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Adrian Lahoud of UTS writes to say, "Thought you should know that as of last week 200 psycho-geographical maps have been pinned up around four routes through the Sydney CBD, with invitations for use and comments at archurbanism at gmail.com ..."
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Arjen Van Susteren: Metropolitan World Atlas
Beautifully designed reference book on urban form and behaviour, from the exceptional publishers 010. (*****)
Models: 306090 11 (306090)
Fantastic collection edited by Eric Ellingsen, covering all aspects of models as pertaining to designing the built environment. Digital and analogue in all modes, and philosophical and aesthetic considerations besides. (*****)
Andrew Stafford: Pig City: From the Saints to Savage Garden
Brilliant history of Brisbane, through its darkest years, as told through its popular music scene from the mid-70s on. (*****)
W.G. Sebald: On the Natural History of Destruction (Modern Library Paperbacks)
Quite brilliant short essay, based on a speech, on the Allied bombing of Germany. (*****)
Karen McCartney: Iconic Australian Houses: Three Decades of Domestic Architecture
Lovely book of modernist Australian architecture from 1950 to 1974. A coffee-table book but a wonderful one. Full notes here. (*****)
JG Ballard: Kingdom Come
Ballard running on only one or two engines, but still chock full of wonderful ideas and observations, and with a few lines that will resonate forever. Curiously full of holes (no CCTV on the original crime?) but as a depiction of an England rotten to the core, timely and useful. (****)
Peter Jones: Ove Arup: Masterbuilder of the Twentieth Century
Slightly haphazard biography of one of the great designers and leaders of the 20thC. The parts on building, design, organisation, context and practice are fascinating, and the portrait of Ove Arup himself is detailed and heartfelt. Some personal aspects are a little uneven and the writing is curiously disjointed in structure but it's a thoroughly good read overall, on one of the great thinkers and practitioners in architecture and engineering. (****)
Agustin Pérez Rubio: SANAA Houses: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa
Excellent book on the Japanese architecture firm. Full review here. (*****)
Nevil Shute: On the Beach
Absolutely fantastic read, if as thoroughly downbeat as a story about the end of the human race ought to be. Set in an Melbourne post-armageddon, as the last few people on earth live out their last months, it's a fascinating portrait of its time (1957) and Australia. (*****)
Elizabeth Farrelly: Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness
Architecture, urbanism, desire, happiness, beauty, obesity, greed, depression etc. A potent mix. A bit uneven, and journalistic in essence (which jars in this form) but good on Australia's architecture in particular, and with a beguiling speculative last chapter. (****)
Robert Hughes: Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir
Hughes is amongst the finest cultural critics and historians, and here focused on the first part of his own history and culture. So we get rich portraits of Australia, WW I and Vietnam, Italy, London, the 60s, art, food, sex, model aeroplanes &c as well as Mr. Hughes. Supreme writing applied to fascinating subject matter. (*****)
W.G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn
Jonathan Raban said "The finest book of long-distance mental travel that I've ever read" and I'm inclined to agree. A quietly majestic book, with peerless clear, evocative prose, drawn from immensely erudite research, and interspersed with simple ghostly photography. (*****)
Bruce Sterling: Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets)
A re-read, due to recent projects. Sterling, like the geeks he so admires, underestimates the richness of sensory information in the physical, when over-emphasising the new importance of the model, the map. The map has outgrown the territory only if you simply look at it. And yet there is no better guide to the map - of modeling, fabrication, the geoweb and arphids, and what this all means. Unlike most books in this field, it's as engagingly written as you'd expect and ultimately so thought-provoking and inspiring that you can forgive the oversight - which tends to come with, er, the territory. (*****)
Lebbeus Woods: War and Architecture (Pamphlet Architecture)
Incredible radical response to the ruined Sarajevo. Must be read to comprehend the brilliance and bravery of his suggestions and visions, but essentially Woods suggests building in and around the 'scabs' and 'scars' of the shattered city, not simply in order to preserve or record history, but to also mitigate against further violence by creating a new heterarchical form of urban organisation. "Architecture must learn to transform the violence, even as violence knows how to transform the architecture." (*****)
David Peace: Tokyo Year Zero
Still dealing with this book. Reading this snapshot of a Tokyo in ruins, physically and psychologically, in 1947, after his shattering book on Brian Clough, feels like an odd change of gears initially. Yet the writing style - a kind of metronomic Ellroy-level intensity - pervades both, as does the startling ability to capture a sense of place and time. This is the more ambitious work, and may end up being one of the great modern evocations of Tokyo. (*****)
