This book tells the story of the painted towns of Shekhawati in rural Rajasthan, India. For centuries, the painted buildings served the towns as trading houses, pleasure palaces, temples, caravansaries, and private homes. Following independence, the descendants of the merchant families left Shekhawati for India's burgeoning cities, abandoning their opulent structures. Some were left in the charge of caretakers; squatters took up residence in many; most simply remain vacant. The buildings have slowly deteriorated over time, ravaged by climate and neglect, and now lie scattered among the desert settlements as an elegiac collection of beautiful living ruins--a crumbling open-air gallery set amid the ordinary affairs of small town life. This book portrays the fascinating ruinous beauty of the painted towns, and, along the way, provides an intimate look at life and landscape on the arid fringes of Rajasthan. This world, too, is fading, and so the book's photographs, in the end, are a visual study of both place and society at the edge of time.

Drawing on theories of place, consumption and identity, Sarah Chaplin details the evolution of the love hotel in urban Japan since the 1950s. Love hotels emerged in the late 1950s following a ban of licensed prostitution, then were extremely popular in the 1970s, were then legislated against in the 1980s and are now perceived as 'leisure', 'fashion' or 'boutique' hotels.

Representing a timely opportunity to capture and evaluate the dying manifestations of an important era in Japanese social and cultural history, this book provides a critical account of the love hotel as a unique typology. It considers its spatial, aesthetic, semiotic, and locational denotations and connotations, which results in a richly nuanced cultural reading.

The love hotel is presented as a key indicator of social and cultural change in post-war Japan, and as such this book will be of interest to a wide and international readership including students of Japanese culture, society and architecture.

Tsutomu Kurokawa's designs have a sense of humour and warmth, even those with the hardest industrial surfaces; a poetic, delicate sensitivity flowing through. He never forgot the role of the user, the conforming of their viewpoint and the creator's dream a test he relished - taking issue with the complacency of designers who simply follow set 'rules' without questioning them. When making space designs, Kurokawa said, I propose a space to the client based on the needs the client has, but which he has not yet imagined. I believe this is true design. Before his death in 2005, he created what he called, 'space which is free, comfortable and full of potential', merging different elements into one place or piece of furniture, proposing and testing design ideas every day. Tsumotu Kurokawa possessed a unique vitality, coming as close as one can to what we might call the truth of design. Text in English and Japanese.

From humble beginnings Woking grew with the opening of the Wey Navigation Canal in the mid-seventeenth century, carrying traffic from Guildford to the River Thames, then more significantly with the arrival of the railway in 1838 and subsequent development of 'New Woking' in the mid-nineteenth century. Today it is a prosperous commuter town Woking in 50 Buildings examines the proud and distinctive history of the town through a selection of its greatest architectural treasures. From the Shah Jahan Mosque, built in 1889 and the first ever purpose-built mosque in western Europe, to 'The Lightbox', an impressive new arts and heritage centre, this unique study celebrates the town's architectural heritage in a new and accessible way. Local author and historian Marion Field guides the reader on a tour of the town's historic buildings and modern architectural marvels.

Of all building types, the skyscraper strikes observers as the most modern, in terms not only of height but also boldness, scale, ingenuity, and daring. As a phenomenon born in late-nineteenth-century America, it quickly became emblematic of New York, Chicago, and other major cities. Previous studies of these structures have tended to foreground more avowedly modernist approaches, while those with styles reminiscent of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe were initially disparaged as being antimodernist or were simply unacknowledged. Skyscraper Gothic brings together renowned scholars to address the medievalist skyscraper, from the flying buttresses to the dizzying spires, and from the Chicago Tribune Tower to the Woolworth Building in Manhattan.

