So I'm going to grad school now and I'm looking for a book to give my parents so that they have some sense of what architecture is besides different styles of shitty developments with spanish shingles. Something easy to read. thanks
It probably depends how patient they are and how much they look to be entertained...
If they're looking to be students along with you, Ching's 'Architecture: Form, Space, and Order' is always a good one - but demands some level of commitment. This is the one if you want to have fairly engaging conversations about architecture around the table at Thanksgiving.
A much less intense but also less insightful architecture introduction/survey is Jan Gympel's 'The Story of Architecture' published by Konemann. Lots of pictures, light on analysis. If they're not going to give it much time, this may be the one.
For a more entertaining narrative - fewer pictures but reads as a more literary history - 'The Seduction of Place: The History and Future of the City' by Joseph Rykwert may be a good one. Will fit comfortably between 'Blink' and 'DaVinci Code' on the nightstand.
Finally, if you're not looking for a history or a story but more what's considered a kind of 'best practices' (outside of our own little architecture milieu), 'The Mayors' Institute Excellence in City Design' edited by James Russell and published by the National Endowment for the Arts/Princeton Architectural Press in 2002 is a nice overview.
honestly, Le Corbusier's TOWARDS A NEW ARCHITECTURE worked for me. During my first 2 yrs in undergrad arch, I would read portions to my dad and in no time he was spouting off analogies that made it clear that he understood some of architecture's greater goals and responsibilities. If it sounds like a long shot, I will expand...
I used to show my parents my designs from school. then pictures of my buildings. Then, when they still didn't seem to get it I tried showing them books of architects I admired, like Koolhaas, Hadid, Holl, etc. My parent's reactions are not exactly printable here as they involved a lot of bewildered cursing. Eventually I tried a different tack, showing them the work of less theoretical, more hands-on craft-loving architects like Zumthor and his lot. Still no go. it was all so much wasteful ego-bloated crap to them.
Now my parents are not uneducated nor are they unintelligent, but they were both raised in dirt poor farming families and they have no higher aspirations than to live in a shitty development where the spanish shingles adorn even the wee jackinabox gas station. And no matter how I explain my own dislike for the suburbs they can't get enough of them. Who am i to argue?
I have sort of come to the conclusion that it is all a matter of perspective and no longer feel the need to educate them about what I am doing. They still think my work is somewhat f**k'd up but are content that I can earn money from it. And they keep things real, reminding me who I am designing for; which is a good thing cuz architects can get pretty high on themselves when left to our own devices ;-).
Steen Rasmussen's "Experiencing Architecture" or Fil Hearn's "Ideas That Shaped Buildings." I think that the Archinect interview with Roger Conover/MIT Press talks about these books.
Steen Rasmussen's "Experiencing Architecture" or Fil Hearn's "Ideas That Shaped Buildings." I think that the Archinect interview with Roger Conover/MIT Press talks about these books.
Since most non-architecture indoctrinated parents are most fimiliar with suburbs and single family homes, I would suggest "Not so Big House" and
"The Long Emergency".
"Not so Big House" is a very simple primer that describes quality of space vs. quantity of space in single family home design.
"The Long Emergency" is a more complex and indepth book about the oil crisis and how suburbia is unsustainable.
It's taken most of us degrees, licensure, and years of practice in addition to a lot of reading just to get a handle on what we *think* architecture is.
Finding a good book or two to introduce lay people to the field is always a great idea. Just don't put too much burden on that one book.
Apr 3, 05 12:55 pm ·
·
Why not scare your parents even more? Give them nightmares even --
Philippe Bubiy, LEQUEU: AN ARCHITECTURAL ENIGMA (Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press, 1987).
Forget the cute "queer eye" advise, and even "extreme makeover" advise just a commercial for Sears and plastic surgury. Go straight for the lobotomy.
I've never been successful... my parents still ask my dumb questions like, "what style is that?". "That's crap, dad." "no, but what style is it?" "well, if you insist, I guess I'd say it's 70's developer crap"
Good luck to you. But I've been inspired, and I think next I'm going to try 'Los Angeles: the Contemporary Condition' on mine, and see if while they're here visiting, they can actually notice some of the things the book talks about.
I don't think it's really what you're looking for, but you might consider this a "gateway" book: my parents and friends thought Salvadori's "Why Buildings Stand Up" book (and also the one about buildings falling down) was interesting, and I think it loosened some of them up for other books.
I hate to say it, but if I really wanted to pull my parents into architecture, I'd give them something really pretty and non-threatening, like a coffee table book on Frank Lloyd Wright. After that, I'd start feeding them the hard stuff. No one likes to feel stupid, I think that's why non-architects focus so much on style. It's nice to be able to look at a building and say, "Hey! I recognize that, that's Greek Revival!" It will take more than one book to move them from that state of comfort to the place most architects would like their family to be, though.
And actually, as I'm typing this, I'm thinking I'd be happy enough w/parents who ask "what style is that?" They're really just trying to show they're interested in what I'm studying--my actually philosophy on the concept of styles is pretty irrelevant to father/daughter bonding.
Why is it so important that parents and others share our particular understanding and taste? Give them something illuminating to read, remember that this is not their profession, and leave it alone.
Show them a little respect, Rationalist. Somehow, miraculously, your dad has gotten through life without your all-knowing wisdom about what is good and bad architecture. Amazing, but true. So he doesn't know what it's taken you years to learn. So what? Don't be so impatient. He just might know things that you don't know about his work.
It's a book that is called, "So you want to be an architect?" It's a good book it talks about the profession in honest detail...but it doesnt have any pics
flame on if you will, but I think Andrew Ballantyne's "Architecture: A very short introduction" is really quite good. It's a vey easy to read text with both some contemporary and historic pictures+explanatory captions. It's also a cheap read at $10.
There's also the ICONS (smaller, cheaper) volume of the "Architecture Now!" series by Jodidio from Taschen. Also $10 and all contemporary visual material with bios and description.
Funny how parents need convincing. My dad still wonders why, as a person randomly born with female characteristics, I would want to pursue a historically male-dominated field. Did I choose my gender, no, am I incapable because I happen to have a vagina? hmmm....
He honestly believes that women cannot mentally or physically design structures that stand up. He keeps saying to me, why not do interior decorating, it's more suited for people like you. People like me? If I were a man pursuing the field, he'd pat me on the back and wish me the best of luck, but instead, he questions every single decision I make. And why do I tolerate this? I keep excusing him because he was brought up in Eastern Europe.
So, from my experience, don't even worry about what mommy and daddy say. The only way to "convince" them is through your actions.
if they're readers i'd go with snjr's suggestion Salvadori's Why Buildings Stand Up. [ by 'readers' i am not suggesting litterate/illiterate, rather, time, interest etc...]
otherwise go pick a glossy from taschen that is low on text , high on images, and might be some thing they'd want to show their friends...
On a similar note i 've a tricky situation:
my fam. is into development- not the building but the realestate etc. and though they're not designing the buildings, i still consider them responsible for the commercial blando non-architecture monstrocites that wind up on the sites- they keep saying ' you should work on this project if you want to get into building..." when i want to run screaming away from it or have it torn down.
- is it worth working on a nasty developer project at all? could there maybe be some redemptive/usefull practical stuff or will it just jade me?
-it is hard to tell someone that you think their notion of architecture is horrible, harder still when their your fam, and super hard when thats where the $ comes from (i'm afraid i classify as devil[oper] spawn)
advice?...... maybe i should start a new thread...
yeah that eastern european culture can make for some interesting points of view.
a friend of similar eastern decent once told me it was against nature for an architect to do interior design projects (presumably vice versa also true); not so much a problem of gender issues but more a matter of knowing ones place in the machinery. Clearly there was a very deeply held belief that elision is a sin.
now i work for meself i find most of the projects getting built (so far) are of the interior persuasion, and that conversation often runs through my head. I wonder how people started offices in the old East European states...?
in any case, parents and architecture are an uneasy mix at best...pity about the lack of $ support. for the best in the end though. ;-)
Find a book of photos....good photos with people in the them, animating the spaces, enjoying the structures nuances. Also showing the details. Its important - because that's what we like contemporary architecture - and it makes a shift away from the mcmansions being a "pretty" house. They need to see its something larger than that - something that evokes the soul.
I bought Roberto the Insect Architect for my niece and nephew (ages 5 and 1). They loved it, the parents read it too and kept asking who all those insects were referring to too...so I showed them one of my mies books and it began from there.
Book to give parents so they understand what architecture is
So I'm going to grad school now and I'm looking for a book to give my parents so that they have some sense of what architecture is besides different styles of shitty developments with spanish shingles. Something easy to read. thanks
Great question! Not an easy one.
It probably depends how patient they are and how much they look to be entertained...
If they're looking to be students along with you, Ching's 'Architecture: Form, Space, and Order' is always a good one - but demands some level of commitment. This is the one if you want to have fairly engaging conversations about architecture around the table at Thanksgiving.
