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afg_91302
Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 1
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 Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:17 am Post subject: best books on architecture |
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hello everyone!
my name is afg_91320 and i am new to this forum. i am 18 years old and i am thinking of majoring in architecture and industrial engineering. i really love designing buildings and the idea of constructing them and see those dreams come alive seems very exciting. now im quite new at this and i was wondering if u cud refer me to some books regarding architecture. i really am interesrted in modern architecture and am esp interseted in the latest al burj project that is being built in dubai. i really appreciate international buildings as well, so any references to those would be helpful as well.
thanks again! its much appreciated!
i also want to know to those of u that are architcets or something of that nature: how did u know architecture was for u? when did u realize that? what made u realize it? how were u like in school? what subjects did u like?
thanks again!  |
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ChooChoo
Joined: 30 Nov 2006
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:07 pm Post subject: |
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do me a favor, would you? before you become an architect (or while you are studying at school), consider working in construction for a summer (or more) on the type of building that most interests you.
I think it rounds you a little more in my opinion. Then you can look a contractor in the eye and say you have paid your dues in construction, if he ever starts giving you s***.
BTW, have you tried clicking the architecture books link at the bottom of the page? |
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twingi
Joined: 30 May 2005
Posts: 14
Location: Florida
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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Well I do agree that working in the field is an eye opener... but there are numerous books that are full of information and inspirational. If I could suggest 2 books...
" A Visual Dictionary 0f Architecture" by Francis D.K. Ching. All his books are amazing but this one especially so. It is $40 and worth it... check his other books out as well.. such as Building Construction Illustrated. You can go to Barnes and Nobles or whatever and check them out.
The other book, which is pure inspirational, is "Invisible Cites" by Italo Calvino. Most Arcitects/ students connect with and love this book. Again look at briefly at the book store you may connect with it and want to own it.
Good luck and happy reading!
Cheers,
Twingi |
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elisa kouloumenta
Joined: 24 Sep 2006
Posts: 110
Location: greece
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:42 am Post subject: |
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'invisible cities' is indeed a very strong book.
'Uncommon ground' is one of my favorite books by David Leatherbarrow. It's about architecture, topography. materials all under a very poetic sense of writing. It's more like a
comparing study of three architects: Richard Neutra, Antonin Raymond, and Aris Konstantinidis, who practiced in the United States, Japan, and Greece respectively.
Another great book is by Paul Valery -it's just that i am not sure about the title in english- '"Eupalinos, ou l'Architecte' it's in French. It's about an imaginary conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus, where Valery -who was very interested in architecture-presents his ideas about building away from any philosophical view.
'In Praise of Shadows" by Junichiro Tanizaki is a rare essay about Japanese aesthetics.
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elisa kouloumenta |
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AP
Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 580
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 11:03 am Post subject: |
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How to know architecture's for you: Everyone is different, but we had this conversation last year, before I graduated from part-1. Everybody seemed to agree though that architecture wasn't what we thought it was when we started. We all love it (by default, cos those that don't drop out PDQ), but it isn't anything like our expectations. Just as good though.
But when our interest piqued enough to apply as it were, people were saying it was any a number of things:
# interest in a very wide range of subject fields and in how they inter-relate. Not many fields draw from such a wide area at the same time
# interest in design, drawing, something visual. Often from a young age.
# some kind of will to make a difference/change the world/leave a mark. Kids into LEGO, loving D&T etc
# want to get really in depth into something, not faff around with essays.
# wanting to do stuff that was challenging, complex. Not a walk in the park then exams.
Nobody I know looked seriously at the prospective salaries before starting, which might be a mistake that's forgivable since we were about the last of the pre-internet generation. |
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Tipton
Joined: 03 Dec 2006
Posts: 3
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AP
Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 580
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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He did "Community and Privacy" as well, but it's a bit specific, if a very good book.
I'm currently fond of De Botton's latest; "An Architecture of Happiness". |
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john latham
Joined: 15 May 2008
Posts: 6
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 1:14 am Post subject: |
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FROM MY BOOK
Currently the best web view (& purchase) is at www.bookstore.bookpod.com.au ‘wow hows the house now’
And Amazon (due for update)
‘Integrity sometimes means acting with courage and certainly without negligence. By being in touch with the culture, times and taste of your community by making house with integrity, as a fellow culture creator - a step beyond the basic you - you will make something beautiful, and something more valuable to yourself, and thereby your community. A top class kosher or something in the ecopical beyond; which may even be a lonely abused hero. Ask for help if you need to, even if you are the Minister for Domestic Culture. This is all part of doing your own housing – or that of others.
