Best-Selling Design Books, North America: June 2013

From the Publisher. In A Country of Cities, author Vishaan Chakrabarti argues that well-designed cities are the key to solving America's great national challenges: environmental degradation, unsustainable consumption, economic stagnation, rising public health costs and decreased social mobility. If we develop them wisely in the future, our cities can be the force leading us into a new era of progressive and prosperous stewardship of our nation. In compelling chapters, Chakrabarti brings us a wealth of information about cities, suburbs and exurbs, looking at how they developed across the 50 states and their roles in prosperity and globalization, sustainability and resilience, and heath and joy. Counter to what you might think, American cities today are growing faster than their suburban counterparts for the first time since the 1920s. If we can intelligently increase the density of our cities as they grow and build the transit systems, schools, parks and other infrastructure to support them, Chakrabarti shows us how both job opportunities and an improved, sustainable environment are truly within our means. In this call for an urban America, he illustrates his argument with numerous infographics illustrating provocative statistics on issues as disparate as rising childhood obesity rates, ever-lengthening automobile commutes and government subsidies that favor highways over mass transit. The book closes with an eloquent manifesto that rallies us to build "a Country of Cities," to turn a country of highways, houses and hedges into a country of trains, towers and trees.

— