Commentary & Criticism

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By Jean-Louis Cohen. London: Phaidon Press, 2012, 528 pages, $75. Over the last half century, the historiography of the Modern movement has grown increasingly complex. Where the development of Modern architecture was once presented as a coherent linear story, it is now understood to encompass a variety of overlapping and interwoven tendencies. A dominant narrative has been replaced by analysis and interpretation of competing directions, revealing the tensions and controversies that shaped the architecture of the 20th century. With the wide-ranging scholarship of recent years, historians have been challenged to account for a greater number of events, architects, buildings, texts

Websites are a vital marketing tool. Unless you’re a superstar design firm, steer clear of archispeak and tricky graphics. Users want a site that is clean and simple. Julie Snow is a terrific architect. But you might not know it from her website. Say you’d like to see her residential projects. From a series of tiny images darting across the bottom of the screen, you have to pick the ones that look like houses, and click before they disappear—like playing a video game. Simultaneously, the words “transparency enclosure veiling lightness structure detail assembly material surface performance technology transformative connection release”

By Diana Balmori and Joel Sanders. The Monacelli Press, 2011, 208 pages, $50. In Groundwork, landscape architect Diana Balmori and architect Joel Sanders explore the territory between their fields, which is often painted—falsely, they write—as a dichotomy. “An integrated practice of landscape and architecture could have dramatic environmental consequences: the disciplines would cease to have separate agendas and would instead allow for buildings and landscapes to perform as linked interactive systems that heal the environment.” It is tantalizing, despite the hubris behind the idea that people or designers can “heal” nature. Ecologists and biologists maintain that the best way to

Edited by Lukas Feireiss, Introduction by Ole Bouman. NAi Publishers, 2011, 240 pages, $40. This book profiles 30 progressive architectural projects from more than 15 countries in an attempt to demonstrate the productive potential of community-centered design. Editor Lukas Feireiss goes beyond curatorial norms by including the testimonies of people who have interacted with the finished buildings, along with full-page color photos, contextual descriptions, and mission statements. Testify! The Consequences of Architecture, edited by Lukas Feireiss, Introduction by Ole Bouman. NAi Publishers, 2011, 240 pages, $40. These interviews show how the combination of physical intervention and community programs can impact

Edited by Lukas Feireiss, Introduction by Ole Bouman. NAi Publishers, 2011, 240 pages, $40. June 2012 This book profiles 30 progressive architectural projects from more than 15 countries in an attempt to demonstrate the productive potential of community-centered design. Editor Lukas Feireiss goes beyond curatorial norms by including the testimonies of people who have interacted with the finished buildings, along with full-page color photos, contextual descriptions, and mission statements. Testify! The Consequences of Architecture, edited by Lukas Feireiss, Introduction by Ole Bouman. NAi Publishers, 2011, 240 pages, $40. These interviews show how the combination of physical intervention and community programs

Thomas Heatherwick’s unconventional approach flouts design orthodoxy. A visit to Thomas Heatherwick’s London studio is like stepping into a Renaissance cabinet of curiosities—one of those idiosyncratic efforts to capture the wondrous variety of the natural and man-made worlds. Strange objects crowd the shelves and floor, indeterminate forms that might be product prototypes, scale models, or sculpture, hinting at the fertile imagination of a designer who transcends any narrow job description. For a New York City Longchamp store, Heatherwick created a series of curving, thermoplastic balustrades.  Heatherwick set up his studio in 1994 fresh out of college, and he employs 80

Edited and with an essay by Susan Morgan. East of Borneo Books, 2012, 392 pages, $35. Affection isn’t a word often used to describe architecture criticism, but that’s the ruling emotion of Piecing Together Los Angeles, the first collection of the writings of California historian and critic Esther McCoy (1904-89). There’s McCoy’s affection for Los Angeles superstars like Charles Eames, Pierre Koenig and John Lautner when they were young and needed books like McCoy’s Five California Architects (1960) to give their work a backstory—and when they were old, and the world needed a reminder of their talents. (On Lautner: “Instead

Edited by Harry den Hartog. 010 Publishers: 2010, 416 pages, $44. Related Links: The Vertical Village and How the City Moved to Mr. Sun This densely packed book presents a broad range of research on the remarkable growth of the greater Shanghai metropolitan area in recent decades. With more than 300,000 people moving to Shanghai each year, the city government is busy building satellite towns, some of which are themed on ersatz visions of foreign places. So today, you can live in or visit Holland Village or Thames Town. Other new towns, such as Qingpu and Jiading, employ more sophisticated