New Books Network
Architecture
Art January 5, 2022

Tree of Pearls

The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar Al-Durr

D. Fairchild Ruggles

Hosted by Tanja Tolar
Shajar al-Durr--known as "Tree of Pearls"--began her remarkable career as a child slave, given as property to Sultan Salih of Egypt. She became his concubine, was manumitted, became his wife …

Architecture

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Interviews with architects and scholars of architecture about their new books.

Architecture December 22, 2021

Minoru Yamasaki and the Fragility of Architecture

Paul Kidder

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Few figures in the American arts have stories richer in irony than does architect Minoru Yamasaki. While his twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center are internationally iconic, few …
Art December 21, 2021

From Granada to Berlin

The Alhambra Cupola

Anna McSweeney

Hosted by Tanja Tolar
Part of the series CAHIM Connecting Art Histories in the Museum, Anna McSweeney's book From Granada to Berlin: The Alhambra Cupola (Kettler Verlag, 2020) is the story of an extraordinary survivor …
Architecture December 9, 2021

Strange Objects, New Solids and Massive Forms

Archi-Tectonics

Winka Dubbeldam

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
The object as solid, having three dimensions, is not just a different formal trend, but a paradigm shift; a reconceiving of how the architectural object is produced and experienced, changing …
The Proust Questionnaire Podcast July 3, 2020

Proust Questionnaire 9

Robert Couturier, Architect/Interior Designer

Robert Couturier

Hosted by Uli Baer and Caroline Weber
Robert Couturier is one of the most prestigious interior designers. His name has been included in Architectural Digest’s annual list of the best decorators and architects in the world, and …
German Studies January 21, 2022

Decay and Afterlife

Form, Time, and the Textuality of Ruins, 1100 to 1900

Aleksandra Prica

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
Western ruins have long been understood as objects riddled with temporal contradictions, whether they appear in baroque poetry and drama, Romanticism’s nostalgic view of history, eighteenth-century paintings of classical subjects …
Architecture January 18, 2022

Savage Mind to Savage Machine

Racial Science and Twentieth-Century Design

Ginger Nolan

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Attempting to derive aesthetic systems from natural structures of human cognition, designers looked toward the “savage mind”—a way of thinking they associated with a racialized subaltern. In Savage Mind to …
Architecture January 11, 2022

The Architecture Concept Book

James Tait

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Inspired by the complexity and heterogeneity of the world around us, and by the rise of new technologies and their associated behavior, The Architecture Concept Book (Thames and Hudson, 2018) …
Architecture January 7, 2022

Architecture and the Senses in the Italian Renaissance

The Varieties of Architectural Experience

David Karmon

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Architecture and the Senses in the Italian Renaissance: The Varieties of Architectural Experience (Cambridge UP, 2021) is the first study of Renaissance architecture as an immersive, multisensory experience that combines …
Intellectual History January 5, 2022

The Forces of Form in German Modernism

Malika Maskarinec

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe were times of intense technological, social and political change and transformation, and so it’s no surprise that much of the …
Russian and Eurasian Studies December 29, 2021

Avant-Garde as Method

Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space, 1920-1930

Anna Bokov

Hosted by Iva Glisic
In Avant-Garde as Method: Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space, 1920-1930 (Park Books, 2020), Anna Bokov examines the history of the Higher Art and Technical Studios (Vysshie khudozhestvenno-tekhnicheskie masterskie) in …
East Asian Studies December 20, 2021

What the Emperor Built

Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming

Aurelia Campbell

Hosted by Noelle Giuffrida
One of the most famous rulers in Chinese history, the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–24) gained renown for constructing Beijing’s magnificent Forbidden City, directing ambitious naval expeditions, and creating the world’s …
South Asian Studies December 16, 2021

Bureaucracy, Belonging, and the City in North India

1870-1930

Michael S. Dodson

Hosted by Ujaan Ghosh
Michael S. Dodson's Bureaucracy, Belonging, and the City in North India: 1870-1930 (Routledge, 2020) is a re-evaluation of modern urbanism and architecture and a history of urbanism, architecture, and local identity …
Eastern European Studies December 14, 2021

Three Cities After Hitler

Redemptive Reconstruction Across Cold War Borders

Andrew Demshuk

Hosted by Amber Nickell
Three Cities After Hitler: Redemptive Reconstruction Across Cold War Borders (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021) compares how three prewar German cities shared decades of postwar development under three competing post-Nazi regimes …
South Asian Studies December 7, 2021

Brutal Beauty

Aesthetics and Aspiration in the Indian City

Jisha Menon

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Brutal Beauty: Aesthetics and Aspiration in the Indian City (Northwestern UP, 2021) follows a postcolonial city as it transforms into a bustling global metropolis after the liberalization of the Indian economy …
Architecture November 26, 2021

Creating a Culture of Predictable Outcomes

How Leadership, Collaboration, and Decision-Making Drive Architecture and Construction

Barbara White Bryson

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Creating a Culture of Predictable Outcomes: How Leadership, Collaboration, and Decision-Making Drive Architecture and Construction (Routledge, 2020) demonstrates the importance of creating cultures in the design and construction industries grounded in …
Environmental Studies November 22, 2021

Asphalt

A History

Kenneth O'Reilly

Hosted by Mohamed Gamal-Eldin
In Asphalt: A History (U Nebraska Press, 2021), Kenneth O’Reilly provides a history of this everyday substance. By tracing the history of asphalt—in both its natural and processed forms—from ancient times …
American West November 17, 2021

The Archaeology of Burning Man

The Rise and Fall of Black Rock City

Carolyn L. White

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
How do you do archaeological research on a place that exists for only one week per year, in the middle of the Nevada desert, and is based on the ethos …
Middle Eastern Studies November 5, 2021

The Ka'ba Orientations

Readings in Islam's Ancient House

Simon O'Meara

Hosted by Miguel Monteiro
The Kaʿba is the famous cuboid structure at the center of the Great Mosque in Mecca. In his book The Kaʿba Orientations: Readings in Islam's Ancient House (Edinburgh University Press …
Architecture November 4, 2021

The Architecture of Ramses Wissa Wassef

Conchita Anorve-Tschirgi and Ehsan Abushadi

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
The pioneering Egyptian architect and teacher Ramses Wissa Wassef (1911–74) is best known for his founding in 1951 of the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre in Harraniya, a small village …