Most deal with questions of design in a wide range of areas, from architecture and furniture, to clothes and jewellery, pottery, plumbing, and printing; others are polemics on craft education and training, and on design in general. Loos, the great cultural reformer and moralist in the history of European architecture and design was always a 'revolutionary against the revolutionaries'. With his assault on Viennese arts and crafts and his conflict with bourgeois morality, he managed to offend the whole country. His 1908 essay 'Ornament and Crime', mocked by an age in love with its accessories, has come to be recognised as a seminal work in combating the aesthetic imperialism of the turn of the century. Today Loos is recognised as one of the great masters of modern architecture.

    From day one, the magazine has maintained a Tokyo bureau, which today also encompasses a Monocle shop and radio studio.Over the past decade, the magazine and its team have continued to build upon their appreciation for and understanding of the nation of Japan. Monocle’s stories have covered everything from a live journey on the emperor’s jet and the tastiest places to eat in Kagoshima to the fashion designers challenging conventions and the businesses with remarkable stories untold outside Japan.The Monocle Book of Japan reveals the best of the country in the run-up to the 2021 Olympics. Complete with striking photography and captivating essays, this volume showcases some of Japan’s most intriguing splendors.

    Kundig's projects, especially his houses, uniquely combine these two seemingly disparate sets of characteristics to produce some of the most inventive structures found in the architecture world today. Kundig's internationally acclaimed work is inspired by both the industrial structures with which he grew up in the Pacific Northwest and the vibrant craft cultures that are fostered there. His buildings uniquely meld industrial sensibilities and materials such as Cor-ten steel and concrete with an intuitive understanding of scale. As Kundig states, "The idea is insaperable from the fabrication, inseparable from the materials used."Tom Kundig: Houses presents five projects in depth, from their early conceptual sketches to their final lovingly wrought, intimate details. Kundig's houses reflect a sustained and active collaborative process between designer, craftsmen, and owners, resulting in houses that bring to life the architect's intentions, the materials used, and lines of unforgettable beauty.

    Every building contains clues embedded in its design that identify not only its architectural style but also the story of who designed it, who it was built for, and why. Organized by architectural element (roofs, doors, windows, columns, domes, towers, arches, etc.), the book is roughly chronological within each section, examining the elements across history, through different architectural styles, and by geographical distribution. Additional chapters offer overviews of how architecture has been affected by geography, history, and religion, along with an illustrated timeline of architectural elements. Also included is a chapter on applied ornament and a handy introduction to naming each part of a building. All entries are accompanied by examples in the forms of period engravings, line drawings, and pictures. The extended captions make the book invaluable for anyone who has ever pondered the meaning or importance of a hipped roof, rounded doorway, or classical pediment.

    It is full of detailed drawings that clearly illustrate the construction of building elements. The principles and processes of construction are explained with the concepts of design included where appropriate. Extensive coverage of building construction practice and techniques, representing both traditional procedures and modern developments, are also included to provide the most comprehensive and easy to understand guide to building construction. The new edition has been reviewed and updated and includes additional material on energy conservation, sustainable construction, environmental and green building issues. Further details of fire protection to elements of construction are provided.Building Construction Handbook is an essential text for undergraduate and vocational students on a wide range of courses including NVQ and BTEC National, through Higher National Certificate and Diploma to Foundation and three-year Degree level. It is also a useful practice reference for building designers, contractors and others engaged in the construction industry. It is ideal for students on all construction courses. The topics are presented concisely in plain language and with clear drawings. It incorporates recent revisions to Building and Construction Regulations.

    His structural thinking differs from that of others in his field, in its completely innovative conception of the engineer's contribution to architecture. The plasticity of architectural plans is enhanced through a decisive promotion of their structural designs. The borderline between structure and architecture thus becomes increasingly blurred. This process is explained in detail in "Informal" by reference to eight seminal projects. Balmond elucidates the theoretical basis of his engineering and architectural solutions, and his sketches transcend purely technical illustration - they are key to his approach. "Informal" invites readers to rethink their understanding of the relationships between architecture, design and engineering.

    Bachelard takes us on a journey, from cellar to attic, to show how our perceptions of houses and other shelters shape our thoughts, memories, and dreams."A magical book. . . . The Poetics of Space is a prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced-and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard." -from the new foreword by John R. Stilgoe

    Never had homes been so thoroughly contemporary, with antiques and period styles entirely banished. Mid-Century Modern explores the interior decor of this seminal decade, concentrating on all aspects of a home's decoration-walls, flooring, surfaces, lighting, and, of course, furniture.Case studies examine beautiful present-day homes that exhibit mid-century style in an exemplary way, and suggest ideas for taking the 1950's look-complete with collector's pieces-and mixing and matching it with elements from other eras.