Between 1900 and 1950 the British state amassed a huge collection of over 800 historic buildings, monuments and historic sites and opened them to the public. Nothing like it had ever been seen before. Of course, collections of paintings, sculptures, and books had been made by governments, but the British created an outdoor museum of national history. This book explains why the extraordinary collecting frenzy took place. It locates it in the fragile and nostalgic atmosphere of the interwar years, dominated by neo-romanticism and cultural protectionism. It dissects a government programme that established a modern state on deep historical and rural roots; in the words of the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, heritage was the rock out of which the nation's children would be hewn. The government's activities were mirrored by the establishment of dozens of voluntary bodies, including the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and the National Trust. It was during the Second World War when the government realized that its collecting activities could not be sustained but that the National Trust could provide a vehicle for the continued collection of the nation's heritage. It was the war too that extended for the first time protection to buildings that were occupied and not just ruins. The book sets all this activity, for the first time, in its political, economic and cultural contexts, painting a picture of a country traumatized by war, fearful of losing what was left of its history, and a government that actively set out to protect them. In the last chapter it brings the story up to date.

Gateshead has often been portrayed as the `poor relative' of its larger and more glamorous Tyneside neighbour Newcastle. But Gateshead has a long and proud industrial and social history, much of which has sadly gone, but in recent years there has been a revival in Gateshead's social and cultural infrastructure, which has placed it firmly on the tourist map. This extraordinary history is embodied in the rich Victorian architecture that has shaped the town. Gateshead in 50 Buildings explores the town's history through a selection of its greatest architectural treasures. From the fairy-tale Saltwell Tower to the stunning new Millennium Bridge and Baltic Arts Centre, this unique study celebrates Gateshead's architectural heritage in a new and accessible way. Local author Rob Kirkup guides the reader on a tour of the town's historic buildings and modern architectural marvels.

Steve Fitch is among America's most well-known chroniclers of the American West since the days of Easy Rider. He has been photographing examples of the West's changing vernacular landscape and vanishing roadside landmarks for more than 40 years. In his new book, he presents both the ancient and the modern by way of petroglyphs, neon motel signs and hand-painted business signs, drive-in movie theater screens, and radio and cell towers. All of them are now endangered because of the advent of the Interstate Highway System and corporate franchises. In this fascinating and comprehensive account, we are able to join in Fitch's expansive journey, truly an odyssey, as represented in the book's 120 unforgettable photographs, all sequenced to mimic the open road-both during day and night. Fitch explains the project in his informative introduction, in which, interestingly, he suggests that the petroglyphs of the ancient Pueblo people have endured far better and longer than anything made during the last sixty years. Curator Toby Jurovics, in his insightful concluding essay, positions Fitch's work in relation to that of the practitioners of the photographic style known as the "New Topographics" and Fitch's own view of photography as a visual form of cultural anthropology. Vanishing Vernacular: Western Landmarks is sure to become a modern-day classic, a book that will be all the more revered as America and Americans move farther away from the highways of the past. That economy and roadside culture are vanishing like endangered species, but Fitch was along for the ride. In sharing that past, he has been witness to his own form of historic preservation.

Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, on the northeast coast of South America, has been described as 'the Venice of the West Indies', and its elegant canals and bridges, lush tropical vegetation and handsome buildings make it a place of great beauty. The city's architecture is essentially colonial, having been moulded by the French, Dutch, British and Spanish during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Built in a classical style reinterpreted by local craftsmen and realized largely in the region's plentiful wood rather than more durable brick and stone, these buildings are now suffering from neglect and the ravages of the hot, humid climate. Some are being carefully preserved and maintained, but many more are disintegrating or being demolished to make way for new development, much of it in glass and concrete.This book documents those colonial buildings, some of which have disappeared even since they were photographed. Compton Davis begins by giving a brief history of Georgetown itself, describing the influences that resulted in its charming and characteristic architecture, and explaining the various house types that are to be found in the city. The main part of the book is organized geographically, dividing the city into its various districts and describing the notable houses to be found in each. Photographs of the buildings and their particular features are accompanied by short descriptive and historical texDuring the thirty years since the project began, a number of the buildings have disappeared-some destroyed by fire and others by decay, and some more recently demolished and replaced by concrete structures. The photographs have become a historical document and visual archive that charts the transformation of the building culture of Georgetown during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from its original colonial wooden structures to an international style based on glass and concrete. The photographs also commemorate the elegant colonial garden city that Georgetown once was, as well as celebrating the Guyanese craftsmen and builders who helped to shape it.This beautiful book, lovingly photographed and researched over several decades, will appeal to architecture lovers everywhere, as well as to those interested in colonial history, the visual history of South America and the history of building in wood. It will also appeal to conservationists and preservationists and anyone interested in the protection of vulnerable buildings.

