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Title:
Judging architectural value

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Summary:
When it comes to determining the relative quality of architecture, who is best equipped to make the distinctions? Is it the public who lives in and among the buildings? The people who commission and pay for the buildings? Art historians? Or architects themselves? These provocative essays take up the questions of what people value in architecture and how changing values influence opinions about it. In the intriguing opening essay, Michael Benedikt makes an argument for the role of architects in the delineation of value in architecture. He discusses the differences between icon and canon, a theme threaded through many of the essays. In addition to unexpected analyses of buildings such as Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Paul Rudolph’s Art and Architecture Building at Yale University, and the work of Antoni Gaudí and Frank Gehry, the collection includes a clear-eyed look at the role of architecture in addressing social problems. Ultimately, these essays assert that judging architecture requires more than a refined sensibility. Buildings also need to be evaluated by their impact on the people living within and around them. Contributors: John Beardsley, Harvard Design School; Michael Benedikt, U of Texas, Austin; Tim Culvahouse, California College of the Arts; Lisa Finley, California College of the Arts; Kurt W. Forster, Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar, Germany; Kenneth Frampton, Columbia U; Diane Ghirardo, U of Southern California; Charles Jencks; David Leatherbarrow, U of Pennsylvania; Nancy Levinson; Hélène Lipstadt; Juhani Pallasmaa, Helsinki U of Technology; Timothy M. Rohan, U of Massachusetts, Amherst; Roger Scruton; Daniel Willis, Pennsylvania State U. William S. Saunders is editor of Harvard Design Magazine and assistant dean for external relations at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He is the author of Modern Architecture: Photographs by Ezra Stoller and editor of three other Harvard Design Magazine Readers. Michael Benedikt is Hal Box Chair in Urbanism and director of the Center for American Architecture and Design at the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin.

Title:
Architecture and film

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$32.50
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Summary:
"Architecture and Film" looks at the ways architecture and architects are treated on screen and, conversely, how these depictions filter and shape the ways we understand the built environment. It also examines the significant effect that the film industry has had on the American public's perception of urban, suburban, and rural spaces. Contributors to this collection of essays come from a wide range of disciplines. Nancy Levinson writes on how films from "The Fountainhead" to "Jungle Fever" have depicted architects. Eric Rosenberg looks at how architecture and spatial relations shape the Beatles films "A Hard Day's Night", "Help!", and "Let It Be". Joseph Rosa discusses why modern domestic architecture in recent Hollywood films such as "The Ice Storm", "L.A. Confidential", and "The Big Lebowski" has become synonymous with unstable inhabitants. Peter Hall discusses the history of film titling, focusing on the groundbreaking work of Saul Bass and Maurice Binder. Editor Mark Lamster examines the anti-urbanism of the Star Wars trilogy. The collection also includes the voices of those from within the film industry, who are uniquely able to provide a "behind the scenes" perspective: film editor Bob Eisenhardt comments on the making of "Concert of Wills", a documentary on the construction of the Getty Museum; and Robert Kraft focuses on his work as a location director for Diane Keaton's upcoming film about Los Angeles. Also included are interviews with David Rockwell, architect of numerous Planet Hollywood restaurants worldwide and designer of a new hall to host the Academy Awards ceremony; Kyle Kooper, who created title sequences for "Seven" and "Mission Impossible"; and motion picture art director Jan Roelfs, whose credits include "Gattaca", "Orlando", and "Little Women". Previously priced at $41.50.