Book Description
Learning from Las Vegas created a healthy controversy on its appearance in 1972, calling for architects to be more receptive to the tastes and values of "common" people and less immodest in their erections of "heroic," self-aggrandizing monuments.
This revision includes the full texts of Part I of the original, on the Las Vegas strip, and Part II, "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed," a generalization from the findings of the first part on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. (The final part of the first edition, on the architectural work of the firm Venturi and Rauch, is not included in the revision.) The new paperback edition has a smaller format, fewer pictures, and a considerably lower price than the original. There are an added preface by Scott Brown and a bibliography of writings by the members of Venturi and Rauch and about the firm's work.
Customer Reviews:
as an argument of theory..........2007-03-03
this book is extremely condensed into a multitude of thumbnails or panoramas and text that never fails to reiterate its point. i mean, these two architects really understand the idea of symbols, suggestions, and sheds but after a dozen pages on one idea, you already get the point.
the images are really helpful in exemplifying the amount of criticism for or against the city ("idea") of las vegas.
An Architectural Nightmare.......2004-01-18
This is a quite unusual and offbeat treatise on architectural theory, as applied to the world's greatest architectural monstrosity - Las Vegas. This analysis from the early 1970s is obviously outdated because Las Vegas hadn't yet become the monument to megalomania and excess that it is today, but it was already well on its way. The authors analyze Vegas' unique usages of space, lighting, placement, transportation, and building design for the purposes of communication and promotion. Strange chapter titles give a clue to the left-field analysis in store, and the authors have a clear sense of irony, underhandedly implying that Vegas presents the worst in architecture while they appear to be praising its uniqueness. Unfortunately the narrative gets bogged down in dense professor-speak terminology like "Brazilianoid" and "neo-Constructivist megastructures," along with a general overload of obtuse theory. Add to that the poor-quality and under-elaborated illustrations and you have a book that sacrifices insight and readability in favor of pedantic attempts to impress the authors' colleagues. [~doomsdayer520~]
Read this book to learn what you shouldn't do as an architec.......2001-07-10
Read this book to learn what you shouldn't do as an architect!
This book follows Venturi's "Complexity and Contradiction", where you can learn how cynically to use casement windows in housing for the elderly where the elderly will happily put their plastic flowers in the windows, but *you* secretly know these are not really hormal casement windows, since they are out of scale (like fascist architecture's lack of scale?).
This book will tell you about ducks and decorated sheds, but it will tell you nothing about building spaces which nourish creative human community. Try Louis Kahn (e.g., John Lobell's lovely little book "Between Silence and Light"). My postmodernist teachers at Harvard said Kahn's writings were incomprehensible, which says more about them than about him.
Read Lobell's book and learn why, e.g., a city might deserve to exist. Remember: Only *you* can get beyond postmodernism!
Brilliant study of signage and architecture.......1999-09-10
Robert Venturi's study of the Las Vegas signage phenomena and it's impact on "architecture" is brilliant in it's scope. While written almost twenty five years ago, this book gains more and more pertinence as we as a society progress further into a "reality" of symbols, reproductions and representations. These words and thoughts are basically essential to the understanding of any city anymore, not just Las Vegas. Where this book misses the mark though is in the execution, as shown in Venturi's work, of these ideas. The projects put forth seem to pale in comparison to the implications the text actually has. These notions of architecture are by far some of the most relevant and important in modern theory today, it is unfortunate that their full potential could not be realized in these projects.... but maybe that is for you and I to do.
A classic in architecture theory.......1999-06-29
The title "father of Post Modernism" has been appropriately assigned to Robert Venturi....and it began with this book: Learning from Las Vegas. Written at a time when minimalism in art, and "form follows function" in architecture were the dominant ideas, Venturi et al threw down the gauntlet in challenging the practicing and accademic establishment with such sacriligious slogans as "Less is a bore" (challenging the modernist notion "Less is more")
Venturi should open the eyes of readers who self rightiously condemn today's highway commercial architecture and signage. Venturi challenges us to look at this urbanscape with fresh eyes...to see and understand the order (both functional and visual) in what we have been conditioned to condemn.
The book is well illustrated and gives examples of "the duck" and the "decorated shed" as metaphorical strategies to attract attention to highway commericial buildings.Anyone interested in architecture history and contemporary planning issues should read this book. It may piss you off, but it might also open your eyes to new ways of seeing.
In 1999 it would be interesting to compare Las Vegas to Pleasantville...and to learn in the process about change and the American culture that seems to embrace an ever changing urban landscape. Just as in the mythical Pleasantville in the movie of same name, Venturi upsets the status quo and gets us to see the colors (though sometimes messy and glaring) of the REAL city.
