A Rebirth of Theaters

There is a fascinating new cultural trend that I've been noticing slowly gaining in popularity over the past year: showing big events in theaters, put on by private organizations, TV stations, etc. This is a very interesting development in culture on a number of levels.

1) It is signalling an even great trend towards 3d viewing - since a large screen and easy distribution of 3d glasses make large audience theaters very attractive.

2) It is mimicking the phenomenon of people moving OUT of the suburbs and back INTO the city. This was triggered for a number of reasons - gas prices, environmental concerns, mortgage crises, typical ebb and flow of living habits, etc. But when people opt out of viewing something in the privacy and comfort of their own homes, and opt for going out on the town, to see and be seen, and give up comfort for an added adrenalyn rush of partaking in a group/social event, it signals that a resurgence of openness and energy is beginning to take shape.

3) Broadcasting local events, such as live shows from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, around the country to theatres, shows an embrace of modern technology and a willingness to modify habits based on available possibilities. This is something that is incredibly important to me as a contemporary architect, and I hope that it will transform from a social trend to a broad cultural taste, allowing more every day people to embrace new technologies and aesthetics in their design and architecture.

Here are some links to various new uses for the every day movie theater. I would love to get everybody's take on this so comments are, as always, welcome.

Sports events

Obama's Inauguration

Broadway Shows

Metropolitan Opera

Topic Merry-go-round

1) Xefirotarch. My thesis instructor, Hernan Diaz Alonso, recently published a monograph of all of his work, a good portion of which was designed with the help of myself and Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood. The book is called Xefirotarch: Excessive. A few things about Hernan's work - it's as much art as it is architecture - only a couple pieces have actually been built, and those were gallery installations rather than actual inhabitable buildings. So it is a bit hard to justify his existance as what has always been known as "architect." But this flaw is just one in a grand series which Hernan holds, all of which form the pieces making up his masterful mystique. Just like the vampire and horror films he aims his buildings to aspire to, Hernan has built his career on legend and potential.

Back to the book itself - it's a beautiful piece - big, colorful illustrations, great design, great packaging, the typical intriguing narratives by Benjamin Bratton, my old instructor and Hernan's right hand man. For any art/architecture fringe fan, it's a must have, and it looks crazy gorgeous on your shelf.

2) When am I just going to give up on Newcastle? I know it'll never happen. Because if I would have done it, I would have done it by now.

Not only do we draw to Wigan. Not only do we draw to Wigan at home. Not only do we draw to Wigan at home on an 89th minute goal. Not only do we draw to Wigan at home on an 89th minute goal, just after we had taken the lead with an 87th minute goal. But we lose to wigan at home on an 89th minute goal BY TITUS BRAMBLE, just after we had taken the lead with an 87th minute goal.

For those of you who aren't keeping up, Titus Bramble was once a Newcastle player, and will forever be known for some of the most hilariously awful defensive plays ever committed by a Premiership player, while he was a Newcastle player. We, thankfully, got rid of him when Big Fat Sam came to town last season, but since then, he CONTINUES TO HAUNT US!!!!

It's a curse. I know it's a curse. Newcastle is cursed.

3) The Bears lost. As well. Again. All my teams are cursed.

4) Just thought I'd share some photos of my cats:

japanlog2

Yesterday was a rainy day here in Tokyo. Which actually kind of heightened the senses a bit. We went to a couple of our usual Aoyama spots, such as Jangara Ramen and Anniversaire Cafe, where we saw they ubiquitous young television star with well to do suit-friends of his.

But what was more interesting about yesterday's excursions were the two houses we got to see - the Moriyama House by Ryue Nishizawa and the Small House by Kazuyo Sejima.

Jangara Ramen

This place looks like any old hole in the wall, but its known for the best Hakata Ramen in Tokyo and I make a point to go here every time we are in town. Hakata Ramen is ramen with white broth and a lot of fatty pork. Its a fast, loud, and incredibly delicious place for lunch and if you are lucky you can get a seat by this window, looking out onto the busiest street in Aoyama, where all the hilarious Harajuku girls walk down the street strutting their stuff.

