey begins promisingly, claiming beauty and sustainability aren’t as incompatible as they’re commonly believed to be but […]