Book Description
This magnificent book is the first full-scale exploration of Impressionist technique. Focusing on the easel-painted work of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cézanne, Cassatt, Morisot, Caillebotte, Sisley, and Degas in the period before 1900, it places their methods and materials in a historical perspective and evaluates their origins, novelty, and meanings within the visual formation of urban modernity.
Drawing on scientific studies of pigments and materials, artists’ treatises, colormens’ archives, and contemporary and modern accounts, Anthea Callen demonstrates how raw materials and paintings are profoundly interdependent. She analyzes the material constituents of oil painting and the complex processes of “making” entailed in all aspects of artistic production, discussing in particular oil painting methods for landscapists and the impact of plein air light on figure painting, studio practice, and display. Insisting that the meanings of paintings are constituted by and within the cultural matrices that produced them, Callen argues that the real “modernity” of the Impressionist enterprise lies in the painters’ material practices. Bold brushwork, unpolished, sketchy surfaces, and bright, “primitive” colors were combined with their subject matter—the effects of light, the individual sensation made visible—to establish the modern as visual.
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Fauve Painting: The Making of Cultural Politics
James D. Herbert
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
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ASIN: 0300050682 |
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Art in the Making: Degas (National Gallery London Publications)
David Bomford ,
Sarah Herring ,
Jo Kirby ,
Christopher Riopelle , and
Ashok Roy
Manufacturer: National Gallery London
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Art in the Making: Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings
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Italian Painting Before 1400: Art in the Making (National Gallery London Publications)
ASIN: 1857099699 |
Book Description
One of art history’s most admired artists, Edgar Degas (1834–1917) challenged contemporary conventions with his intriguing working methods. This generously illustrated study is the latest title in the National Gallery’s series Art in the Making. Drawing on both technical studies and documentary evidence, it takes a fascinating look at Degas’s techniques in the context of his life and artistic milieu as well as his place in the Impressionist movement.
The book includes a vivid biographical sketch, an essay on Degas’s working methods and materials, a discussion of his reputation in Britain, and catalogue entries on 14 works owned by or on loan to the National Gallery.
Book Description
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries depictions of New England flooded the American art scene. Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, and Julian Weir, and other well-known artists produced images of quaint villages, agricultural labor, scenic rural churches, and the distinctive New England landscape. Julia B. Rosenbaum asks why and how a range of artists-including Impressionist and Modernist painters and sculptors-and exhibitors fashioned this particular vision of New England in their work.
Against the backdrop of industrialization, immigration, and persistent post-Civil War sectionalism, many Americans yearned for national unity and identity. As Rosenbaum finds, New England emerged as symbolic of cultural and spiritual achievement and democratic values that served as an example for the nation. By addressing the struggles for national unity, the book offers a new interpretation of turn-of-the-century American art. Ultimately, Visions of Belonging demonstrates how the local became so important to the national; how art was crucial to the formation of national identity; and how internal nation building takes place within the realm of culture, as well as politics. And even as later artists, such as Georgia O'Keeffe, challenged New England's cultural hegemony, the appeal of linking regional identity to national ideals continued in distinctive ways.
Beautifully illustrated with color plates and almost sixty halftones, Visions of Belonging explores the interplay between art objects and the shaping of loyalties and identities in a formative phase of American culture. It will appeal not only to art historians but also to anyone with an interest in nineteenth-century studies, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, American studies, New England history and culture, and American cultural and intellectual history.
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Gaugin: A Savage in the Making: Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings (1873-1888)
Daniel Wildenstein
Manufacturer: Skira/The Wildenstein Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 8884911370
Release Date: 2002-07-19 |
Book Description
A century after the death of Paul Gauguin, our knowledge of his life and work has made huge strides.
The present work covers the youth and early maturity of this pioneering artist and attempts a summation. It also offers a complete catalogue of the paintings, in the process thoroughly updating the original Wildenstein catalogue of 1964. These first two volumes take the reader through to the end of 1888, a year of profound upheavel in French painting. That was the year in which Gauguin and his friends, by a collaborative effort, arrived at Synthetism and, by rejecting representation in depth, freed Western painting of laws that had governed it since the Renaissance.
But Synthetism was also a form of primitivism. The society in which Gauguin lived was--already--a technical and materialist one, which contained the seeds of all that the 20th century became. Gauguin was one of the first to seek, in reaction to this civilization, a form of inspiration deriving from the timeless origins of humanity.
Although these two volumes are the product of rigorous research, they are studded with illustrations and are by no means intended for specialists alone. Commentary on each work offers a step-by-step analysis of Gauguin's artistic development, while reconstructing the artist's experience and the aesthetic and socio-cultural issues of his times.