Moriyama House - Ryue Nishizawa

Tucked away in a very dense part of old-downtown Tokyo, very near to Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood's Uncle's saw mill factory, this house, or more accurately, collection of small houses, sits quietly. This is every architect's dream, to design a complex of tiny, single-room structures like this. Actually we have very similar plans for a country house, if we ever get the opportunity. But the urbanity of this project is what makes it fantastic. Within this incredibly dense and urban city fabric, Nishizawa has created a hyper-dense and urban HOUSE, one which treats the lot like a small version of the city itself. Of course there are always questions like `well what if i have to go pee at 2am - you mean i have to go outside?` YES. You do. That is part of the experiment and the downfalls of living in a house like this in conjunction with the incredibly interesting relationships it creates with the users and the community are BOTH essential to its beauty.

Small House - Kazuo Sejima

This house has always been a favorite of mine, for its obvious simplicity and its attractive formal gestures.

It was quite tough to find - again tucked away in a different part of the city, but we finally did and it was worth the long, rainy walk. This was one of those times when it looked a lot different from the perfect, glossy photos they published just after it was built. The details of placement on site and building access became much more interesting and powerful than the actual form of the building.

Maps and Graphs

I came across this link the other day:

Strange Maps Blog

This is something that is right up my alley. Some of these graphics are incredibly thoughtful, informative and beautiful. Some of them are so calculated and forced, they not only show information in a new and interesting way, but they also show how difficult map making and analysis of information can be. Diagramming is the perfect blend of information and aesthetics and very few people can do it well. Mrs. Architecturefootballandfood is particularly versed at diagramming, and she basically did an entire thesis on it at SCI-Arc.

Obviously the most famous information designer, at least I would say, is Edward Tufte.
This guy is truly brilliant. In many ways, he made diagramming cool. Although probably the coolest thing about him is how hard he's worked, virtually by himself, to put himself where he is. He began as a statistics professor at Princeton, and after collecting material for his lectures, he put out his first book, The Visual Displaly of Quantitative Information out of his garage, completely self-funded AND self produced. He's always been a staunch critic of Powerpoint, which I agree with 99% of the time (the one exception ).

But something about this blog's respect for both sides of the quality spectrum is what gives it its charm. I wish I knew of more websites like this - virtually no immediately usable information on it - but nothing that you come across will be boring. It all not only makes you laugh and think, but typically it looks great - or at least so horrible it's great.

Roman Abramovich

Well, I had this great idea all set up to give you loyal readers a wonderful story including both original topics for this blog (architecture and football), but tonight in doing research for it, I have found out it's actually false. Anyway, I'll do a similar story. If you want to take a look at some info on the ORIGINAL story, please check out La Leopolda, the most expensive house ever to be bought in the history of expensive houses. It was originally built for a mistress of a king of Belgium, and covers upwards of 20 acres. I mean, personally, if you're looking for scenic views and European charm, look no further.

Anyway, in researching this indiscretion, I ended finding some pretty sweet junk on Roman Abramovich, the one believed to be the unnamed Russion Billionaire who bought La Leopolda. For those of you who don't know him, Roman Abramovich is the son of an oil magnate in Russia, who, at the fall of the communist empire, requipped all of his previously-goverment-owned company's wealth and since has been known as the world's 12-richest man. Also known as the owner of Chelsea Football Club and hence, the real-life incarnation of Doctor Evil. Please first grab the nearest bucket in case you feel the urge to blow chunks, and see below for a list of his exploits.

1) Francis Bacon's Tryptich, Bacon's most prized painting, bought for $86m.

2) at least four houses, ranging from $20m - $250m, the latest being the largest, most expensive new single-family home in Great Britain.

3) Chelsea Football Club, bought for 150M Pounds in 2003.
4) His fleet of yachts, the crown jewel being the 100M Pound, 400-foot Perolus, with a staff of forty, two helipads, a disco, and a half-indoor, half-outdoor pool.

5) Two submarines

6) $23.5 BILLION

Look, you can't blame the guy for being in the lucky position he was in, being handed billions and billions of dollars from you parents who, after serving the evil empire for so long, profited greatly at other peoples' expense. No, you can't blame him for that - but you can blame him for buying CHELSEA. [shudder]

Updates

Ahoy.

Things have been go go go over at Architecture and Football. Unfortunately for the Architectureandfootballaholics, the go's haven't necessarily been website related. Other exciting things in the pipeline....

But we're here for a reason. And that reason is to be fully saturated with the newest and coolest blips from the parallel worlds of international-rules football, and the practice of designing and building buildings.

So here we go.


