Teaching architecture through poetry? UC Berkeley architecture professor Jill Stoner has amassed 48 poems selected from some of the most noted poets of the 20th century to help her architecture students understand the conceptual idea of space. Each incredibly moving poem from greats such as William Blake, Octavio Paz, Sylvia Path and William Carlos Williams has an accompanying illustration or photograph and a rich introductory essay. A fabulous gift for those hard-to-buy-for architects!
An appealing approach to creating dwellings blending vernacular styles, fine craftsmanship, and indigenous materials. This volume features the recent projects of McAlpine, one of the country’s most highly respected architecture and interior design firms, renowned for its timeless houses exemplifying the charm and elegance of traditional and vernacular English, American, and European styles blended with a modern sensibility. Following from their first book, The Home Within Us, this book profiles twenty stunning projects, from a stone tower folly standing in the gardens of a Tudor-style house to a humble yet elegant wooden lakeside retreat. Through his poetic voice, Bobby McAlpine narrates the story of each residence, pointing out its unique qualities. Featured are an exotic Florida Panhandle beach house; a Tuscan-style horse farm; a rambling Colonial Revival compound; and a miniature European manor house, among others. These dwellings are classically understated and welcoming. With its gorgeous photography of inspiring interiors and exteriors, Poetry of Place will appeal to those interested in design romancing the past.
This catalog commemorates the exhibition Irving Gill: Progress & Poetry in Architecture and features essays by four San Diego experts on Gill who approach his buildings from personal hands-on experience, study, and reflection. And, in what may be the first compendium of its kind, we have also gathered the most important period writings by and about Gill and reprinted them here. Lavishly illustrated and published for the first time are historic photographs of Gill buildings made from glass slides circa 1910 that were commissioned and used by Irving Gill in his practice. The over 130-page publication includes essays by Erik Hanson, Paul and Sarai Johnson, and Roy McMakin, with the foreword by Bruce Coons, and introduction by Ann Jarmusch.
From the widely acclaimed poet, novelist, critic, and scholar, a lucid and edifying exploration of the building blocks of poetry and how they’ve been used over the centuries to assemble the most imperishable poems. We treasure our greatest poetry, Brad Leithauser reminds us in these pages, “not for its what but its how.” In chapters on everything from iambic pentameter to how stanzas are put together to “rhyme and the way we really talk,” Leithauser takes a deep dive into the architecture of poetry. He explains how meter and rhyme work in fruitful opposition; how the weirdnesses of spelling in English are a boon to the poet; why an off rhyme will often succeed where a perfect rhyme would not; why Shakespeare and Frost can sound so similar, despite the centuries separating them. And Leithauser is just as likely to invoke Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, or Boz Scaggs as he is Chaucer or Milton, Bishop or Swenson, providing enlightening play-by-plays of their memorable lines. Here is both an indispensable learning tool and a delightful journey into the art of the poem—a chance for new poets and readers of poetry to grasp the fundamentals, and for experienced poets and readers to rediscover excellent works in all their fascinating detail.
This beautifully illustrated volume presents Ferguson & Shamamian's finest work, including new houses, apartments, alterations and additions, and unbuilt design plans.
John Marx's watercolors, first published in the Architectural Review, are a captivating example of an architect's way of thinking. Subtle and quiet they are nonetheless compelling works in how they tackle a sense of place, of inhabiting space and time all the while resonating with the core of one's inner being. There is an existential quality to these watercolors that is rare to be found in this medium. Something akin to the psychologically piercing observational quality of artists like De Chirico or Hopper. As architects strive to communicate their ideas, it is interesting to explore the world of Marx's watercolors as an example of a humane approach to conveying emotional meaning in relation to our environment. Marx's subject matter read like "built landscapes" heightening the role of the manmade yet wholly in balance with the natural world. This is a message and sentiment that is perhaps more important than ever to relay to audiences.
This Companion breaks new ground in our knowledge and understanding of the diverse relationships between literature, architecture, and the city, which together form a field of interdisciplinary research that is one of the most innovative and exciting to have emerged in recent years. Bringing together a wide variety of contributors, not only writers, architectural and literary scholars, and social scientists, but graphic novelists and artists, the book offers contemporary essays on everything from science fiction and the crime novel, to poetry, comics and oral history. It is structured into two sections: History, Narrative and Genre, and Strategy, Language and Form. Including over ninety illustrations, the book is a must read for academics and students.
A thought-provoking consideration of how architecture, from a doorknob to a city plan, can influence human behavior How does the experience of turning a door handle, opening a door from one space into another, affect us? It is no wonder that the door, one of the most elemental architectural forms, has such metaphorical richness. But even on a purely physical human level, the cold touch of a brass handle or the swish of a sliding screen gives rise to an emotional reaction, sometimes modest, occasionally profound. This book aims to understand how these everyday acts are influenced by architectural form, a concept that is vital for all architects to grasp. It considers how specifically built elements and volumes, taken from a wide array of buildings and settings around the world, can affect our powers of decision. From hand-carved stairs in Greek villages to free-floating catwalks, from the elegant processional steps of Renaissance Italy to Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterly manipulation of form, all provide very different experiences of stepping from one level to the next, and all affect our experience of that space. Seamlessly integrating text and image, each chapter focuses on a different aspect of our daily interactions with architecture, looking at stairs, floors and paths, moving interior spaces, perception and perspective, transparency and the relationship between a building and its setting. This book is not just for architects and designers engaged in the production of space, but for all those who seek a richer understanding of their place in the built world.
In order for a book to succeed in presenting a theory of architecture, it must address aspects of imagination and creativity as well as the channels one can use to achieve truly significant architectural design. Poetics of Architecture explores the fundamental theories of Modern and Postmodern design and attempts to reconcile all that is worthwhile in these two movements into a new inclusivist attitude toward architecture. Anthony C. Antoniades looks at the many intangible and tangible channels one can harness in creating architectural design. By opening up architecture to the full range of creative influences, he tries to help readers produce designs that are richer on spatial, sensual, spiritual, and environmental levels. Some of the intangible channels to creativity explored in the book include fantasy, metaphor, the paradoxical and metaphysical, the primordial and untouched, poetry and literature, and the exotic and multicultural. Among the tangible channels covered are history and the study of precedents, mimesis and literal interpretation, geometry, materials, and the role of nature. The author presents rich and imaginative discussions of these various channels, explaining which were favored during the Modern and Postmodern movements and clarifying his theoretical analyses through the use of many vivid examples, tables, and illustrations. Included among the examples in the volume are many distinguished projects and theories by a wide range of noted architects such as Asplund, Aalto, Utzon, Pikionis, Barragin, Pietila, Predock, and Legorreta, who are latecomers to the attention of the media. Antoniades also provides fascinating material on the study of architectural biographies as a means of achieving an all-inclusive creativity in architectural design. Highly original yet based on solid principles, Poetics of Architecture will help architects, designers, and students increase their versatility and creativity in the studio. It will also deepen their understanding and appreciation of the creative process and its many influences.
