Diana Balmori
Diana Balmori’s Notable Books of 2013
Nonfiction, Landscape Design
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This is a notable book. After decades of doubt about the very existence of Babylon’s hanging garden, this extremely interesting and solidly researched work takes us step by step along the circuitous route that led historical sources astray to the wrong site or the wrong attribution.
First, Dalley asks why, while the existence of six of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World had been proven, this one had been consigned to myth. With this intriguing question, she begins her long search for clues to solve this mystery.
In a good mystery, it is anathema to disclose the final discovery prematurely. But although I do not want to spoil this mystery for its new readers, I cannot help saying that the two major discoveries—first, that the garden was not built in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar or Semiramis, but in Nineveh, in Assyria, by Sennacherib in 700 BC; and second, that it was built not on the Euphrates River, but on the Tigris—resulted in searches in the wrong places. The reasons that the names became confused is one of the most interesting parts of the story and the crux of the mystery.
Once the information is applied to the new site, the data and archaeology begin to fall into place. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it is possible to actually find the hanging garden by conducting an archeological dig at the new site; many cities succeeded one another on top of Sennacherib’s palace and garden. But significant elements remain, including both the elaborate complex that brought water to the palace and irrigated the garden, as well as some of the sculpted structures in important areas of the waterworks. As the author points out, this water system is an integral part of what made the garden one of the Seven Wonders.
The book is full of major surprises, such as that—several centuries before Archimedes was born—bronze Archimedean screws served to raise water to the top of the terraced garden. Learning about the water engineering is in itself a reason to read this book, particularly in an age in which water engineering has become a priority in cities menaced by rising seas.
Dalley’s descriptions of the terraced garden, the collection of plants from many distant places, the semicircular plan that later Greek writers described as similar to their amphitheaters, the shaded columned walk that connected the upper level of the garden with the palace, and finally the two bronze Archimedean screws carrying water to the top of the garden, all provide a picture of delight.
For the first time, we are on solid ground with regard to where the hanging garden stood. New discoveries will perhaps lead to some changes here and there in our knowledge, but they can only add richness to this superb discovery.
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If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture by Moshe Safdie
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture
By Moshe Safdie
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Published: September 2022
One of the world’s greatest and most thoughtful architects recounts his extraordinary career and the iconic structures he has built—from Habitat in Montreal to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—and offers a manifesto for the role architecture should play in society.
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Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York by Steven Heller
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: October 2022
An entertaining coming-of-age memoir from Steven Heller, award-winning designer, writer, and former senior art director at the New York Times, that takes readers on a visually inspired look back at being at the center of New York’s youth culture in the 1960s and ’70s.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman
Women Holding Things
By Maira Kalman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: October 2022
In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex Kalman created a small, limited-edition booklet, “Women Holding Things,” which featured select recent paintings by Maira, accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. The booklet quickly sold out. Now, the Kalmans have expanded that original publication into an extraordinary visual compendium. We see a woman hold a book, hold shears, hold children, hold a grudge, hold up, hold her own. In visually telling their stories, Kalman lays bare the essence of women’s lives—their tenacity, courage, vulnerability, hope, and pain.
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