New Books Network
Architecture
Art October 19, 2021

Investigative Aesthetics

Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth

Matthew Fuller

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
Today, journalists, legal professionals, activists, and artists challenge the state's monopoly on investigation and the production of narratives of truth. They probe corruption, human rights violations, environmental crimes, and technological …

Architecture

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

Architecture October 19, 2021

Echo's Chambers

Architecture and the Idea of Acoustic Space

Joseph L. Clarke

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
A room’s acoustic character seems at once the most technical and the most mystical of concerns. Since the early Enlightenment, European architects have systematically endeavored to represent and control the …
Architecture October 7, 2021

Boredom, Architecture, and Spatial Experience

Christian Parreno

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Boredom is a ubiquitous feature of modern life. Endured by everyone, it is both cause and effect of modernity, and of situations, spaces and surroundings. As such, this book argues …
Architecture October 1, 2021

The Materiality of Architecture

Antoine Picon

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Digital tools have launched architecture into a dizzying new era, one in which wood, stone, metal, glass, and other traditional materials are augmented by pixels and code. In The Materiality of …
Mobilities and Methods September 24, 2021

A City Is Not a Computer

Other Urban Intelligences

Shannon Mattern

Hosted by Alize Arıcan
Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration—promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast September 22, 2021

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: Chinese-Inspired Architecture

Dang Qun

Hosted by Howard Burton
Howard chats with Dang Qun, one of the three founding partners of Beijing-based MAD architects, about aesthetics, history, cultural distinctiveness and architecture's unique balance of the concrete and ethereal. Howard …
Architecture September 21, 2021

Open Plan

A Design History of the American Office

Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler

Hosted by Nushelle de Silva
Albeit inspired by a progressive vision of a working environment without walls or hierarchies, the open plan office has come to be associated with some of the most dehumanizing and …
Architecture September 17, 2021

The Speculative City

Art, Real Estate, and the Making of Global Los Angeles

Susanna Phillips Newbury

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Underlying every great city is a rich and vibrant culture that shapes the texture of life within. In The Speculative City: Art, Real Estate, and the Making of Global Los …
Architecture September 14, 2021

The Loop

The “L” Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago

Patrick T. Reardon

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Every day Chicagoans rely on the loop of elevated train tracks to get to their jobs, classrooms, or homes in the city’s downtown. But how much do they know about …
Architecture September 9, 2021

The Art of Experiment

Artistic Research in Experimental Architecture

Rolf Hughes and Rachel Armstrong

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
In search of new knowledge practices that can help us make the world livable again, this book takes the reader on a journey across time―from the deep past to the …
Architecture August 24, 2021

Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn

The Connected Farm Buildings of New England

Thomas C. Hubka

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
“Big house, little house, back house, barn”―this rhythmic cadence was sung by nineteenth-century children as they played. It also portrays the four essential components of the farms where many of …
Architecture August 20, 2021

The Filing Cabinet

A Vertical History of Information

Craig Robertson

Hosted by Nushelle de Silva
The history of how a deceptively ordinary piece of office furniture transformed our relationship with information The ubiquity of the filing cabinet in the twentieth-century office space, along with its …
Architecture August 17, 2021

Architecture Beyond Experience

Michael Benedikt

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Architecture Beyond Experience (Applied Research & Design, 2020) is a work in the service of one goal: the bringing about of a more relational, “posthuman” and yet humanist strain in …
Architecture August 11, 2021

Preserving Neighborhoods

How Urban Policy and Community Strategy Shape Baltimore and Brooklyn

Aaron Passell

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Historic preservation is typically regarded as an elitist practice. In this view, designating a neighborhood as historic is a project by and for affluent residents concerned with aesthetics, not affordability …
Art August 6, 2021

The Ends of Art Criticism

Patricia Bickers

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
Crisis? What Crisis? At a time where there are repeated claims of the impending demise of art criticism, The Ends of Art Criticism (Lund Humphries Publishers, 2021) dispel these myths …
Architecture August 3, 2021

Asian Revitalization

Adaptive Reuse in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore

Katie Cummer and Lynne D. DiStefano

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Adaptive reuse, or using a building for a new purpose, has become popular around the world, but discussion about adaptive reuse in Asia is relatively scarce. As a result, this …
Architecture July 23, 2021

Visual Delight in Architecture

Daylight, Vision and View

Lisa Heschong

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Lisa Heschong's book Visual Delight in Architecture: Visual Delight in Architecture (Routledge, 2021) examines the many ways that our lives are enriched by the presence of natural daylight and window views …
Sociology July 22, 2021

Chasing World-Class Urbanism

Global Policy Versus Everyday Survival in Buenos Aires

Jacob Lederman

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
What makes some cities world class? Increasingly, that designation reflects the use of a toolkit of urban planning practices and policies that circulates around the globe. These strategies—establishing creative districts …
Architecture July 14, 2021

Neoliberalism on the Ground

Architecture and Transformation from the 1960s to the Present

Kenny Cupers, Catharina Gabrielsson and Helena Mattsson

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Architecture and urbanism have contributed to one of the most sweeping transformations of our times. Over the past four decades, neoliberalism has been not only a dominant paradigm in politics …
Architecture July 8, 2021

Building Brands

The Architecture of Corporate Modernism

Grace Ong Yan

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Between the Stock Market Crash and the Vietnam War, American corporations were responsible for the construction of thousands of headquarters across the United States. Over this time, the design of …