Announcements
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Forthcoming: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
By Per Olaf Fjeld and Emily Randall Fjeld
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: October 4, 2019
A new and personal reading of the architecture, teachings, and legacy of Louis I. Kahn from Per Olaf Fjeld’s perspective as a former student. The book explores Kahn’s life and work, offering a unique take on one of the twentieth century’s most important architects. Kahn’s Nordic and European ties are emphasized in this study that also covers his early childhood in Estonia, his travels, and his relationships with other architects, including the Norwegian architect Arne Korsmo.
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Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
Teaching Graphic Design History by Steven Heller
Teaching Graphic Design History
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: June 2019
An examination of the concerted efforts, happy accidents, and key influences of the practice throughout the years, Teaching Graphic Design History is an illuminating resource for students, practitioners, and future teachers of the subject.
Recent Articles
Alan Balfour
Educated at Edinburgh and Princeton and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Alan Balfour is Professor and former Dean of the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), a position he came to after serving as dean of the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He was formerly chairman of the Architectural Association in London, and dean of the School of Architecture at Rice University in Houston. Balfour was the year 2000 recipient of the Topaz Medal, the highest recognition given in North America to an educator in architecture.
Balfour's most recent book, Solomon’s Temple: Myth, Conflict, and Faith (Wiley-Blackwell), was published in 2012. It is a study of the constructive and destructive power of religion played out in the myths and realities of one place, Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and a journey through four thousand years of constantly shifting religion and reality in the Middle East. His book Creating a Scottish Parliament, with David McCrone (Finlay Brown, 2005), offers an intimate exploration of the conceptualization of the political structure for a devolved Scotland and the architecture that would symbolize and be the instrument for its advancement.
Though the city is the ostensible subject of Alan Balfour's writing in recent years, his underlying concern has been with exploring the cultural imagination. In 2002 he completed three books on three world cities; in each the city is viewed as the most tangible residue of the complexity of society’s desires. Shanghai was published in 2002 and New York in 2001 (both by Wiley-Academy, London). The first in the series was Berlin published by Academy Editions in 1995, which documents the transformation of Berlin before and after the collapse of the Wall. This and an earlier book, Berlin: The Politics of Order: 1737–1989 (Rizzoli International Publications, 1990), received AIA International Book Awards. Other books include Portsmouth (Studio Vista 1970) and Rockefeller Center: Architecture as Theater (McGraw-Hill, 1978). He also contributed to Recovering Landscape (Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), Cities of Artificial Excavation: The Work of Peter Eisenman (Rizzoli International Publications/CCA, 1994), and The Edge of the Millennium (Cooper-Hewitt, National Museum of Design, Smithsonian Institution/Whitney Library of Design, 1993).
In addition to his role in administration Balfour has continued to teach and this has included master’s design studios at both Harvard Graduate School of Design and MIT.