* If any of you have actually been living under a rock, take note, because you might not have heard that SIR RICHARD ROGERS is the recipient of this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize. We here at Architecture and Football chaulk this one up to one of those "lifetime achievement award" kind of things, since nothing outstanding has come out of his office in the past twelve months, and nothing is on the boards, except for one of the sister buildings next to the Freedom Tower (Which, by the way, all three sister buildings will be head and shoulders above the actual Freedom Tower in terms of quality, timelessness and architectural merit. See above.)


*Ball-Nogues, a young Los Angeles architecture firm has won the annual competition for ps1 in Queens, New York. PS1 is a small satellite art gallery associated with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Every year they have a fantastic invited competition for young architects to design and build an exterior installation for their courtyard space. Some great names have been involved in the past, including Bill Massie, SHoP, n Architects and Xefirotarch. (Although only three of the afore-mentioned entries were actually successful...I'll leave that alone at this point in time.) So this year, it's Ball-Nogues. There's a good chance that they got the award strictly on the strangeness of their name. But they just happen to be great designers as well. If anyone happens to be in NY this summer, please take some time to take the G train into Queens and take a look. While you're out there, go to the Noguchi Museum.


*After my last prematurely elated post regarding Newcastle's temporary upper-hand in their UEFA cup round of 16 clash, they traveled to the Netherlands (I think - can't remember through all the sobbing) and squandered the best chance they've had in years at any sort of relatively meaningful silverware. They lost 2-0, not getting the single away goal that they needed to see them through. After that game, they've lost two straight premiership matches, moving them back into the bottom half of the table, and making every person associated with them look towards next season. The attraction I have to "lovable losers" isn't only becoming more and more apparent as my years of sporting support go on, it's getting downright frightening. And here's the kicker - I still truly believe that Glenn Roeder, while seemingly bringing in a successful chunk of talent to the squad, will be the downfall of the next 5 years of the club if he's given another season. And here's why: The influx of European talent into the premiership is obviously the wave of the future. Soon every team will be less English than International, and while some fans dislike that fact, the Premiership is only benefitting in quality because of it. While Glenn was able to bring in Obefemi Martins, who has proved a HUGE boost to the club, and Sibierski, who was pretty good in Europe before we got knocked out, the fact is that he doesn't have the lure of a Benitez or Mourinho to bring international talent. Yes, we've got the purse to lure in international players, but without a big name manager who's got FAMOUS motivational skills or LEGENDARY knowlege of the game, the famed Newcastle purse will only brand players as money-hungry, much as it did to St. Michael Owen. (I REALLY hope he stays at nufc for another couple seasons. We'll have to see on that one.) So until we get a manager who's reputation outshines him (Alan Shearer), we'll be trying to bring in second-rate stars to play against the finest players in the world. Hence, Newcastle will rot in mid-table without any silverware for the next 5-10 years.

It took long enough....

In another stunning hybrid of Architecture and Football, the long-awaited Wembley Stadium looks to be complete.

Go to the Guardian UK Article

The State of MY Union

So anyone who actually still logs on and attempts to read this blog has probably noticed that I haven't been writing as much as I used to. I have to apologize for that. It's because I'm writing at this other page called sportingo.com and even there - I haven't written much at all. I'm just not the best at staying "on top of things." So I've got a few extra minutes here at the office with which I can devote to supplying all the loyal architectureandfootballaholics with a little info. I'll try and keep this directed towards architecture and/or football.

Newcastle have been on the up and up, and with this being the January transfer season, I've been going on and checking all my seedy tabloid websites daily when I wake up. Transfer seasons are the worst, because every morning, I wake up thinking, "maybe today's the day we signed Thierry." Then I check the seedy tabloid sites and my heart sinks as all I ever see is something about our manager or gaffer "standing behind" someone. Like although they've been playing rubbish for the past three weeks, I think I'll give him another three weeks to either turn good or drive the stock down another three points by being beaten by a championship side 5-1 in the lowly third round of the FA Cup. But besides not signing anyone, we've actually been playing fairly decently.
If no one's been following along very closely, we've had more and more devastating injury problems. We've typically been starting between 2 and 4 academy players, most of which are still in their teens. If we're STARTING academy players, its obvious that our entire bench is also made up of academy players, so if something goes wrong on the pitch, there really aren't too many options. But they've been playing out of their skin and have racked up some nice results. The only exception to this was when they were beaten 5-1 by a team in the division below theirs. Not as good as Newcastle, but the kids' inexperience really showed by obviously thinking that this game would be a breeze (this was three days after the same team tied Manchester United 2-2) and not really taking their opponents seriously. They got it handed to them 5-1, and hopefully Mr. Roeder gave them a nice belt whipping in the locker room after that.

