The Anatomy Of The Architectural Book

This book makes visible the axes along which architectural knowledge circulates through books into buildings and back.

Blier illuminates the extraordinary architecture of the Batammaliba people of Western Africa, revealing these buildings as texts through which we can read the beliefs, psychology, traditions, and social concerns of their inhabitants. In doing so, she explores the role of vernacular architecture as an expression of culture. "A splendid analysis of the centrality of architecture in the daily lives of the Batammaliba and its integral role in articulating social values....The story is beautifully told in the best of anthropological traditions."—Judith R. Blau, Contemporary Society "A remarkable study....Blier's volume carries the study of African architecture to a qualitatively new level of scholarship. It introduces a new dimension whereby the architectural medium can be used to illuminate much of the entire belief system of any culture."—Labelle Prussin, African Arts "In this excellent book Blier provides a richly detailed and searching account of what architecture means to the Batammaliba of northern Togo and Benin....The finest account I have yet read of the relations between systems of beliefs, ritual practices, and African aesthetics and plastic arts....The ethnography and basic insight should be the envy of any social anthropologist."—T.O. Beidelman, Man

Taking inspiration from Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists and Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence, this book elucidates the theory and practice of a selected group of key Japanese architects by situating them within a wider cultural context of art, technology, literature, and politics. Illustrated with rarely seen images and interspersed with previously untranslated texts, the book uses biographical profiles and comparative analyses to trace the evolution of spatial, aesthetic, and behavioral concepts in Japanese architecture over the postwar decades. In particular, the political activism of architects in the 1960s and the social criticism of architects in the 1970s provide a vital source of inspiration for the protean creativity of the Japanese architectural world today.

This ultimate renovation guide identifies hundreds of parts of a house to help home owners understand the elements of construction, decorative detail and convey ideas to suppliers, contractors, or designers. B & W illustrations throughout.

Examines the great architectural styles, the background to their evolutions, and the means by which the buildings within them were achieved. The many superb pieces of specially commissioned cut-away artwork, researched with the aid of computer techniques, provide an intriguing and informative study of the world's greatest structures from the Great Pyramid of Cheops to examples of modern architectural styles, and, together with the clear and informative text, make this a fascinating book for both expert and layman.--From publisher description.

Sabkhas (salt flats) are natural phenomena—a unique result of converging climates, winds, and river flow—with the potential to rehabilitate the natural global order. The ancient term sabkha originates in the Arab world. Today, it has become well-established in the global lexicon of geological and ecological discussions around sustainability: These overlooked ecological networks of wetland plants can sequester more carbon per square meter than rainforests. The Anatomy of Sabkhas investigates how these precious resources form, how they have aided the development of human civilization throughout history, and how they have subsequently infiltrated our traditions, rituals, festivals, smartphones, and cities today. Written and edited by urbanists and architects, the book examines the ways that sabkhas might actively contribute to more sustainable built environments and how, in tandem, sabkhas can not only support our natural environment but also heal it.

'A Section of Now' aims to re-establish a dialogue between architecture and society that would allow architecture to begin to contend with and address our changed and changing social norms. The publication serves as a meditation on new behaviours, rituals, and values and their spatial implications, and seeks to catalyse urban and architectural interventions that accommodate, influence, and, in some cases, pre-empt our new lived realities. Authors address topics ranging from the safety of digital spaces to how normative life trajectories affect the elderly and the many selves each of us puts forward, while architects present frameworks for, among other things, spaces for blended families, thirty-year-old retirees, and contested monuments. Bringing together analytical essays about the contemporary moment and the direction in which society is moving, projective texts that outline new architectural types to address societal needs, alongside television series, photography, and architecture and design projects, 'A Section of Now' outlines a new relationship between the spaces in which we live and the ways we live within them. Architect, editor, and curator Giovanna Borasi is Director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

A key book for the golfer's library, exploring the intricacies of golf architecture--and how this knowledge can improve your golf game.