Bookshelf
Reading
A reading list of books filled with architecture and design.
01 Iconic Modern Australian Houses: 1950–2000 by Karen McCartney
(Murdoch Books, 2019)
Two decades ago, Karen McCartney moved with her family into Bruce Rickard’s 1967 Marshall House in Sydney’s Clontarf. The move kick-started an interest in post-war Australian architecture that has seen McCartney (now one of Australia’s best-known design writers and editors) produce two books on the subject: 50/60/70 Iconic Australian Houses (2007) and 70/80/90 Iconic Australian Houses (2011). This encyclopaedic book brings together the best houses from those decades in a new, handsome layout. It also introduces a new feature home, “one that got away the first time,” the Jackson House in Shoreham, Victoria by Daryl Jackson (1976–1977). McCartney describes the house as “conceptually sophisticated” but with a spartan manner that “suggests the no-nonsense approach of its country context and the make-do philosophy of rural Australia.” There are twenty-seven houses featured here, from the famous Rose Seidler House (1950) to the D House by Donovan Hill (1998–2000). McCartney ably places each house in its context, delivering a celebration of Australian modernism that will stand the test of time. 02 The Touch: Spaces Designed for the Senses by Kinfolk and Norm Architects (Gestalten, 2019) “… the most important tenet for architecture is the capacity to imagine experiences and feelings,” says Juhani Pallasmaa, the Finnish architect and pioneer of haptic design theory, in an interview in The Touch. You could perhaps say the same for architecture coffee-table books, and this effort from Copenhagen firm Norm Architects and lifestyle magazine Kinfolk succeeds in giving the reader a real sense of the projects presented. The Touch seeks to transcend the “blinkered” nature of Instagram architecture, suggesting instead that good design engages all the human senses. Copper House II by Studio Mumbai (2010), one of more than twenty-five projects presented, mediates the sometimes intense rain of its location south of
Mumbai to create hushed tones of flowing water. Its wooden-screen walls, meanwhile, allow “air, light and atmosphere” to flow through the house. Tatiana Bilbao’s mirrored house, Los Terrenos (2016), immerses the residents in the colours and fragrances of the Mexican forest. And Norm Architects’ own project in Norway, Gjøvik House (2018), uses a variety of materials and texture shifts to demarcate space and provide a sense of warmth in a cold place. 03 New Nordic Houses by Dominic Bradbury
(Thames and Hudson, 2019)
There are no surprises to be found in this book from design journalist Dominic Bradbury; you pretty much get what it says on the tin. Along with some threadbare analysis of the unique character of the region’s architecture and the notion of “Nordic warmth,” more than forty new houses are presented. Many of the projects are as remarkable for their stunning rural or regional settings as they are for their architecture. “The multiple threads of Nordic architecture lead back naturally and inevitably to this extraordinary landscape,” writes Bradbury. “The epic coastline, with its countless fjords, inlets and isles, contrasts vividly with the mountains and lakes of these glacial countries on the edge of the Arctic circle.” Among the practices featured are Jon Danielsen Aarhus, Tham and Videgård, Stinessen Arkitektur, Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter and Saunders Architecture. Their projects range from country houses complete with traditional Nordic fireplaces, saunas, window seats and verandahs, to remote cabin hideaways and artist’s studios. They are certainly pleasant to look at and the book as a whole captures a sense of bucolic beauty and isolation that is ideal for an escapist flick-through. 04 Ricardo Bofill: Visions of Architecture edited by Robert Klanten, Maria-Elisabeth Niebius, and Valentina Marinai
(Gestalten, 2019)
Ricardo Bofill, the visionary Barcelona architect behind projects such as the incomparable apartment complexes Gaudi District (1970) and Walden 7
(1975), was, it seems, a contradictory, larger-than-life figure. He was the rich kid of a property developer, given large projects to design at an impossibly young age. He was the Marxist student – kicked out of university for his activism, never to complete his degree. He was the charismatic outsider. And he was the hardworking, successful architect. This hefty book gives us a comprehensive overview of Bofill and his work, through essays by his contemporaries, through insightful reviews of his projects and through stunning, full-page photographs. Bofill’s stylistic output has varied drastically, taking in neo-Moorish and neoclassical elements, and ranging from critical regionalism to post-modernism. His career, as Tom Morris writes, “has spanned a vast and ambitious trajectory.” An admirable survey of that career can be found in this volume, which highlights everything from Bofill's utopian housing projects to a luxurious (and beautiful) resort.