AN ARCHITECT DOES
Naturally, an architect is very likely to open doors in design and implementation for residential developments, which enhance the potentials beyond your own horizons and existing three-planed-corners. And conversely it is true that your presence in the designs may in ways enhance it beyond the architect’s horizons, in that you are the dweller with lively idiosyncrasies and nous; with personal attentions and attitudes. No architect is an island. Tune up with your architect who may or may not tend to prefer that you take some of his own design attentions; those attentions cultured by his professional growth, and/or those which should remain out of your picture. Your personal attention may rightly be absorbed by a weatherboard cottage full of bookshelves and other accumulation; whilst an architectonically avant-garde, slick, well proportioned, steel and glass, cantilevered delight won’t hold you but for a moment of obtuse admiration. In this instance your personal attention is held by your accumulation, its accessibility and companionships. The architecture that contains it for you, rather than be a focal addition to your accumulation, may be incidental, over-bearing or even distraction – “Architect, please make it quiet and let my accumulation dance fantastic.” “Certainly madam. At your service madam” … thinking, “There’ll be no award in this one.” In fact there was.
Architects seek the motivation behind the client’s design requests and reinvent the client’s visions. People may love to think something is their own design. If their own design is built, they may never realise that an architect’s design may have been better, whilst just as much their own. The same goes for architects who fancy their own designs. Their client’s or colleague’s designs may be best and in acknowledging this they will own them too. It’s a tough work-a-day call at times. In today’s cultural climate of commercial packaging psychologies, it may behove an architect to provide highest priority to a certain ‘look’ or ‘appeal’ ... and in fact the client may demand that the packaging take a higher profile in the budget than the goods. The goods being ecopicalities and practical amenities. The ‘look’ may make a popular trend whilst leaving behind the function that formed it - hollow, pastiche, sweet painted lady, perhaps an ultra Classic.
The devoted architect today - for less than 1% of the world - more than ever, must sharpen his pencil like a spear, to defend the ethics of the day, whilst cajoling the enemy for bread and butter. The megamonster battles are often lost. Yes it can be a battle to break a bit of convention, and architects may prefer to treat every project as a new innovation, up-to-date with technology, current affairs, current conventions, current fantasies and the avant-garde. In the late
1930’s as conventions were reviewed; an Austrophile student-architects’ ball made comment in song on community attitude to architectural newness and change of the time, as enshrined by their now eminent Robin Boyd: - “There’s a bright vermilion door, with chromium plated handle. We create a little scandal, when we build a modern home. There’s a cantilever sun porch, with green and yellow awning, where we sun-bathe in the morning, when we build a modern home. There’s some concrete and some steel-work, but most of all the walls are glass. But the painter does the real work and the rest keep off the grass. We’ll have rubber on the floor and sound absorbent ceiling. There’s contemporary, feeling in our very modern home.” The architects’ torch lighting the frontier and
the change-over to Modernism. Bear in mind though that Architecture as a university discipline has developed only over the last couple of centuries – a bit like the saxophone.
Behind the frontier, it’s business as usual. If it’s a dwelling-contraption you want, an architect can do it. A client makes up his own mind as to whether the architect can deliver in accord with his own cultural circumstance. It’s part of his fandango. Architects are susceptible to a version of dodo cultural cliché and frozen thinking, as are their clients. The pressures of the tunnel-vision effect, of years in some niche in the ‘noblest profession’, may make it difficult for the architect to appreciate good spontaneous or ‘untrained’ design. They may be afflicted with the goading of what is deemed unprofessional by their colleagues whilst endeavouring to break this orthodoxy for the clients economic or design benefit. The word ‘professional’ is frequently heard highbrow. It means, simply; expert, thorough, fully informed, efficient and complete; and of course kosher. It doesn’t mean indisputably perfect; but an architect who acknowledges his fallibility and responds to any challenge is pretty good – even in the face of one who may be better, albeit only better in the area of the challenge. The notion of a quality quotient style of assessment of architects, as distinct from assessment of buildings, is interesting but impractical, so we go with our intuition and hope. Circumstances surrounding the client and the client’s requirements may necessitate an unorthodox approach within the professional process. The approach may be similar to that used by the farmer who successfully uses rocks rather than nails to hold down his barn roof.
Architects manage design and administer construction contracts for built contraptions other than houses as well and are involved in public urban matters also. Generally they must earn a living. They are not necessarily a luxury. Their design may save you money. Yet also, they may at times see the necessity to persuade you to spend more. Within design cost-effectiveness, assessing the real cost of the architect may become difficult. A lower budget means possible savings become less and the architect may find more work than his normal fee justifies. Often time-consuming complexities in house design are not covered by money available from the client, especially when compared to income from other larger or simpler projects. That’s why Bobby Dazzler’s grandfather calls the profession ‘noble’.
