It is one of the four books on city planning I got from my mum last Christmas. I have Polish editions, but where I can identify the English version I'll refer to it for convenience (it saves me re-translating the title). My mum is a civil engineer and I am an art historian by education. …
Continue reading Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design – Charles Montgomery
So I didn't expect to come upon a new kind of place, that is, a place that demanded unknown rules of behavior, not twenty miles from my house, and certainly not in a shopping mall. This encounter happened in the 1970s. - regarding food courts The title of this collection [A Sense of Place, A Sense …
Continue reading Mysteries of the Mall and Other Essays – Witold Rybczynski – Quotes
Intuitively we all know what the term 'iconic architecture' means, we've seen enough of it to also know that it does not always mean good architecture. Actually, the more investors focus on the iconic aspect the worse the architecture usually becomes. Tom Dyckhoff tries to understand this phenomenon and its origins. It was fun to …
Continue reading The Age of Spectacle: The Rise and Fall of Iconic Architecture – Tom Dyckhoff
It is one of those almost coffee-table books, but one that you can still hold in your hands without breaking them under its weight. I am not sure I would agree this is the history of architecture exactly, but it definitely involves a hundred buildings. The thing that instantly made me jealous (and possibly a …
Continue reading A History of Architecture in 100 Buildings – Dan Cruickshank
My dear mum is on a mission to keep me in touch with my education (art history, with focus on architecture) despite me working in financial data ever since I actually started working. She also knows that the best gift for me is a book, so I get from her a steady supply of beautifully …
Continue reading Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World – Wade Graham