Tonight is the third Master Disaster Architect Duel. This is a head to head competition, somewhere in NYC, between two groups of architects, where they've got a limeted amount of time and resources, and they're given a design project to work on. It's usually like 3 hours. So they have to design something, make a model of it, drawings, sketches, and a presentation. During this time, there is a LIVE audience watching them, as well as a live DJ spinning records. It's like a big party. Then after the 3 hours, they present their projects and somehow a winner is chosen. Just an AWESOME idea I think. I won't be going because the prez's S.O.T.U. is on tonight but sometime I'd really love to see one of these. Hopefully there will be photos.

Has anyone seen this monstrosity Calatrava wants to put up on Chicago's lakefront? It looks like some sort of weird popsicle, or drill bit, or sex toy, or something, and the design is old and tired and uninspiring, and it's WAYYYY too tall for its location, and just really isn't appealing. The apartments will sell for nothing less than a million dollars. This was a great opportunity for Chicago to stand out as a new architectural destination city, but Calatrava has spoiled it. (Apparently, as if this wasn't obvious from the beginning, Calatrava himself actually had and will have nothing to do with the design of the tower - it's been designed by his new "development" division (something most of the starchitects are doing these days) and it's just some schmo in his office who designed it and will be putting the Calatrava stamp on it. Shame.)

Let's see what else......my sister bought a new house. A nice little one story ranch spec house near a school. Good location. As an architect, I've got major - MAJOR - issues with this house. But as a normal person, it's really nice. It's going to make her and Adil very happy, I'm sure of that. Especially when they get their killer new bathroom put in.

Finally - we're still waiting on the Stockholm competition finalist announcement. It's the "blue foam" thing I showed you a while back. Once it's out I'll put up some pics, but it's still technically very confidential.

GO BEARS

Chicago/NY

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I went back to the home town and visited friends and family in Chicago, Illinois. After living in New York for a while, I've gotten to know certain parts of the city, and from my upbringing from outside of Chicago, I think I know at least a little about Chicago architecture as well. I wish I could make an adequate compare/contrast list of NY to Chicago, but obviously, that's impossible. But being a fan of both cities, I'll do my best to at least begin to talk about one point. If anyone has any further comments, please feel free.


History.

Chicago and New York both have elaborate, fantastic histories. Chicago's is more specific to the topic of architecture, with FLW, Sullivan, Van Der Rohe all initially gaining recognition in the city by the lake. The Columbian Exposition(aka the Chicago World's Fair) was one of the most important architectural events of the 19th Century, no matter how few people know about it. It shaped the city of Chicago, thereby shaping most of the rest of the cities which cropped up AFTER Chicago.

New York's history is much more deep, meaningful and interesting - but in a cultural way, rather than an architectural one. Of course, the story of the Chrysler Building (My office building) vs. the Empire State is interesting, the Flatiron Building, Central Park (pseudo-architectural), and of course the World Trade Center and it's collapse. These are all incredibly interesting, important stories about architecture. But nothing in New York compares to the social and political stories.

But, in these two cities' varied stories of history, a very strong basis for "meaning" emerges. What I mean by "meaning" is still basically undecided in my head. But I think that "meaning" is what makes Architecture such an important art - it's what creates atmosphere in a city, it's what creates memory in one's mind and it's what creates history in concrete, wood, steel, and glass. Without "meaning," architecture would fail to be anything more than shelter.

In Chicago, "meaning" exists through the elaborate facade of Carson Pirie Scott, or in the corner clock at Marshall Field's (which it will always be known to me as), or in the blocky, masculine stepping of the Sears Tower, or, more contemporarily, in the sleek, perfect, mind-bending reflective beauty of Cloud Gate (another example of Chicago being the ONLY city in the world to show successful public art. No other city has ACTUAL "public" "art" like Chicago.) And in the last example lies the key. As time goes on, architecture grows older. Cities grow older. But obviously, developments continuously change and refine the city's definition and attitude. This is why History plays such an important role. Without any old buildings still standing around city, there is nothing to compare the new construction to. There is no Geiger to set up checks and balances. There is no Datum to define quality from crap. And this is the success of both cities of New York and Chicago.