Less than five percent of houses in the West are designed by architects. Building firms are responsible for a greater fraction of houses today, and along with builder-design, owner-design, direct copy, ‘architectural’ designers, ‘building’ designers and draftspersons they make up the remaining ninety-five percent. The difference between an architect and a building designer? An architect has an objective wholistic basis to design and the building designer will be basing his design on merely trends and conventions set by the architects and regulations; or some lesser avenue. If he does more, he’s becoming an architect. There are special practitioners who may in circumstance and talent outshine the best architects whilst having no right to call themselves an architect. Frank Wright, in fact a revolutionary in architectural design and once a shining light for many aspiring architects, was ‘qualified’ only as a civil engineer. The reverse applies too. Some achieve architect status and for various reasons and, possibly only in various circumstances, fall short.
The architecture curriculum is very broad; sociology, engineering, aesthetics, building technique, contract management, materials, industry, salesmanship, drawing and on it goes, and so some are more expert in some areas than others. As we have noted architects are not a divine masterplanner and they may resist doing things the ordinary, conventional, way. Often, tendering and contract administration is not requested by the client as part of the architect’s services; though to request it may be valuable in safeguarding design through construction. A draftsperson is sometimes a better option, in that he may work totally within convention. The architect can coordinate the draftsperson. In such a case it may or may not be worth avoiding the architect.
Architects are not all the same. Philosophies vary. Maybe the broad demands of the job suggest to some of them that we ought to be arrogant. Some treat clients like children. Others encourage them to take a strong hand in design. Both attitudes can produce satisfying buildings. On the other hand, the dweller should make her best choice. The architects who have spent their entire expertise accrual in multi-storey buildings and may flounder - not founder - if moved straight onto the business end of house design.
An educated eye may observe, in their products, that a swag of local architects have attended the same school. Their work is cultured by the school and locale. This is potentially a birth of some vernacular. It may be stuffy. It may be refreshing. Like artists they will all exercise their own natural ability and talent, giving various legitimate accents and character to their work. Some may be less experienced but not necessarily less competent for a particular job. But they may at any time need to be advised as to some knowledge held only by their client. The architect’s client is a microcosm, like his local community, whether in the Bronx, Patagonia or outside Sydney.
Trends begun by architects are adapted, mistreated, misunderstood, developed, degenerated and copied. The influence of the architect upon the seas of housing is but mild against the influence of the vernaculars and the locusts of the modern consumer orthodox.
Is the architect;
An EPHEMERAL NOMAD, so as to be nature’s earthy nurtures landscape-designing the interior, and
♥ A SOCIAL BEING, so as to be tweaking the synthetic address and the regulations, and
◙ A PERENNIAL SETTLER, so as to facilitate hallowed halling and fruitful continuum?
John |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1716
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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Please use the word "you." Your readers here (and everywhere) deserve the same respect for themselves and the language that your teachers expect on your essays and assignments. There is only one English. . .
Best of luck. The suggestions above are valid. In addition, college and city libraries will have current architectural periodicals such as Global Architecture.
SDR |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 838
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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Best book on architecture? erh aghhh. I'm voting the first one that influenced me. The Lorax by Dr. Suess.
It's a great read, easy to follow, speaks volumes in few words and gets right to the point that matters most. The ending is a bit sad and gloomy but leaves room for hope.
I just read A Quiet Crises. That one was good too, but even more sad and gloomy and leaves less room for hope. It was writen back in early 1960 something, and wasn't fiction.
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birgco
Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 302
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I'm voting the first one that influenced me. The Lorax by Dr. Suess. |
dj.
first of all, this a design forum and the kid wanted to know
about architecture books. You digress into a medical book
and a problem with your lorax.
That's way too personal. Please let's try to stay a little more
on the subject. Also, I would never trust medical info from a
quack like Dr. Seuss(?), try WebMD next time.  |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1716
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:32 pm Post subject: |
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Geez -- I don't know whether he's too young to know Dr Seuss, or if that was supposed to be irony. . .
Let's give him credit for a sense of humor. . . !
SDR |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 838
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 6:22 am Post subject: |
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I deliver what people thneed
"I will vow to stay more or less on subject."
This is an excerpt from my book, titled "Random Excerpts".
Dr. Suess, Seuss, Spock, Sprockets. It is time to dance!
I wonder if my spelling would be better today, if I read more Bearstein Bears.
one bear one wheel.
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birgco
Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 302
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| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I'm voting the first one that influenced me. The Lorax by Dr. Suess. |
dj,
I owe you an apology, thought you were talking
about your coccyx. Now I remember.... Dr. Seuss is the children's book author. 
Anyway, here's a little advice about dealing with quack doctors.
A few years back I had to see a specialist, a protologist by the name of Dr. Tusch.
He made a terrible error in treatment, I couldn't sit down for a month.
To make a long story short, we ended up in court in
the trial of the century.
His insurance company was represented by Johnnie Cochran
and the" Dream Team". We retained a little known firm from down south.... Dewey, Cheetum, and Howe, LLC.
They never knew what hit em! |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1716
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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A protologist, eh ?
Lorax ? Coccyx ?
Dyslexia ?
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