Feature Friday: Summer Reading List – The Manifestos

This week’s Feature Friday recognizes one of my favorite opportunities of a three-month break (for those of us students, at least): summer reading! Though many of us do a LOT of reading during the school year as well, summer reading allows us to pick out books that interest us specifically, even from the fiction section. *gasp!*

Though none of the following are fiction, I thought I would share my summer reading list with you all, as each book is available here at the Architecture & Planning Library. I’ve made it a goal to read at least four of the most influential manifestos written by four equally influential architects – manifestos that are still incredibly vital to architectural theory and education today. And thus, I give to you: The Manifestos – a reading list!

Kindergarden Chats and Other Writings by Louis Sullivan, NA 2560 S82 1979

Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier, NA 2520 L3613 1986

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture by Robert Venturi, NA 2760 V46 1977

Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaus, NA 735 N5 K66

I’ve chosen the above four for several reasons:

  • In both the architectural and art history courses I’ve taken throughout my undergraduate and graduate education, I’ve come across references to these manifestos, and have only really read excerpts or passages from each to facilitate discussion. I’ve always been interested in reading the full manifestos, down to each chapter and each paragraph, with aims to weave together the main points I’ve read into a cohesive whole.
  • After working with the Karl Kamrath Collection for special collections last fall, books by most of these architects surfaced, especially Louis Sullivan, whom Kamrath had admired. Seeing these books in the collection of another successful architect solidified their importance in acting as a foundation for an architectural education.
  • This fall, I am taking Theory of Architecture with Professor Larry Speck, and I know the above titles are on his reading list. I admit it – I’m taking an opportunity to get ahead! Let’s be honest – you can never really take a break from learning if you truly love what it is you’re studying.

In addition to the above, I’ve amassed a few more that make a great addition to any reading list:

Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, NA 735 L3 V4 1977
In The Cause of Architecture, essays by Frank Lloyd Wright, NA 737 W7 D37
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, NA 9108 J3
The Architecture of the City by Aldo Rossi, NA 9031 R6713

Happy reading!

This #FeatureFriday was curated by Stephanie Phillips, a graduate student in the School of Architecture and a Graduate Student Assistant for the Architecture & Planning Library.  Much of her work involves coordinating with several interdisciplinary staff to promote events, exhibits, and new material of interest to all users of the library.

Feature Friday: Rural Studio at Twenty

Here at the Architecture & Planning Library, we’ve decided to implement a fun new tradition: #FeatureFriday. Starting today, every Friday we’ll feature an object (or objects) of interest – whether it be a book, journal, archival piece, or otherwise – that has been brought to our attention by one of our many staff members. We hope our selected features not only give a glimpse into the many items we have here at the library and in the archive, but also inspire you to explore what’s available on your own! These features will also shed light on the interests, various job titles, and personal profiles of our staff – many of which work behind the scenes to make the library what it is every day.

This week, we’re starting off strong with a recent publication: Rural Studio at Twenty: Designing and Building in Hale County, Alabama. From the publisher:

“For two decades, the students of Auburn University’s Rural Studio have designed and built remarkable houses and community buildings for impoverished residents of Alabama’s Hale County, one of the poorest in the nation. This book describes the complex mix of attributes that has made the Rural Studio unique: its teaching methods, the design and construction processes of its student teams, the relationship it has forged with its West Alabama community, and much more.”

Hale County is located about a 45 minute drive south of Tuscaloosa, the home of the University of Alabama, and three hours west of Auburn. This publication marks the 20th anniversity of the Rural Studio program, and features a detailed history of its roots, commentary from many of those involved, and a comprehensive portfolio of their projects.

Over the years, Rural Studio’s projects have dabbled in both the public and private spheres, all while striving to be a “good neighbor and friend” to the Hale County community. The depth of this book is incredible – detailed accounts of experiences, project schedules, finances, community outreach, client relationships, construction methods, and more are candidly recounted and shared.

I personally had been first introduced to Rural Studio in Cisco Gomes‘ Construction II course this past semester. We had explored the Hale County Animal Shelter, pictured above, as a case study while learing about wood as a material and in terms of its assemblies. The Animal Shelter utilized a lamella system, or diagonal grid structure, of 2×10 wood members cut gently to achive a stunning half-cylindrical form. This method of construction, despite its percieved complexity, was actually fairly low-tech and incredibly cost-effective. The Animal Shelter is just one of several community projects that are explored in detail, complete with drawings and in-progress photographs, within this book.