With deep, meaningful histories, both cities set up landscapes to compare the new constructions to. In Chicago, the Sears Tower contrasts the Home Insurance Building. 860/880 Lake Shore Drive, by Van Der Rohe, is compared with the yet-to-be-built Aqua Tower. And of course, IIT Campus and Soldier Field both contrast themselves. In New York, the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building contrast the Citigroup Building. The Flatiron contrasts the Seagram Building. And the World Trade Center contrasts the yet-to-be-built Freedom Tower(don't get me started on that one).

So for good or for bad, the age of buildings and the relationship that they create with their city sets up a dynamic and always interesting discussion. Cities such as Chicago, New York, London and Paris all participate in this discussion. Cities such as Los Angeles choose not to. Getting caught up in constant contemporaneity has created a one-liner. It's excused itself from the discussion. I can't comment on LA as much as I wish I could, because it is what it is - nothing more or less will or has ever existed.

And then there's Tokyo - a city which is obviously near and dear to my heart - but one that also cannot enter into this discussion. This time, it doesn't have itself to blame, but its sad past which was brought upon by the violent acts of WW2. Since Tokyo was completely firebombed to the ground, a new Tokyo had to emerge in the 1950's - and that resulted in the most contemporary city in the world. The ironic thing about this is the Japanese' famous respect for their past. So while NY and Chi both have a physical past which they can relate to, Japan has only a memorial (or, meta-physical) past, but since this is such a strong attribute of the Japanese people, the two are almost equal. And while Tokyo doesn't have physical architectural past, most other Japanese cities have much older and more wonderful architectural pasts than any Western City. Kyoto and Nara, the two most famous old Japanese cities have wooden buildings over 1000 years old. To touch a building which is older than your entire COUNTRY is something special.

This will prove to be an incredibly fragmented post, but I have to go to the grocery store. I hope this will satisfy some of the anti-football readers out there (if you actually got this far - hello!) for a little while. And again, this is only a small portion of what could be said about this topic. And there are plenty of other topics to discuss. I encourage some comments to get our thoughts going.

Water update

Well, after one day of slight panic and charette, we seem to have come to some kind of decision in terms of the water table. For all of you coming in late, (which, by the lack of comments, that seems to be many of you) (or actually, FEW of you, but the word FEW still adequately describes the BULK of my readership.) I'm working on an addition to a house in New Canaan, CT. The contractor was digging yesterday, and began to notice water seeping (or, percalating) UP through the soil. First instinct said it was settled water from the recent rain. But as a test, the contractor went down into the hole and put spraypaint down at the lowest level of the hole. After waiting a few minutes, the paint was not laying on the dirt anymore, but floating on top of a thin layer of standing water. That water must have been coming UP rather than settling down. That's bad news.
So basically, the water table (see last post for a further description of "water table") was 30" above our proposed bottom of footing level. That means we needed to get rid of 30 INCHES of our addition in the vertical direction. This is not easy. What we ended up doing was bringing the basement from a very generous 8'-1" down to a barely legal 7'-0" in ceiling height. Also, on the first floor level, we had a very nice section of the addition that stepped down TWO steps into a sunken living room, which we had to change to only one step, salvaging 7.5". These two maneuvers, coupled with a couple other more technical, boring ones, were able to bring us ONE INCH above the recommended elevation.

SCORE!

In other Harry Elson Architect PC news, we were informed today from a past client who recently sold their apartment designed by us, that they sold said apartment for the highest price EVER PAID for a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East side of Manhattan. THAT is saying something! At least, that's what I got from their email. It was fairly cryptic.

We hit water...

Here's a quick update on some stuff that's gone on in my firm lately...

So we're in construction on a house addition in New Canaan, CT. It's a beautiful project - the existing house is very old and nice, we were able to completely destroy an incredibly UGLY addition which was added to the original house, sometime in the 1980's. Now we're adding on this very simple, immaculately detailed glass box, essentially.