Since its original publication in 1978, "Delirious New York" has attained mythic status. Back in print in a newly designed edition, this influential cultural, architectural, and social history of New York is even more popular, selling out its first printing on publication. Rem Koolhaas's celebration and analysis of New York depicts the city as a metaphor for the incredible variety of human behavior. At the end of the nineteenth century, population, information, and technology explosions made Manhattan a laboratory for the invention and testing of a metropolitan lifestyle -- "the culture of congestion" -- and its architecture.
"Manhattan," he writes, "is the 20th century's Rosetta Stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations (Central Park, the Skyscraper), utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center, the U.N. Building), and irrational phenomena (Radio City Music Hall)." Koolhaas interprets and reinterprets the dynamic relationship between architecture and culture in a number of telling episodes of New York's history, including the imposition of the Manhattan grid, the creation of Coney Island, and the development of the skyscraper. "Delirious New York" is also packed with intriguing and fun facts and illustrated with witty watercolors and quirky archival drawings, photographs, postcards, and maps. The spirit of this visionary investigation of Manhattan equals the energy of the city itself.

From building blocks to city blocks, an eye-opening exploration of how children's playthings and physical surroundings affect their development. Parents obsess over their children's playdates, kindergarten curriculum, and every bump and bruise, but the toys, classrooms, playgrounds, and neighborhoods little ones engage with are just as important. These objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good child-rearing--and what does not. Do you choose wooden toys, or plastic, or, increasingly, digital? What do youngsters lose when seesaws are deemed too dangerous and slides are designed primarily for safety? How can the built environment help children cultivate self-reliance? In these debates, parents, educators, and kids themselves are often caught in the middle. Now, prominent design critic Alexandra Lange reveals the surprising histories behind the human-made elements of our children's pint-size landscape. Her fascinating investigation shows how the seemingly innocuous universe of stuff affects kids' behavior, values, and health, often in subtle ways. And she reveals how years of decisions by toymakers, architects, and urban planners have helped--and hindered--American youngsters' journeys toward independence. Seen through Lange's eyes, everything from the sandbox to the street becomes vibrant with buried meaning. The Design of Childhood will change the way you view your children's world--and your own.

In this fun and intellectually stimulating book, readers can recreate a number of London's most renowned Brutalist buildings. Opening with an informative history of the origins and philosophy of Brutalist architecture, the book then focuses on 9 buildings, including the Barbican Estate, Robin Hood Gardens, Balfron Tower and the National Theatre. The first part of the book looks at the significance of each of these buildings, with a short chapter on each, complete with texts and images. The second part of the book consists of a series of 9 pre-cut and folded buildings, printed on heavy card stock, that readers can detach and construct with easy-to-follow instructions. At once fun and informative, this unique book offers a challenging and entertaining approach to architecture.

A practical guide to research for architects and designers--now updated and expanded

From searching for the best glass to prevent glare to determining how clients might react to the color choice for restaurant walls, research is a crucial tool that architects must master in order to effectively address the technical, aesthetic, and behavioral issues that arise in their work.

This book's unique coverage of research methods is specifically targeted to help professional designers and researchers better conduct and understand research. Part I explores basic research issues and concepts, and includes chapters on relating theory to method and design to research. Part II gives a comprehensive treatment of specific strategies for investigating built forms. In all, the book covers seven types of research, including historical, qualitative, correlational, experimental, simulation, logical argumentation, and case studies and mixed methods.

Features new to this edition include: Strategies for investigation, practical examples, and resources for additional informationA look at current trends and innovations in researchCoverage of design studio-based research that shows how strategies described in the book can be employed in real lifeA discussion of digital media and online researchNew and updated examples of research studiesA new chapter on the relationship between design and research

"Architectural Research Methods" is an essential reference for architecture students and researchers as well as architects, interior designers, landscape architects, and building product manufacturers.