What fascinates me most, however, out of Rural Studio’s projects is their line of 20K Houses. Launched in 2005, Rural Studio set out a goal to design a market-rate model that could be built by contractors, considering both materials and labor, for $20,000. So far, twelve models have been designed and built by Rural Studio, each for a low-income client in the community. Rural Studio worked extensively with each client, addressing their needs while continuously learning from each prototype. This book, like the aforementioned community projects, recounts each house in detail, providing plans, sections, before-and-after photographs, and more to guide the reader through not only the building phase, but the design thinking that took place both before and after each house’s completetion. My favorite part of each spread are the images of the clients within their respective 20K homes – putting a face to the home they live in.

This book is perfect for readers who have any interest in community architecture, design-build projects, or truly design in general. I couldn’t help but notice the timing of this feature, as the School of Architecture’s annual Public Interest Design program’s studios are getting into the thick of things with their community-centric designs within Austin. What an incredibly inspirational #FeatureFriday – showcasing the tangible positive impact that design can have on a community!

Call Number: NA 2300 A9 F74 2014

This week’s #FeatureFriday was selected by Martha Gonzalez Palacios, the Architecture & Planning Librarian. She is  responsible for collection development, reference, instruction and digital projects at the Architecture & Planning Library – and is the ultimate student resource during busy semesters! Thanks, Martha!

Semester Recap: “Inside Modern Texas: the Case for Preserving Interiors”

The Spring 2014 semester was an incredibly exciting one at the Architecture & Planning Library – especially for events! My personal favorite brought together multiple facets of the library and beyond: Emily Ardoin’s curation of the exhibition “Inside Modern Texas: the Case for Preserving Interiors.”

Beginning as a Graduate Research Assistant appointment in the Fall 2013 semester, Emily, a recent May 2014 Master of Science in Historic Preservation graduate, was tasked with the goal of pulling together an exhibition for the Architecture & Planning Library’s Reading Room that would be on display from early April through September 2014. This was no easy task, as she started completely from scratch! For inspiration on finding a topic, she sifted through myriad issues of Interiors magazine, Texas Architect, and more journals from the Architecture and Planning Library. Ultimately, Emily utilized her Interior Design background and Historic Preservation studies to create an exhibition topic that was specific enough to pin down a clear focus, yet broad enough to include a wide array of archival materials from the library and Alexander Architectural Archive.

The end result was “Inside Modern Texas: the Case for Preserving Interiors,” which aligned perfectly with the Society of Architectural Historian’s Annual Conference, held in Austin in April. We were lucky enough to go behind the scenes with Emily in the final weeks of her curation process. The exhibit’s opening reception on April 10th brought together conference visitors, library and archive employees, UT professors, students of myraid majors, and more.

Emily’s exhibition is a visual testiment to the incredible depth of resources available for researchers at the Architecture & Planning Library and the Alexander Architectural Archive, as well as the vital research endeavors that are created from endowments and scholarships. Says head librarian Beth Dodd:

“We are always looking for ways to enhance the student experience, and curating an exhibit is an incredibly rigorous process that demands thorough research, careful selection and interpretation of materials, and exhibit design,” says Dodd.  “The endowment created by the late Professor Blake Alexander now enables us to offer our students this funded internship.”

Now, as we approach the official first day of summer, we want to remind you that “Inside Modern Texas” is on display in the Reading Room until September! We can’t think of a better way to beat the heat than to go on the beautiful visual journey that Emily has curated for us.

Flats, Urban Houses and Cottage Homes

W. Shaw Sparrow, editor. Flats, Urban Houses and Cottage Homes: A Companion Volume to the British Home of Today. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1906.

The collection contains a series of articles by Frank T. Vertity, Walter Shaw Sparrow, Edwin T. Hall, and Gerald C. Horsley. The highly illustrative text offers advice for designing and planning flats as well as a comparison between English, French, and Viennese types. The final article is an extended advertisement, written by an “expert” from Waring’s (Waring & Gillow, Ltd.) – a department store in England- who discusses the best way to decorate and furnish a flat. According to Waring’s expert:

But I cannot refrain from repeating the warning given above against crowding massive pieces of furniture, suitable for a large rooms, into the lilliputian apartments of ordinary flats. This applies particularly to such articles as sideboards, bookcases, cabinets and wardrobes. The users of the rooms must have some place in which to move about. It is not desirable to have to step on the dining table in order to get from one side to the other. An 8-ft. sideboard in a 10-ft. square room suggests the imprisonment of an elephant in a mouse-trap. In the average flat everything has to be more or less on the diminutive scale. A room blocked up with oversized pieces of furniture is in many ways more uncomfortable than a room without any furniture at all. So, let this be your watchword- “Don’t overdo it.” Let your arrangements err, if at all, on the side of modesty. Don’t entertain your bosom friend with a noble sideboard which he is compelled to use a dining chair, because there is no room for him to sit anywhere else. Don’t force your lady visitors to sit on each other’s laps in the drawing room because the grand piano occupies four-fifths of the floor. (“How to Furnish a Flat,” pg. 6-7)

Royal Festival Hall

London County Council. Royal Festival Hall. London: Max Parrish, 1951.