A much less intense but also less insightful architecture introduction/survey is Jan Gympel's 'The Story of Architecture' published by Konemann. Lots of pictures, light on analysis. If they're not going to give it much time, this may be the one.
For a more entertaining narrative - fewer pictures but reads as a more literary history - 'The Seduction of Place: The History and Future of the City' by Joseph Rykwert may be a good one. Will fit comfortably between 'Blink' and 'DaVinci Code' on the nightstand.
Finally, if you're not looking for a history or a story but more what's considered a kind of 'best practices' (outside of our own little architecture milieu), 'The Mayors' Institute Excellence in City Design' edited by James Russell and published by the National Endowment for the Arts/Princeton Architectural Press in 2002 is a nice overview.
Good luck.
honestly, Le Corbusier's TOWARDS A NEW ARCHITECTURE worked for me. During my first 2 yrs in undergrad arch, I would read portions to my dad and in no time he was spouting off analogies that made it clear that he understood some of architecture's greater goals and responsibilities. If it sounds like a long shot, I will expand...
and if college freshmen can read it, certainly parents of college students can get with it
hah. C'est impossible.
I used to show my parents my designs from school. then pictures of my buildings. Then, when they still didn't seem to get it I tried showing them books of architects I admired, like Koolhaas, Hadid, Holl, etc. My parent's reactions are not exactly printable here as they involved a lot of bewildered cursing. Eventually I tried a different tack, showing them the work of less theoretical, more hands-on craft-loving architects like Zumthor and his lot. Still no go. it was all so much wasteful ego-bloated crap to them.
Now my parents are not uneducated nor are they unintelligent, but they were both raised in dirt poor farming families and they have no higher aspirations than to live in a shitty development where the spanish shingles adorn even the wee jackinabox gas station. And no matter how I explain my own dislike for the suburbs they can't get enough of them. Who am i to argue?
I have sort of come to the conclusion that it is all a matter of perspective and no longer feel the need to educate them about what I am doing. They still think my work is somewhat f**k'd up but are content that I can earn money from it. And they keep things real, reminding me who I am designing for; which is a good thing cuz architects can get pretty high on themselves when left to our own devices ;-).
Steen Rasmussen's "Experiencing Architecture" or Fil Hearn's "Ideas That Shaped Buildings." I think that the Archinect interview with Roger Conover/MIT Press talks about these books.
Steen Rasmussen's "Experiencing Architecture" or Fil Hearn's "Ideas That Shaped Buildings." I think that the Archinect interview with Roger Conover/MIT Press talks about these books.
Since most non-architecture indoctrinated parents are most fimiliar with suburbs and single family homes, I would suggest "Not so Big House" and
"The Long Emergency".
"Not so Big House" is a very simple primer that describes quality of space vs. quantity of space in single family home design.
"The Long Emergency" is a more complex and indepth book about the oil crisis and how suburbia is unsustainable.
It's taken most of us degrees, licensure, and years of practice in addition to a lot of reading just to get a handle on what we *think* architecture is.
Finding a good book or two to introduce lay people to the field is always a great idea. Just don't put too much burden on that one book.
Why not scare your parents even more? Give them nightmares even --
Philippe Bubiy, LEQUEU: AN ARCHITECTURAL ENIGMA (Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press, 1987).
Forget the cute "queer eye" advise, and even "extreme makeover" advise just a commercial for Sears and plastic surgury. Go straight for the lobotomy.
I've never been successful... my parents still ask my dumb questions like, "what style is that?". "That's crap, dad." "no, but what style is it?" "well, if you insist, I guess I'd say it's 70's developer crap"
Good luck to you. But I've been inspired, and I think next I'm going to try 'Los Angeles: the Contemporary Condition' on mine, and see if while they're here visiting, they can actually notice some of the things the book talks about.
Architecture for Dummies...
seriously, it worked wonders for my father.
If that doesn't make sense, I don't know what does.
I don't think it's really what you're looking for, but you might consider this a "gateway" book: my parents and friends thought Salvadori's "Why Buildings Stand Up" book (and also the one about buildings falling down) was interesting, and I think it loosened some of them up for other books.
I hate to say it, but if I really wanted to pull my parents into architecture, I'd give them something really pretty and non-threatening, like a coffee table book on Frank Lloyd Wright. After that, I'd start feeding them the hard stuff. No one likes to feel stupid, I think that's why non-architects focus so much on style. It's nice to be able to look at a building and say, "Hey! I recognize that, that's Greek Revival!" It will take more than one book to move them from that state of comfort to the place most architects would like their family to be, though.
