Main entry:

Lange, Alexandra, author.

Title & Author:

Writing about architecture : mastering the language of buildings and cities / Alexandra Lange ; with photographs by Jeremy M. Lange.

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication:

New York : Princeton Architectural Press, ©2012.

Description:

192 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Series:

Architecture briefs

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-191) and index.
Introduction : How to be an architecture critic -- Skyscrapers : House of glass / Lewis Mumford ; Skyscrapers as superlatives -- Museums : The miracle in Balbao / Herbert Muschamp ; What should a museum be? -- Landmarks : Save the Whitney / Michael Sorkin ; What's worth preserving? -- Monuments : You have to pay for the public life (excerpt) / Charles W. Moore ; Searching for a center -- Parks : Public parks and the enlargement of towns (excerpt) / Frederick Law Olmsted ; Landscape is more than a lawn -- Cities : The death and life of great American cities (excerpt) / Jane Jacobs ; Criticism from the ground up -- Conclusion : More than one way to skin a building.

Summary:

Writing About Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities, the latest addition to the Architecture Briefs series, is a handbook on how to write effectively and critically about the contemporary city. The book offers works by some of the best architecture critics of the twentieth century including Ada Louise Huxtable, Lewis Mumford, Herbert Muschamp, Michael Sorkin, Charles Moore, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Jane Jacobs to explains some of the most successful methods with which to approach architectural criticism. Each chapter opens with a reprint of a historically significant essay (and organized by typology such as the skyscraper, the museum, and parks) discussing a specific building or urban project. The author, Alexandra Lange, then offers a close reading of that essay, as well as her own analysis through contemporary examples, to further enlighten the reader about how to write an effective piece of architectural criticism. This book, based on lessons learned from the author's courses at New York University and the School of Visual Arts, could serve as the primary text for a course on criticism for undergraduates or architecture and design majors. Architects covered include Marcel Breuer, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Field Operations, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Frederick Law Olmsted, SOM, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Resources:
ebrary

ISBN:

9781616890537 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
1616890533 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Architectural criticism.
Critique d'architecture.
architectural criticism.
Architektur
Architekturtheorie
Architekturkritik

Added entries:

Lange, Jeremy M., photographer.
Lange, Jeremy M.
Architecture briefs.

Mastering the language of buildings and cities

Holdings:

Location: Library main 277185
Call No.: BIB 211913
Status: Available