For this week’s entry, it was the retention of the book jacket that piqued my curiosity rather than the subject matter. The spine of the jacket was delightfully simple and bold. And perhaps one should not judge a book by its cover, but the Royal Festival Hall did not disappoint. The actual building was commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951, designed by Robert Matthew (1906-1975) and J. L. Martin (1908-2000). The official guide was written by Clough Williams-Ellis (1883-1975).

Williams-Ellis begins his account of the building with a discussion of the style and design:

Yet undoubtedly the building is a challenging one, which means that it is bound to make sincere enemies as well as friends. But enmity can be paraphrased as ‘a misunderstanding’ and there will surely be many who will not at first take kindly to a monumental building so devoid of all the familiar and traditional trapping of a ‘monument’, so frankly nothing but glass where it is convenient to be, so brisk in its changes of scale; in short, so little like anything to which we are  accustomed, and, above all, so utterly different from the concert halls and opera houses that we ever saw and with which we have come to associate ‘music’. (pg. 13-14)

He praises the subtlety, the spatial harmonies, view points and vistas, the lighting effects, and the ability of the architects to overcome the numerous challenges construction imposed. As the building was commissioned for the Festival of Britain, they had a strict deadline; moreover, they had to address the challenges of postwar Britain- a scarcity of labor and materials. The site was small, and the building intended to house a variety of purposes- from concerts to rehearsal space to exhibitions and galas. In a state of continuous design, the architects met these challenges and created a concert hall that placed a premium on the experience of listening to music. Ellis-Williams discusses how Matthew and Martin designed the spaces and systems to address issues of noise, acoustics, lighting, ventilation and heating, the movement of the crowds, and finally the desire to create spaces for an enjoyable experience.

While the Royal Festival Hall may retain a bit of the “to see and be seen”, Ellis-Williams makes clear that many of the design decisions of the Hall were connected to the quality of sound. Gone from the designs are the gilt and shine of the Paris Opera House. It is all clean lines and simplicity. And Ellis-Williams’s final thoughts are a lament for the luxury. He writes:

I will confess a nostalgic weakness myself for the shadowed privacy of the traditional box as the very symbol of gilded and softly upholstered luxury- an appropriate bower for the necessary digestive interlude between dinner at the old Romano’s and supper at the Grand Babylon, with transport of course by private hansom. And even from the pit I liked simply to behold these cosily glowing little booths with their fully jeweled and often decorative tenants, high-life tableaux vivants about whose members one might speculate agreeably as did Henry James’s Hyacinth Robinson in The Princess Casamassima. In short, I am of the fleshly Walter Sickert school in this mater of theatre decor, for scarlet and gold as against beige austerity, for sparkling chandeliers against florescent tubes, for an exuberant fancy even, rather than a too reasonable or reproachful restraint.

For me, at least, any concert or indeed any public performance of any kind is definitely something in the way of a treat, a gala occasion, a ‘night out’, and to be perfectly happy I do need the architecture to conform to and reflect, and so enhance my festival mood. (81-82)

Happy Birthday, Norman Foster & Toyo Ito!

Not only is it a beautiful Sunday evening in Central Texas, but it’s also the birthday of two architectural greats: Norman Foster & Toyo Ito!

The English architect Foster is the namesake of international firm Foster + Partners, with famous works including Hearst Tower in New York City, the restored Reichstag in Berlin, and ‘The Gherkin’ in London, among various others. Ito is a Japanese architect known for his conceptual architecture, with The Sendai Mediatheque in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan likely being his most critical and influential work to date.

Foster turns 79 today, and Ito turns 73. We’ve culled some great books on each architect from our catalog in celebration.


Norman Foster: Drawings 1958-2008. 
Curated by Luis Fernández-Galiano. Call Number NA 997 F65 A1 2010.


Hearst Tower
. By Norman Foster and Joseph Giovannini. Call Number NA 6233 N5 F67 2010.



Reflections
. By Norman Foster. Call Number NA 680 F685 2005.


Toyo Ito: Forces of Nature. Edited by Jessie Turnbull. Call Number NA 1559 I84 T69 2012.



Toyo Ito: Blurring Architecture
. Edited by Ulrich Schneider & Marc Feustel. Call Number NA 1559 I84 T6 1999.

 


Sendai Mediatheque. By Toyo Ito. Call Number NA 1559 I84 A4 2003.

We welcome you to continue celebrating with us this week by coming to check out one of the above, or additional, titles we have in our library on the bodies of work of these two architects. Once again: Happy Birthday, Norman & Toyo!