Well, one of the client's main requests was that they get a full basement for the kids to run around in. We've always told them, "okay but there's a chance we'll hit a water table down there." They live near a wetland, and although all the engineers' test probes came up negative, you can never be sure with water. A water table, basically, is the term referred to the point at which water does not come UP towards the surface anymore. At a certain depth, there is water under every point of ground. It's just a matter of how deep. At this point, it was roughly8 or 9 feet below the surface, which is really not that deep. So it creates structural and obviously water problems. So now we've got us, the engineers, the contractor, and everybody else hurrying to come up with a solution.
Good thing we're only managing this one project - because we're in emergency mode at the moment! I'll keep you updated.

A first!

Back on the architecture tip...
Yesterday was a day that marked the next phase of my architectural career. I participated in my first architecture critic jury panel! Basically, what that means is, when you're a student in arch school, you create projects, and a couple times per semester, a panel of jurors comes to hear your arguments, look at your stuff, and they give you feedback. Well, I was one of those jurors yesterday, for the first time.
My old bosses, Ali Rahim and Hina Jamelle, asked me to participate because they're doing a studio in the Pratt School of Architecture called Elegance, which is also the title of their new AD Magazine, with many projects that I designed. (See earlier posts) So, they figured I could positively contribute to the conversation, and I believe that I did, quite well. The complete panel of jurors was myself, another gentleman who was a professor at Harvard and has a project in the Elegance mag, another guy who used to be Morphosis's Thom Mayne's #2 who now has his own firm in NYC, and the head designer for the Acconci Studio, sort of a rogue art/architecture group based in NYC. It was really great company to be in and they were all very receptive to my comments, although it was quite obvious that I was the youngest, and probably least intelligent in the bunch. At any rate, it was a great time, and I'm excited to participate in more and more of them. And hopefully, a studio professor job will follow fairly soon after that. Just fyi for all the dedicated readers.

A Pleasant Surprise

Something huge happened yesterday. When I followed my own link to (what I called) my own book, Catalytic Formations on the Amazon.com website, and I took my own advice and started searching similar books on Amazon. What did I find? I found that Ali is releasing a new AD (a popular architecture magazine published by an English Company standing for Architectural Design which Ali has edited on multiple occasions in the past)and the cover image IS ONE OF MY PROJECTS FROM THE BOOK!! So first, I see a huge image on the cover of the new AD that's MY WORK. But second, the issue is called "ELEGANCE." So there's my project with "Elegance" written in HUGE letters at the bottom. I was soaring!

Great architecture books

Since architecture, as a topic, has been fairly lacking in this page as of late, I figured I'd give you a second outlet for architectural literature, in my list of the first five books every person should read about architecture. This list is pointed towards people with little specific background in architecture but an intense interest in contemporary culture and building.

1) Francis D.K. Ching, A Visual Dictionary of Architecture. This is a graphic-based book which explains different aspects of architectural styles, the building process, design concepts and tools, etc. It's about 200 pages in a large page format and illustrated throughout in pencil by Ching, one of the greatest architecture professors of our time. It's a beautiful book, and although it's given to EVERY first year undergrad student as mandatory reading, I still constantly flip through it for answers and inspiration.

2) Architecture in the Twentieth Century, Taschen. This is a fairly inexpensive, two-book series on modern architecture throughout the world from the past 100 years. Some great photographs, and it's quite extensive. Very good to have around the house and flip through to educate on a rainy Saturday.

3) Ali Rahim, Catalytic Formations. My book. A friend and I created all of the projects in this monograph for Ali Rahim. It took away 9 months of my life, but it was a labor of love, I'm immensely glad I contributed to this project and am extremely proud of it. In my humble opinion, it contains some of the most beautiful computer generated architectural images you'll ever see in your life. A very contemporary philosophy for creating architecture and culture in the technological age goes along and helps explain and describe all the projects.

4) Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture. A beautifully written book by one of the leading architects from Switzerland, about how everything, but especially little things, details, contribute to how one experiences architecture. It goes through smells, ergonomic properties of doornobs, the power of memory, and much more. It's a very short, small, thin book which looks terrific and will fit in any small travel bag or man purse.

5) Neil Denari, Gyroscopic Horizons. This is a monograph of Neil Denari's work until around 2001. He was a teacher of mine at Sci-Arc, a brilliant thinking and theoritician and a genuine terrific guy. The book is filled with architecture trying to be machines so complicated that they become simple, and as colorful as you can get while still being sterile....discuss.

So I hope some of you will use this list as a jump off point, even to search in amazon to begin an endless architecture browsing session.