Not so very long ago, some might have considered wood a material of the past, long since replaced by more modern components such as concrete and steel. The truth is radically different. Bolstered by new manufacturing techniques and ecological benefits, wood has seen a fabulous resurgence in contemporary construction. This Bibliotheca Universalis edition explores how architects around the world have created and invented with this elementary material. Featuring follies, very large buildings, and ambitious urban renewal schemes, it celebrates the diverse deployment of wood by architects around the world. We see how wood can at once transform urban spaces, as in the Metropol Parasol in Seville by Jurgen Mayer H., and allow for sensitive interventions in natural environments, such as at the Termas Geometricas Hot Springs Complex in Pucon, Chile, by German del Sol. True to all TASCHEN architecture titles, the book pays tribute to many emerging international talents as well as to such renowned figures as Tadao Ando and Renzo Piano. It celebrates each architect's vision and innovation, as well as investigating the techniques, trends, and principles that have informed their work with wood. It examines the computer-guided milling that has allowed for novel new forms, the responsible harvesting that allows wood to align with our environmental concerns, and, above all, wood's enduring appeal to our senses and psyche, comforting hectic modern lives with a sense of Arcadian simplicity. "From a functional tree house to inspired restaurants, this collection instructs on the ecology of wooden construction, with plenty of eye candy for architecture enthusiasts." - TIME, New York.

A stone's throw from Aix-en-Provence is the Chateau la Coste, a unique alliance of wine, architecture and art, dedicated to producing organic wines. At its heart are the Vat room designed by Jean Nouvel and an art centre designed by the great Japanese architect, Tadao Ando. For over a decade, Chateau la Coste has invited artists to find a location on the estate that inspires them to create a work of art to occupy it. Gradually over the years, a remarkable site has emerged. After Richard Serra came Sean Scully, Andy Goldsworthy, Frank Gehry, Tom Shannon, Tunga, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Guggi, Tatsuo Miyajima, Liam Gillick, Jean- Michel Othoniel, Michael Stipe, Paul Matisse, Larry Neufeld, Tracey Emin, and more recently Lee Ufan. There are also emblematic works by Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder and Franz West set in a decor of stone walls, former navigation channels, paved pathways and a beautiful oak forest. The beautifully reproduced photographs in this book offer a glimpse of this estate, where art and wine cohabit in harmony.

Southend-on-Sea is a comparatively modern town. Its origins date to only the eighteenth century, but its geographical spread encompasses six historic parishes: Prittlewell, Southchurch, Leigh, Eastwood, South Shoebury and North Shoebury, whose existence goes back a further 1,100 years to at least the seventh century. Hidden within Southend's modern sprawl of predominantly nineteenth and twentieth-century streets, and often overlooked by visitors and residents alike, are a number of historic buildings that have survived from those former days and predate the modern town. In Southend In 50 Buildings Ian Yearsley delves into the town's past to locate, record and discuss Southend's most interesting buildings from the seventh century to the twenty-first century. Parish churches, manor houses, pubs, homes, agricultural structures, entertainment venues and office blocks all feature in this fully illustrated book which, for the first time ever, attempts a full list, in chronological order, of Southend's oldest buildings.

What connects garbage dumps in New York, bomb sites in Baghdad, and skyscrapers in S o Paulo? How is contemporary visual culture extending from art and architecture to film and digital media responding to new forms of violence associated with global and globalizing cities? Addressing such questions, this book is the first interdisciplinary volume to examine the complex relationship between globalization, violence, and the visual culture of cities.

Violence in both material and cultural forms has been a prominent and endemic feature of urban life in the global metropolitan era. Focusing on visual culture and offering a strong humanities perspective that is currently lacking in existing scholarship, this book seeks to understand how the violent effects of globalization have been represented, theorized, and experienced across a wide range of cultural contexts and urban locations in Asia, Europe, North and South America, and the Middle East. Organized around three interrelated themes fear, memory, and spectacle essay topics range from military targeting in Baghdad, carceral urbanism in S o Paulo, and the Paris banlieue riots, to the security aesthetics of G8 summits, the architecture of urban paranoia, and the cultural afterlife of the Twin Towers.

Globalization, Violence, and the Visual Culture of Cities offers fresh insight into the problems and potential of cities around the world, including Beijing, Berlin, London, New York, Paris, and S o Paulo. With specially-commissioned essays from the fields of cultural theory, architecture, film, photography, and urban geography, this innovative volume will be a valuable resource for students, scholars, and researchers across the humanities and social sciences.