The lively detail of the chronology describes the events of Gauguin's life, along with those of his friends; thanks to extensive research in unpublished archives, it also casts completely new light on Gauguin's ancestry.
The introduction offers an analysis of the period and an in-depth portrait of this great artist.
This exhaustive work is carefully designed so that each entry and insert can be read in isolation, though a system of cross-referencing ensures the continuity of the work and restores the overall trajectory of Gauguin's development.
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J. M. W. Turner: The Making of a Modern Artist
Sam Smiles
Manufacturer: Manchester University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0719077087
Release Date: 2007-11-27 |
Book Description
J.M.W. Turner is commonly held to have prefigured modern painting. Our celebration of his achievement--signaled in the existence of The Turner Prize for contemporary art--is very different to what Victorian critics made of his art. This book shows how Turner was reinvented to become the artist we recognize today. On Turner’s death in 1851 he was already known as an adventurous, even baffling painter. But when the Court of Chancery decreed that the contents of his studio should be given to the nation, another side of his art was revealed that effected a whole scale change in his reputation. This book acts as a guide to the reactions of art writers and curators from the 1850s to the 1960s as they attempted to come to terms with his work.
Book Description
100 Ways to Improve Your Landscape Photographs is an easy-reference guide to landscape photography; packed with practical advice and stunning photos this book will help and inspire photographers of all levels.
This is a simple and comprehensive trouble-shooting guide to landscape photography. The book is divided into themed sections and features simple explanations of techniques, which will help both beginners and more advanced photographers get the results they want. The thematic sections cover all areas of landscape photography, including coastal, panoramic and seasonal, as well as lighting effects, composition and exposure.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Coverage.......2006-04-18
This book is well written, provides excellent images that relate to the text, and has a notes section beneath each image explaining how the image was taken. For instance, the author will mention how he used a graduated neutral density filter, the reason for the strength of the filter & location of the filter on the lens. He will also indicate ISO, shutter speed and aperture and the reason for the selection. If a filter was used he will address the reasons why. I think the notes section is the most important part of the book as you can actually see in the image what he is discussing.
Composition, lighting & technique is also discussed and covered very well.
This book is not verbose, but rather gets down to the point very quickly. It is the kind of book you want to write on and use a coloured highlighter pen to mark important points, technique, composition ideas, etc. Ia ctually keep my copy in my car and refer to it in the field.
I won't repeat what you can read in contents and in the "see inside this book" section above - you can read this yourself.
The book, for the price (currently $11.00) is a "must have" in my view.
If you are serious about landscape photography you will not be disappointed.
Fresh approach.......2005-05-30
This is an excellent piece of work with a fresh approach to a very difficult part of photography, landscapes.
This book has 100 tips what to do to get better results. The use of light, filters, digital, lenses are covered. Also what to look for and what makes a shot interesting. All this accompanied with an image and counterexamples.
This book differs from other books I own. It is not a sum of do this, do that. It also does not cover technicallities. It's more for the ideas and dos and don'ts. For extensive techniques you have to look for another book.
The book is well and clearly written. The photographic work is more than excellent. The images are mostly from the UK, but also work from the US and other parts of Europe are included.
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Boy Trouble: 10th Anniversary Issue
Manufacturer: Top Shelf Productions
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The Book of Boy Trouble: Gay Boy Comics with a New Attitude
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Curbside Boys: The New York Years
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Roy & Al
ASIN: 0974885509 |
Book Description
Editors Robert Kirby and David Kelly celebrate Boy Trouble's 10th anniversary with some of today's best gay and lesbian cartoonists as they riff on the alternative boy aesthetic. Jennifer Camper's protagonist spends a whirlwind day with his juvenile delinquent dyke sister; Ivan Velez, Jr. chronicles the heartaches of the well-endowed; and Craig Bostick captures the bittersweet angst of teen rock'n'roll boys. Then, Kelly and Leanne Franson explore alienating bar life; Kirby and underground legend G.B. Jones present an encounter with an artsy adolescent; and Andy Hartzell offers a whimsical and beautifully drawn 12-page fantasy. Also featured: Cavalcade of Boys creator Tim Fish, Anonymous Boy, C. Bard Cole, and Michael Fahy.
Books:
- Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History
- Living Large in Small Spaces: Expressing Personal Style in 100 to 1,000 Square Feet
- Maison--Christian Liaigre
- Massive Change
- Mastering Autodesk Revit Building (Autodesk Revit)
- Meggs' History of Graphic Design
- Mini House Style
- Mobile: The Art of Portable Architecture
- Modern Architecture Since 1900
- Modern Retro: Living With Mid-Century Modern Style
Books Index
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