
Julie Iovine
An Architecture Critic Commits
I look to books for everything imaginable, and unimaginable. They shape my outlook, but also throw open spaces I could never have found on my own. The chance to consider an essential list is wonderfully engrossing, but also a bit of a nasty parlor trick. Must I commit?
I am currently very aware of my books—about 200 linear feet of them— as I prepare to move and at last honor them with real built-in bookcases rather than stack them two deep in no particular order on saggy self-builts from IKEA. Currently I can locate desired books only through vague divining as they are assorted into broadly personal interests, such as Monographs Sent by Publicists (bottom shelf); College-Era Masterpiece paperbacks (top and out-of-reach shelf); Intriguing Theory that I should read (eye-level shelf); Urban History (bulk of middle shelves), from Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890 to 1940 past Robert Moses and the Modern City to the Endless City; Fabulous Women, as in Sarah Churchill, Madame de Stael, Stendhal… (far right, by light); Wars (a hobby), and so forth.
I am surprised at the uniform consensus regarding what books every architect should shelve. And I have tried here to suggest books from farther afield. These are books that I go back to for reference when writing or for delight when seeking inspiration; these are a few of the books that have made me think twice about space and place or that have created worlds palpable enough to tilt or even realign my axis of assumptions.
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I’m fairly obsessed with tracking the modern mindset to its earliest sources and most warping traumas. World War I was the ultimate defining wrench in our mental works. Fussell considers not the battles fought but the culture that resonated around battle and transformed subsequent thinking about the modern experience.
This five-volume set out of Harvard traces the cultural threads spun in pagan and ancient times leading to our contemporary obsession with private space. Plus, it’s a great resource for illustrations.
I think of this book together with Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son as it was through Imagined Cities that I came to consider Dickens anew. For once, in describing the wrenching toll of industrialization—specifically constructing the new railroad slashing through neighborhoods—Dickens’s melodramatic writing seems just the thing. Alter goes on to brilliantly explicate carriage traffic in Flaubert as well.
There was a moment in history when any thinking person in the known world headed for Alexandria and there invented geography, mathematics, astronomy, religious tolerance and, convincingly, the modern mind. The book is especially fascinating on detailing revelations achieved simply through time and observation.
Announcements
Total Armageddon: A Slanted Reader on Design edited by Ian Lynam
Total Armageddon: A Slanted Reader on Design
Edited by Ian Lynam
Publisher: Slanted Publishers
Published: March 2019
Total Armageddon is about design. And culture. And complexity, notably how we, as a global civilization, deal with science fiction, taste, social media, the cities we live in, aesthetics, PowerPoint, burkas, Big Tech, full-contact sports, and other thorny topics. The book celebrates 15 years of independent publishing and brings together a who’s who of authors and essays from 32 issues of Slanted Magazine.
A Field Guide to Color by Lisa Solomon
A Field Guide to Color: A Watercolor Workbook
By Lisa Solomon
Publisher: Roost Books
Published: August 2019
In this creative workbook you’ll discover fresh ways to connect with color in your art and life. Using watercolors, gouache, or any other water-based medium, explore color theory while playing with paint through a balanced blend of color experiments and loose color meditations. This inspiring workbook will change the way you relate to color
Five Oceans in a Teaspoon by Dennis Bernstein and Warren Lehrer
Five Oceans in a Teaspoon
Poems by Dennis Bernstein
Visualizations by Warren Lehrer
Introduction by Steven Heller
Publisher: Paper Crown Press
Published: September 19, 2019
“From a kidnap note for a world held hostage by an A-bomb, to a Holocaust survivor’s tattooed arms where the numbers just don’t add up, Five Oceans in a Teaspoon re-envisions a poetry memoir via a textual kaleidoscope... Bernstein and Lehrer are the Rodgers and Hart of Visual Poetry.” — Bob Holman, poet, poetry activist and chronicler, and founder of the Bowery Poetry Club
Ballpark: Baseball in the American City by Paul Goldberger
Ballpark: Baseball in the American City
By Paul Goldberger
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: May 2019
An illustrated, entirely new look at the history of baseball: told through the stories of the vibrant and ever-changing ballparks where the game was and is staged, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic.
Charleston Fancy by Witold Rybczynski
Charleston Fancy: Little Houses and Big Dreams in the Holy City
By Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: May 2019
Charleston, South Carolina, which boasts America’s first historic district, is known for its palmetto-lined streets and picturesque houses. The Holy City, named for its profusion of churches, exudes an irresistible charm. Award-winning author and cultural critic Witold Rybczynski unfolds a series of stories about a group of youthful architects, builders, and developers based in Charleston: a self-taught home builder, an Air Force pilot, a fledgling architect, and a bluegrass mandolin player.
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.
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