As a recipient of the prestigious Prix de Rome, Graves traveled through Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain, England, Germany, and France, studying and recording the masterworks of both ancient and modern architecture. Michael Graves: Images of A Grand Tour collects for the first time the stunning artwork produced during this trip. Delicate pencil sketches, striking ink washes, and colorful photographs show the deep connection Graves had to the places he visited, from the Roman Forum to the Grecian Acropolis to Wiltshires Stonehenge. They also tell something of the education of an architect, bringing to light the classical buildings that caused Graves to reexamine his early devotion to modernism. A foreword by Graves reflects on these travels from the distance of forty years, while author Brian Ambroziak puts the tour into the context of Graves's life and work.

    Through the histories of the developers, owners, architects, laborers, and craftspeople who shaped this district, the book creates a picture of the uniquely cosmopolitan city in the American South. "This book is a valuable contribution to Southern history and to the history of both American architecture and American cities....Southern Comfort is a landmark piece of scholarship on the area." Anne Rice, New York Times Book Review "There's no part of New Orleans so steeped in architectural history as the Garden District. Southern Comfort: The Garden District of New Orleans tells the story in words and rich photos." Hemispheres

    It's a place considered to be in the middle of nowhere, yet ironically close to everywhere. It is an environment of real natural beauty and, simultaneously, one of real constructed ugliness. Abandonment, exploitation, erasure and nostalgia are all aspects of this place and are conditions as authentic as its natural beauty and local form. This land of disparate conditions in not just a setting for my work -- it is part of the work. By choosing to live and work here -- to call it home -- I've been able to get beyond the surface of things, to turn over the rock and discover the complex and rich underbelly of my place -- its visceral presences and expressive character -- that so informs and sustains my efforts. I am working from the conviction that architecture is larger than the subject of architecture." --Marlon BlackwellMarlon Blackwell is a passionate polemicist. He's also a very gifted architect. The projects in this first monograph on the "radical ruralist," as touted by the Royal Institute of British Architects, offer a new architectural language that at once celebrate the vernacular and transgress the boundaries of the conventional. The results are -- we can't help it, there's no better word -- beautiful.Incisive essays by David Buege, Dan Hoffman, and Juhani Pallasmaa and lush photography by Tim Hursley, Richard Johnson, and Kevin Latady explore Blackwell's projects, including his widely acclaimed Keenan TowerHouse, the award-winning Moore HoneyHouse, 2Square House, and Flynn-Schmitt BarnHouse, studios, and institutional buildings.

    This investigation proceeded from the conclusion that not all subsidized housing needs to be the same. Starting from a generic public housing program, Sejima's housing block in Gifu departs from convention and occupies the conceptual and physical space created between oppositional design concerns: where a strictly modulated structure confronts a random arrangement of different spaces; between the length of the building and the reduction of its built depth; between inhabitable space and the surrounding landscape; between the individual and the family unit.

    The quonset hut, that sliced tube of corrugated metal, was the answer. Over a hundred thousand were produced as part of the war effort. In its aftermath, even more were built and existing huts were adapted to house the postwar population boom. Of course, it couldn't last: the American desire for permanence meant decay and neglect for many of these rough-and-ready shelters and quickie warehouses. But in the midst of its almost tragic tale of extinction, the quonset hut has emerged as an unexpected icon of Americana and an oasis of architectural imagination. Travel the back roads of America and you will find the quonset's distinctive shape enclosing everything from houses ofworship to houses of pancakes.Quonset Hut tells the story of this unique architectural phenomena, from its birth during WWII as a mass-production shelter to its new status as an icon of American pragmatism, ingenuity, perseverance, and individuality.

    In times of globalism and scale enlargement, an update of this definition seems needed: metres turn into kilometres, "M3" becomes "KM3." KM3 is a story about a world that is getting dense. Very dense. It constructs its logical response: a city that is denser. A city that is continuously under construction, with space for limitless capacities, populations. Beyond scarcity. Beyond separation. Beyond pessimism and protectionism. The 3D City. A free-fall in endless space. From right to left, from front to back, from above to below. Pure depth. KM3 is more a construct than an analysis. KM3 is a hypothesis, a theoretical city, a possible urban theory. KM3 can also be seen as a science-fiction novel, a twin pair that describes this upcoming city as an emerging presence, an already existing 'other' world. The book includes a DVD of animations and two urban planning software programs by MVRDV.