Peter Robb: Midnight in Sicily
Perhaps the best book I've read in recent years, by Australian author Robb (see also 'A Death In Brazil') painting a portrait of southern Italy, filtered through history, food, literature, painting, architecture and principally the long-running legal cases against the Mafia. Absolutely extraordinary. (*****)
Geoff Dyer: Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence
Genius. Only intermittently about Lawrence, and as much as Dyer's knees, childish Italians, Mexico, terrible Greeks, writing about place, horrible food, annoying English people, depression, travelling, and how dull Oxford is. One of the funniest books I've read, occasionally devastatingly sad, and also, accidentally/cleverly, brilliant on DH Lawrence. (*****)
Kerry William Purcell: Josef Muller-Brockmann
Wonderfully detailed, carefully illustrated, and generally massive tome on the 20th century's greatest graphic designer. Essential. (*****)
Juhani Pallasmaa: The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses
One of those rare books that changes the way you think about everything. Already a huge influence, and one of the greatest books on architecture and urbanism that I've ever read. (*****)
Jun'ichiro Tanizaki: In Praise of Shadows
A wonderful essay, from the early 20th century, on Japanese aesthetics. A perfect companion to Juhani Pallasmaa, but entirely pleasurable and enlightening on its own. (*****)
Drøne
Move D: Drøne (12")
Cracking bit of what we used to call ambient techno. 12 minutes of deep immersion. Great working music. (*****)
Paavoharju: Laulu Laakson Kukista
Slightly bonkers, but also rather lovely. Scratchy Finnish avant-folk, with a dash of 70s pop. (****)
Keith Jarrett: Setting Standards
Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette; 3 days' work in 1983 at the Power Station studios, NYC; 3 seminal albums: Standards Vol.1 and Vol.2 and Changes. ECM have repackaged them, beautifully, and re-released them thus. Suckers for ECM could not resist. While Changeless is my favourite album by this trio, and here I prefer the more exploratory recordings of Changes, all these pieces are fairly flawless, not least the sublime 'God Bless The Child' and 'Meaning of the Blues'. (*****)
Various Artists: Mary-Anne Hobbs: Evangeline
Variable, but generally very good. Ben Frost, Flying Lotus, Claro Intelectuo, Shackleton, Boxcutter and Cult of the 13th Hour are the picks. (****)
James Blackshaw: Litany of Echoes
Blackshaw's Fahey-esque ragas now augmented by solo piano pieces, and occasional horn/string arrangements. Wonderful on either instrument. Hypnotic. (*****)
Lawrence English: Kiri No Oto
Quite beautiful languorous blocks of noise. (*****)
Various Artists: Victrola Favorites: Artifacts from Bygone Days
Wonderful compilation of old music, from just about everywhere. Wonderfully packaged. (*****)
Autistic Daughters: Uneasy Flowers
One of the best trios around - NZ's Dean Roberts with Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmeyer - joined on several tracks by Chris Abrahams of The Necks. Which is just about perfect. Wonderfully textured. (*****)
Klimek: Dedications
Blurring analogue (esp. guitar) experimentation with digital, in the now time-honoured fashion. But quite lovely. Track titles give some sense of the mise-en-scéne: "for Zofia Klimek & Gregory Crewdson"; "for Jim Hall & Kurt Kirkwood"; "for Mark Hollis & Giacinto Scelsi"; "for Eugene Chadborne & Henry Kaiser"; "for Steven Speilberg & Azza El-Hassan" etc and so forth. (*****)
Four Tet: Ringer
An EP of 4 tracks, but a good size. Never mind the width though, feel the quality. Sidestepping his more abstract and Steve Reid-inflected recent work, Hebden delivers some beautifully pulsing techno, pilotis under a delicately arranged harmonic terrain. Fantastic stuff. (*****)
Themselves: Them
A few years after its release, I belatedly catch up with this album. A corker. Funny, lyrical and hugely enjoyable. (*****)
Goldmund: Two Point Discrimination
Delicate, fragile and lovely. (*****)
Wooden Shjips: Wooden Shjips
Can/Neu vs. psychedelia, with more than a touch of The Doors. Fear not, though, the vocals are a lesser concern than the searing guitar and metronomic Liebezeit rhythms. There's something absurd about this music emerging in 2007, but it's enjoyable absurd: like a long-lost The Mighty Boosh band. (*****)
The Whitest Boy Alive: Dreams
Fantastic clipped sparse pop album from the great Erlend Øye, king of the convenient side project. Classy stuff. (*****)
Dan/Adrian
I am very interested in this project - is there any chance of seeing/sending me a map?
Cheers
John
Posted by: John Furnival | April 27, 2008 at 08:50 AM
Hi,
I was linked to your blog by Jeremy Yuille.
I am a creative director of installation works created with interdisciplinary teams.
Currently there are two projects in production that have Arup, Derek Thompson from the Melbourne Acoustics department, involved as partners.
I'm fascinated by much that you have on this blog and it would be great if we could have a chat sometime,
best wishes,
Lou
Posted by: Lou Weis | July 02, 2008 at 07:19 AM