Olin Library: Architecture : New Books 2023/01

1) The appeal of the content is broadly interdisciplinary and informative to a range of readers, from practitioners and real project stakeholders to academics, students, and scholars. 2) The case sites vary in scale, scope and geography, from booming American cities to those struggling with disinvestment. The cases are also typological, allowing them to be broadly applicable to other cities and sites. 3) The infrastructural categories also vary in type including waterways, roads, rail, transit, energy, housing, health and food. Every city is facing infrastructural crises of some kind and can see their own challenges reflected in the content of the text. 4) The methodologies include research and analysis related to the cases directly, but also projective, speculative thinking that explores the role of both innovation and design in next generation infrastructure. Typically books are either focused on design speculation or on the analysis of existing cases, but not both. Cities are looking for creative solutions, and this text provides bridges between real challenges and innovative thinking.

Noted weaver Lenore Tawny--now well into her 90s and still exhibiting her imaginative work--began creating postcard collages in the 1960s, sending them to friends and colleagues through the U.S. mail. A form of communication without specific messages, the cryptic notations were often enhanced by Tawney's handwriting. As Tawney explains the cards, "They were signs thrown to the wind." The selected postcard collages reveal the creative, mystical, and humorous side of the artist, giving the viewer an intimate glimpse into the personality of this most innovative woman. Tawney is the recipient of the Visionary Award from the American Craft Museum, New York, 2000. Her works are found in the collections of the American Craft Museum; the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Renwick Gallery; and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Montréal, Quebec.

The first comprehensive consideration of Life magazine's groundbreaking and influential contribution to the history of photography From the Great Depression to the Vietnam War, the vast majority of the photographs printed and consumed in the United States appeared on the pages of illustrated magazines. Offering an in-depth look at the photography featured in Life magazine throughout its weekly run from 1936 to 1972, this volume examines how the magazine's use of images fundamentally shaped the modern idea of photography in the United States. The work of photographers both celebrated and overlooked--including Margaret Bourke-White, Larry Burrows, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Frank Dandridge, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Fritz Goro, Gordon Parks, and W. Eugene Smith--is explored in the context of the creative and editorial structures at Life. Contributions from 25 scholars in a range of fields, from art history to American studies, provide insights into how the photographs published in Life--used to promote a predominately white, middle-class perspective--came to play a role in cultural dialogues in the United States around war, race, technology, art, and national identity.

Celebrating the one-hundredth birthday of Brazil's most important female architect and designer. The Italo-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992) forged a unique path with her bold designs. Spanning architecture, stage sets, fashion, and furniture, her work drew inspiration from the International Style, which she translated into her own visual language. Fundamental to her work was her thoughtful engagement with her adopted country of Brazil, its culture, society, and politics, and she productively and provocatively voiced her sometimes radical views through designs, exhibitions, and writings. On the occasion of Lina Bo Bardi's one hundredth birthday, this richly illustrated volume presents an overview of her oeuvre and highlights iconic buildings, such as her own home, the so-called Casa de Vidro, the Museo de Arte de São Paulo, and the cultural center SESC Pompéia.

A thoroughly updated and redesigned edition of McCarter's esteemed monograph on the globally-revered modern master - includes Roosevelt Island, Four Freedoms Park, which was completed after Kahn's death The significance of the work of Louis I Kahn, one of the greatest influences on post-WWII world architecture, has skyrocketed in the twenty-first century. Robert McCarter's bestselling and critically-acclaimed monograph explains how Kahn redefined Modern architecture and why his work remains a fundamental source for architects and designers today. Now thoughtfully updated, this comprehensive and extensively illustrated overview features both built and unbuilt projects, including Yale University Art Gallery, Kimbell Art Museum, and the Salk Institute, along with his work in India and Bangladesh, as well as a project realized forty years after Kahn's death - New York City's Four Freedoms Park. 