And actually, as I'm typing this, I'm thinking I'd be happy enough w/parents who ask "what style is that?" They're really just trying to show they're interested in what I'm studying--my actually philosophy on the concept of styles is pretty irrelevant to father/daughter bonding.
Why is it so important that parents and others share our particular understanding and taste? Give them something illuminating to read, remember that this is not their profession, and leave it alone.
Show them a little respect, Rationalist. Somehow, miraculously, your dad has gotten through life without your all-knowing wisdom about what is good and bad architecture. Amazing, but true. So he doesn't know what it's taken you years to learn. So what? Don't be so impatient. He just might know things that you don't know about his work.
It's a book that is called, "So you want to be an architect?" It's a good book it talks about the profession in honest detail...but it doesnt have any pics
its like talking to the taxman bout poetry...
flame on if you will, but I think Andrew Ballantyne's "Architecture: A very short introduction" is really quite good. It's a vey easy to read text with both some contemporary and historic pictures+explanatory captions. It's also a cheap read at $10.
There's also the ICONS (smaller, cheaper) volume of the "Architecture Now!" series by Jodidio from Taschen. Also $10 and all contemporary visual material with bios and description.
Pair the 2 together and (while basic) golden.
Roberto is great, I got a about a year ago for Christmas from my rents. Plus the architecture puns are great.
Funny how parents need convincing. My dad still wonders why, as a person randomly born with female characteristics, I would want to pursue a historically male-dominated field. Did I choose my gender, no, am I incapable because I happen to have a vagina? hmmm....
He honestly believes that women cannot mentally or physically design structures that stand up. He keeps saying to me, why not do interior decorating, it's more suited for people like you. People like me? If I were a man pursuing the field, he'd pat me on the back and wish me the best of luck, but instead, he questions every single decision I make. And why do I tolerate this? I keep excusing him because he was brought up in Eastern Europe.
So, from my experience, don't even worry about what mommy and daddy say. The only way to "convince" them is through your actions.
Sorry for the rant.
tell your commie dad to shut is borsct hole and just sign the checks.
haha, unfortunately, he never signed checks, not even during college. :(
if they're readers i'd go with snjr's suggestion Salvadori's Why Buildings Stand Up. [ by 'readers' i am not suggesting litterate/illiterate, rather, time, interest etc...]
otherwise go pick a glossy from taschen that is low on text , high on images, and might be some thing they'd want to show their friends...
On a similar note i 've a tricky situation:
my fam. is into development- not the building but the realestate etc. and though they're not designing the buildings, i still consider them responsible for the commercial blando non-architecture monstrocites that wind up on the sites- they keep saying ' you should work on this project if you want to get into building..." when i want to run screaming away from it or have it torn down.
- is it worth working on a nasty developer project at all? could there maybe be some redemptive/usefull practical stuff or will it just jade me?
-it is hard to tell someone that you think their notion of architecture is horrible, harder still when their your fam, and super hard when thats where the $ comes from (i'm afraid i classify as devil[oper] spawn)
advice?...... maybe i should start a new thread...
yeah that eastern european culture can make for some interesting points of view.
a friend of similar eastern decent once told me it was against nature for an architect to do interior design projects (presumably vice versa also true); not so much a problem of gender issues but more a matter of knowing ones place in the machinery. Clearly there was a very deeply held belief that elision is a sin.
now i work for meself i find most of the projects getting built (so far) are of the interior persuasion, and that conversation often runs through my head. I wonder how people started offices in the old East European states...?
in any case, parents and architecture are an uneasy mix at best...pity about the lack of $ support. for the best in the end though. ;-)
a family member of mine, upon hearing i was "into architecture" gave me this book:
http://www.epicenterpress.com/images/gifs/largegifs/410large.gif
brutal.
Find a book of photos....good photos with people in the them, animating the spaces, enjoying the structures nuances. Also showing the details. Its important - because that's what we like contemporary architecture - and it makes a shift away from the mcmansions being a "pretty" house. They need to see its something larger than that - something that evokes the soul.
I bought Roberto the Insect Architect for my niece and nephew (ages 5 and 1). They loved it, the parents read it too and kept asking who all those insects were referring to too...so I showed them one of my mies books and it began from there.
The Fountainhead
witbold rybzinsci: the most beautiful house in the world
very accessible, and parent friendly!
lol@"Hank Floyd Mite and Fleas Van Der Rohe"
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