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of Vienna's Ringstrasse, this illustrated volume brings to life the "Ringstrasse Society," depicting architects and artists involved with the fascinating ensembles of buildings, everyday life, banks and houses. Current photographs capture the still-visible wealth of this architectural legacy.

With its search for purity, honesty, modesty, and "fitness of purpose," the late nineteenth and early twentieth century concept of architectural regionalism is seminal to the modern movement. In later historiography, however, regionalism in Europe was neglected and even labeled backward. The origins of this drastic change of perception can be traced to the 1930s, when regionalism as a positive form gradually turned into a closed form of regionalism, a folding back on one's own region as a defense mechanism in an economically and politically turbulent decade.

In this book, internationally-renowned researchers investigate the complex and shifting relation between regionalism and modernity in the architecture of Western Europe between the two World Wars, with a focus on Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain. They demonstrate that regionalism cannot be separated from modernity, but is in fact a way of dealing with modernity and its contradictions. Applied to architecture, regionalism is a means to moderate modernism, to embed the design in its local surroundings. It is seen as a result of the search for identity in a modernizing and globalizing world where tensions arise between diversity and superiority and among science, aesthetics, and ideology. The employment of regional forms and concepts is then used as an adaptation strategy, a way to facilitate modernity. Rather than rejecting regionalism as an anti-modern phenomenon, this book's contributors show that we should interpret regionalism as a striving for continuity within modernity.

Contributors: Herve Doucet, University of Strasbourg; Kai Krauskopf, Technische Universitat Dresden; Leen Meganck, Flanders Heritage Agency; Benoit Mihail, Police Museum Brussels; Lut Missinne, Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster; Bjorn Rzoska, Groen; Michelangelo Sabatino, University of Houston; Vanessa Vanden Berghe, University of East London; Johan Van den Mooter, Kempens Landschap; Evert Vandeweghe, Ghent University; Jean-Claude Vigato, Ecole nationale superieure d'architecture de Nancy"

The extraordinary technologic innovations and revolutionary machines from the collection of the Leonardo Museum in Vinci. This beautifully illustrated volume discovers the multiple interests of Leonardo the technologist, the architect, the man of science and, more generally, the history of Renaissance techniques.

By closing the gap between conceptual design and the documentation required for construction, building information modelling (BIM) promises to revolutionise contemporary design practice. This issue of AD brings together a group of pioneering academics, architects, engineers and construction managers all of whom are engaged in the use of building information models in the actualisation of complex building projects, from design stage to construction. Key texts trace the development of building information modelling technologies and address issues of collaboration, design and management, while featured projects systematise the use of BIM in contemporary design practice for students and professionals alike faced with considering these tools within the changing marketplace.

-Covers a core area of technological development: BIM systems that span the gap between the design, manufacturing and construction processes.

-Key contributions from: Chuck Eastman, Cynthia Ottchen and Dennis Shelden of Gehry Technologies.

-Features work by: Asymptote, Greg Lynn FORM, KieranTimberlake, Morphosis and SHoP Architects.

The completely updated edition of the definitive sports field book

Recognizing that new developments in the design, construction, and maintenance of sports fields have literally changed the playing field, Sports Fields, Second Edition is now fully updated and revised to continue its legacy as a leading authority on sports field management. Highly illustrated, with step-by-step examination of essential topics such as turfgrass and soil science, sand fields, turf paints, field quality evaluation, and weather preparedness, this in-depth guide chalks out the ultimate game plan to integrate these elements into a winning project. Sports Fields, Second Edition includes:

New coverage of environmental stewardship and resource conservation, natural and organic field maintenance, and artificial turf care and maintenance

Discussion of the following field types: baseball, softball, football, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, and track and field

Updated information on grasses, pesticides, fertilizers, and equipment

New exploration of green initiatives in the design and maintenance of fields

Hundreds of illustrations, 50 percent of which are newly updated

A versatile how-to guide, Sports Fields, Second Edition suggests solutions to common field problems that are not only helpful for professional sports turf practitioners, but also for park and recreation professionals, school athletic field managers, architects, landscape architects, and engineers. Chapter after chapter delivers on the promise of imparting well-grounded principles that can be applied to create athletic fields that are long-lasting, visually dazzling--and eminently playable.