Admirers of World Trade Center architect Minoru Yamasaki in search of a hot beach read this summer look no further! We’re giving away a copy of Justin Beal’s engrossing title Sandfuture, recently published by The MIT Press, wherein the prolific career and perplexing obscurity of the late Japanese designer is threaded across 256 pages to an eventual conclusion that asks several essential questions about architectural history, the art market, and changing face of the city in a technically precise novelistic tone. 

By avoiding a simple shot-for-shot retelling of the different formative events and pivotal moments comprising the arc of Yamasaki’s still-debated five-decade-long career, Sandfuture builds from the scrapheap of a bygone era into an accurate reflection on contemporary life in post-9/11 New York City, beginning with the author’s own retelling of the infrastructure damage that occurred during Hurricane Sandy. 

None other than Rem Koolhaas called the 44-year-old Hunter College lecturer’s debut effort a “daring literary construct”, saying it worked to illuminate what he calls the “complexities of New York.” Perhaps most importantly, Beal offers readers interested in the creator of its gleaming aluminum cover stars (framed brilliantly four years after their completion by Times photographer Fred Conrad) a compelling account of the design and public digestion of some of history’s most-publicized architectural projects before and after they were destroyed on national television. 

Beal is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program, Yale University, and the studio MFA program at USC. As an artist, his work has shown in New York’s Casey Kaplan Gallery, the Schindler House’s MAK Center, and the Los Angeles outpost of Blum & Poe. 

This background, coupled with his abilities as a descriptive writer and intuitive experience of the city at a critical time, left the author well-positioned to tell the story of a marginalized man and his life’s work with the kind of depth and sensitivity required to examine a great painter or literary icon. 

Architectural biographies are rarely the kind of thing that includes an autobiographical angle from their author, but Beal’s own story weaves into his narrative about Yamasaki seamlessly. Sandfuture is a workable first effort, worthy of praise and inclusion in the canon of essential titles about more venerated architects. It carries even more value when considering the extraordinary job its author does in digging up the critical words of writers like Robert Campbell and his hero, Ada Louise Huxtable, who grew from an early champion of the architect into her later role as his chief detractor.

Beal set out to be a book about multiple topics centered around the designs of one architect, what he accomplishes in end is a more like a tome, filled with keen observations, direct commentary, and historical analysis, that will enliven readers with a real sense of how certain buildings become talismans, and how their designers become the stuff of legend.

Want a chance to win a copy of Sandfuture? Fill out this survey by July 1, 2022 11pm Pacific Time. 5 copies are available to win. Winners will be announced in the comment section below. This giveaway is open to US-based entrants only due to shipping limitations. Good luck!