Recent Book Reviews
Oculus Book Review: Partners in Design: Alfred Barr and Philip Johnson
June 23, 2016
Although the new book chronicling the deep and important friendship between Alfred Barr and Philip Johnson is entitled Partners in Design: Alfred Barr and Philipp Johnson, a more apt title would be The Biography of an Aesthetic. This text expertly walks the reader through the genesis of the Modernist movement in America, from Johnson and Barr’s self-education in the movement, to how they educated the American public on the new style.
Oculus Book Review: Where are the Women Architects? by Despina Stratigakos
May 13, 2016
The form of Stratigakos’ book is conflicting in and of itself; a very slim volume, reminiscent of a suffragette pamphlet rather than a revolutionary red book. The initial response is slightly disappointing: “Really? Is this all there is on the subject?”
Oculus Book Review: A Genealogy of Modern Architecture: Comparative Critical Analysis of Built Form by Kenneth Frampton
January 27, 2016
So Genealogy it is, and the reader is able to see the force of Le Corbusier’s work compared to Aalto’s, which is then aligned with a Mies Van de Rohe, and so on. The book presents 14 comparisons between two Modernist projects, illustrating the evolution of the movement.
Oculus Book Review: Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry by Paul Golberger
January 13, 2016
The initial sections of Goldberger’s narrative are quite lively. He provides a deep and sensitive texture of a middle-class life through the 1940s and ’50s. Painting the landscapes that Gehry grew up in, a non-cosmopolitan Toronto and the vast expanse of the mining town Timmins, Ontario, speak to a pragmatic quality that arises later in Gehry’s work.
Oculus Book Review: We’re Still Here Ya Bastards by Roberta Brandes Gratz
October 15, 2015
Roberta Brandes Gratz’s latest book, We’re Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City, is a holistic urbanist triumph. A steady and clear mapping of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans and the subsequent havoc that the BP oil spill played on the region, Brandes Gratz establishes a new touchstone for the urbanist chronicler.
Oculus Book Review: Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture by Justin McGuirk
May 13, 2015
Radical Cities is, as Oculus Editor-in-Chief Kristen Richards, Hon. AIA, Hon. ASLA, framed it, pretty swoon-worthy. It is clear, kinetic, and adept storytelling at its best. This book (dare I say it) is a page-turner.