Can Buildings Speak

Looks at the shapes and patterns on buildings, what a building's exterior tells about its purpose and compares building materials used in the past with those used today. Includes an activity to design a stained-glass window. Suggested level: junior, primary.

The canonical inventors of International Style have long dominated studies of modern European architecture. But in this text, Anthony Alofsin broadens this scope by exploring the rich yet overlooked architecture of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire and its successor states.

By and large, architectural historians use texts, drawings, and photographs to craft their narratives. Oral testimony from those who actually occupy or construct buildings is rarely taken as seriously. Speaking of Buildings offers a rebuttal, theorizing the radical potential of a methodology that has historically been cast as unreliable. Essays by an international group of scholars look at varied topics, from the role of gossip in undermining masculine narratives in architecture to workers' accounts of building with cement in midcentury London to a sound art piece created by oral testimonies from Los Angeles public housing residents. In sum, the authors call for a renewed form of listening to enrich our understanding of what buildings are, what they do, and what they mean to people.

Reviews State Dept plans for building construction and operation abroad.

The most famous monument of the Dutch Golden Age is undoubtedly the Amsterdam Town Hall by architect Jacob van Campen inaugurated in 1655. Today we stand in awe confronted with the grand Classicist façade, the delightful horror of the sculptures in the Tribunal, and the magnificence of the huge Citizens' Hall. In the period of its construction, many artists and writers tried to capture the overwhelming impact of the building by, among other comparisons, relating it to the ancient Wonders of the World and by stressing its splendour, riches, and impressive scale. In doing so, they constructed the Town Hall as the ultimate wonder, thus offering a silent, but very powerful testimony to the power and position of the City of Amsterdam and its rulers as equals of the other European regimes. To fully understand these mechanisms of power, this book relates the Town Hall to other, impressive buildings of the same period-the palace of the Louvre, Saint Peter's Basilica, and Banqueting House-and their visual and textual representations. Thus, this book gives a broad audience of readers new insights into the agency of magnificent buildings. The Amsterdam Town Hall in Words and Images does not restrict itself to a national scope or a purely architectural analysis, but clarifies how artists and writers all over Europe presented buildings as wonders of the world. This book is pioneering in its analysis of seventeenth and eighteenth-century paintings, prints, drawings, poems, and travel accounts and offers a new understanding of how the wondrous character of these grand buildings was constructed.

Buildings protect us, help us and inspire us, but do you ever wonder what they would say if they could talk? Do they have feelings? Are they happy to see us? Does it hurt when we stomp? This imaginative children's book contemplates what would happen if the buildings that surround us suddenly piped up to tell us what's on their minds. Written by Nikki Clinton and illustrated by 14 designers and architects, If Buildings Could Talk invites kids of all ages to ponder the conversations they might have with the architecture in their lives.The architecture industry has a pipeline problem and we feel there's no better way to create opportunities than by inspiring our youth. That's why some of Little's most talented creatives came together to write and illustrate this imaginative children's book. All proceeds from the book will go toward funding architecture and design mentoring programs focused on educating, empowering and supporting underrepresented youth to pursue a career in design.