    While this recovery invokes a return of past traditions and ideas, it also implies renewal, invention, and transformation. Recovering Landscape collects a number of essays that discuss why landscape is gaining increased attention today, and what new possibilities might emerge from this situation. Themes such as reclamation, urbanism, infrastructure, geometry, representation, and temporality are explored in discussions drawn from recent developments not only in the United States but also in the Netherlands, France, India, and Southeast Asia. The contributors to this collection, all leading figures in the field of landscape architecture, include Alan Balfour, Denis Cosgrove, Georges Descombes, Christophe Girot, Steen Hoyer, David Leatherbarrow, Bart Lootsma, Sebastien Marot, Anuradha Mathur, Marc Treib, and Alex Wall.

    The book also includes descriptions of laquerware under candlelight, and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure.

    With Atlas of Novel Tectonics, Reiser+Umemoto hone in on the many facets of architecture and illuminate their theories with great thought and simplicity. The Atlas is organized as an accumulation of short chapters that address the workings of matter and force, material science, the lessons of art and architectural history, and the influence of architecture on culture (and vice versa). Reiser+Umemoto see architectural design as a series of problem situations, and each chapter is an argument devoted to a specific condition or case. Influenced by a wide range of fields and phenomenaBrillat-Savarin's classic The Physiology of Taste is one of their primary modelsthe authors provide a cross-section of thinking and inspiration. The result is both an elucidation of the concepts that guide Reiser+Umemoto through their own design process and a series of meditations on topics that have formed their own sense as architects. Atlas of Novel Tectonics offers an entirely fresh perspective on subjects that are generally taken for granted, and does so with a welcome punch and energy.

    It also relates to…Meaning in Western Architecture. Common to all of them is the view that architecture represents a means to give man an “existential foothold”…The philosophy of Heidegger has been the catalyst which has made the present book possible and determined its approach. The wish for understanding architecture as a concrete phenomenon…could be satisfied in the present book…thanks to Heidegger’s essays on language and aesthetics.Man dwells when he can orient himself within and identify himself with an environment, or, in short, when he experiences the environment as meaningful. Dwelling therefore implies something more than “shelter”. It implies that the spaces where life occurs are places, in the true sense of the word. A place is a space which has a distinct character. Since ancient times the genius loci, or “spirit of place”, has been recognized as the concrete reality man has to face and come to terms with in his daily life. Architecture means to visualize the genius loci, and the task of the architect is to create meaningful places, whereby he helps man to dwell.

    Kahn, whose many buildings include the Salk Institute, the Yale Study Center, and the Exeter Library. He is remembered, however, not only as a master builder, but also as one of the most important and creative thinkers of the twentieth century. For Kahn, the study of architecture was the study of human beings, their highest aspirations and most profound truths. He searched for forms and materials to express the subtlety and grandeur of life. In his buildings we see the realization of his vision: luminous surfaces that evoke a fundamental awe, silent courtyards that speak of the expansiveness and the sanctity of the spirit, monumental columns and graceful arches that embody dignity and strength. Updated with a new preface, this classic work is a major statement on human creativity, showing us Louis Kahn as architect, visionary, and poet.

    Four Walls and a Roof challenges this notion, presenting a candid account of what it is really like to work as an architect.Drawing on his own tragicomic experiences in the field, Reinier de Graaf reveals the world of contemporary architecture in vivid snapshots: from suburban New York to the rubble of northern Iraq, from the corridors of wealth in London, Moscow, and Dubai to garbage-strewn wastelands that represent the demolished hopes of postwar social housing. We meet oligarchs determined to translate ambitions into concrete and steel, developers for whom architecture is mere investment, and the layers of politicians, bureaucrats, consultants, and mysterious hangers-on who lie between any architectural idea and the chance of its execution.Four Walls and a Roof tells the story of a profession buffeted by external forces that determine--at least as much as individual inspiration--what architects design. Perhaps the most important myth debunked is success itself. To achieve anything, architects must serve the powers they strive to critique, finding themselves in a perpetual conflict of interest. Together, architects, developers, politicians, and consultants form an improvised world of contest and compromise that none alone can control.

    Architecture and Disjunction, which brings together Tschumi's essays from 1975 to 1990, is a lucid and provocative analysis of many of the key issues that have engaged architectural discourse over the past two decades--from deconstructive theory to recent concerns with the notions of event and program. The essays develop different themes in contemporary theory as they relate to the actual making of architecture, attempting to realign the discipline with a new world culture characterized by both discontinuity and heterogeneity. Included are a number of seminal essays that incited broad attention when they first appeared in magazines and journals, as well as more recent and topical texts.Tschumi's discourse has always been considered radical and disturbing. He opposes modernist ideology and postmodern nostalgia since both impose restrictive criteria on what may be deemed legitimate cultural conditions. He argues for focusing on our immediate cultural situation, which is distinguished by a new postindustrial unhomeliness reflected in the ad hoc erection of buildings with multipurpose programs. The condition of New York and the chaos of Tokyo are thus perceived as legitimate urban forms.