The book provides an opportunity to survey the emerging field of Architecture and Artificial Intelligence, and to reflect on the implications of a world increasingly entangled in questions of the agency, culture and ethics of AI.   The main goal of Neural Architecture is to understand how to interrogate artificial intelligence--a technological tool--in the field of architectural design, traditionally a practice that combines humanities and visual arts.Matias del Campo, the author of Neural Architecture is currently exploring specific applications of artificial intelligence in contemporary architecture, focusing on their relationship to material and symbolic culture.AI has experienced an explosive growth in recent years in a range of fields including architecture but its implications for the humanistic values that distinguish architecture from technology have yet to be measured.This book explores the interdisciplinary project that brings the long tradition of humanistic inquiry in architecture together with cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence.

This landmark volume offers a major re-assessment of the art that emerged in Britain in the twenty years following the end of the Second World War: a period of anxiety, profound social change and explosive creativity. Published to coincide with the Barbican Centre's 40th anniversary, it draws together the work of fifty artists, exploring a period straddled precariously between the horror of the past and the promise of the future. Spanning painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and photography, Postwar Modern will explore a rich field of experiment which challenges the idea that Britain was a cultural backwater at this time.   Through new texts by Jane Alison, Hilary Floe, Ben Highmore, Hammad Nassar and Greg Salter, the book looks afresh at celebrated artists such as Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Lucian Freud and Eduardo Paolozzi, shown in dialogue with lesser-known figures. These will include those, like Francis Newton Souza, Avinash Chandra and Robert Adams, who were acclaimed by contemporaries but neglected in subsequent history-making; others, like Kim Lim, Anwar Jalal Shemza and Franciszka Themerson, are only now attracting the attention they deserve.   Throughout their work, vital shared preoccupations become visible: gender, class, race and nationhood; the body, the bombsite, and the home. It is a period resonating strongly with our own: as the UK emerges from more than a decade of austerity and confronts the challenges of post-pandemic reconstruction, society is asking similarly deep questions about who we want and need to be.  

A cutting-edge, solutions-oriented analysis of how we can reimagine cities around the world to build sustainable futures.   What would it take to make urban places greener, more affordable, more equitable, and healthier for everyone? In recent years, cities have stepped up efforts to address climate and sustainability crises. But progress has not been fast enough or gone deep enough. If communities are to thrive in the future, we need to quickly imagine and implement an entirely new approach to urban development: one that is centered on equity and rethinks social, political, and economic systems as well as urban designs. With attention to this need for structural change, Reimagining Sustainable Cities advocates for a community-informed model of racially, economically, and socially just cities and regions. The book aims to rethink urban sustainability for a new era.   In Reimagining Sustainable Cities, Stephen M. Wheeler and Christina D. Rosan ask big-picture questions of interest to readers worldwide: How do we get to carbon neutrality? How do we adapt to a climate-changed world? How can we create affordable, inclusive, and equitable cities? While many books dwell on the analysis of problems, Reimagining Sustainable Cities prioritizes solutions-oriented thinking--surveying historical trends, providing examples of constructive action worldwide, and outlining alternative problem-solving strategies. Wheeler and Rosan use a social ecology lens and draw perspectives from multiple disciplines. Positive, readable, and constructive in tone, Reimagining Sustainable Cities identifies actions ranging from urban design to institutional restructuring that can bring about fundamental change and prepare us for the challenges ahead.  

The study Reimagining the Library of the Future investigates the various models of public buildings and civic space through the lens of the library. It takes a critical look at the history, present, and future transformation of this significant building typology that has recently emerged as a redefined community place, social condenser, and urban incubator for knowledge generation, storage, and sharing. In particular, the library has evolved as a vibrant and vital member of community development and as a basis for outreach efforts. This book presents 40 recent public and academic libraries from around the world, with over 200 images. As the survey of precedents shows, the historical cases have informed the design of the recent libraries and the continuous development of the building type over time. Well-designed libraries are now in abundance, and the wider view of this study includes mediatheques and learning centers. The selection of contemporary projects focuses on urban libraries in Europe (Germany, Italy, Austria, Netherlands), the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, and China.