Culture:City: How Culture Leaves Its Mark on Cities and Architecture Around the World
From the Publisher. Since the late 1990s cultural icons have been built in numerous cities throughout the world in order to court the attention of potential visitors in a globally competitive market. The book Culture:City analyzes this phenomenon from the point of view of artists, architects, and scientists. Does culture today still function as a guiding principle, or does it merely serve as a catalyst for spectacular buildings? Are the creative and cultural sectors the industries of the future in postindustrial societies? Do these buildings liberate or constrain the cultural activities that gave rise to them in the first place? How does the “Bilbao effect”—the revaluation of a city through prestigious cultural buildings—work? Thirty pioneers, case studies, and negative examples are assembled paradigmatically in this book. Numerous essays and illustrations provide the reader with extensive and profound insight into this phenomenon. Designed by Heimann und Schwantes.
In spring 2013, Berlin’s Akademie der Künste hosted the exhibition “Culture:City,” curated by architect Matthias Sauerbruch. Through a presentation of 37 architectural projects from the last few decades, accompanied by 15 specially commissioned short films, the exhibition asked: “Does culture today still function as a guiding principle [for cities], or does it merely serve as a catalyst for spectacular buildings?” Or to put it another way, is there validity in the “Bilbao Effect” and the trend of cities to commission well-known architects to design elaborate buildings in order to lure tourists and their money? This is a trend in serious need of critical analysis, making this companion book to the exhibition a valuable document.
The book is split into two halves: a presentation of the 37 projects following essays by Ricky Burdett, William J. R. Curtis, Richard Sennett, and many others (Sennett's piece on “the open city” is particularly good), including introductory essays by editor Wilfred Wang and Sauerbruch. The projects make up the bulk of the book, but they are not presented merely as eye candy, as architectural publications are wont to do today. Peter Eisenman’s design for the Cidade da Cultura de Galicia in Spain, for example, is discussed in both the project section and within the essays in regard to the fact that it’s only partially complete but substantially over budget. This is but one case where misinterpreting and overextending the influence of the Bilbao Effect can be disastrous.
Beyond familiar icons like Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao and the Sydney Opera House by Jørn Utzon, and icons-in-the-making like Eisenman’s City of Culture and Norman Foster’s West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, the selection of projects is indicative of a preference on the part of Wang and Sauerbruch for cultural production over cultural consumption. A couple of cases in point are Cedric Price’s Inter-Action Centre (completed in 1977, demolished in 2003), whose flexibility invited unscripted communal activities, and Detroit Soup, a monthly dinner aimed at sparking and financing cultural initiatives in that city today. If the editors and contributors to the book had their way, our cities would have more projects like these in the coming years, instead of budget-busting institutions in avant-garde wrappers.
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Understanding Understanding: New from Richard Saul Wurman
Understanding Understanding
by Richard Saul Wurman
Publisher: Richard Saul Wurman and Jack Dangermond
Published July 30, 2017
From the author of Information Architecture, who says about his newest book: “This is a book for people to dip into, as they would walk in and out of the room of a dinner party and embrace their interests. . . Before the rules on how to organize information, before you learn grammar, before you work hard at expanding your vocabulary and go through the exercises of parallel meanings of things as using a Thesaurus and as one writes papers in class, before any learning one must understand.”
The Hard Life by Jasper Morrison
The Hard Life
by Jasper Morrison
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published in US: May 22, 2017
Photographs taken by designer Jasper Morrison of objects in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal. “The objects photographed and described may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest. The Hard Life is a continuation of Morrison’s celebration of the ordinary and offers a new perspective on his design philosophy.”
Paula Scher: Works - Order from Unit Editions
Paula Scher: Works
Editors: Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy
Design: Spin
Publisher: Unit Editions
Published April 2017
New book covering the career of of master designer Paula Scher, called “the most influential woman graphic designer on the planet.” (Ellen Lupton), This definitive, chronological visual record spans Paula’s early days in the music industry as an art director with CBS and Atlantic records; the launch of her first studio, Koppel & Scher; and her 25-year engagement with Pentagram.
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Type Tells Tales: New from Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Type Tells Tales
by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published May 30, 2017
Reveals how type can become both content and illustration, as letters take the form of people, animals, cars, or planes. With numerous illustrations by F. T. Marinetti, Bruno Munari, and Francis Picabia, among others, as well as by contemporary designers such as Richard Eckersley, John Hendrix, Maira Kalman, and Corita Kent.
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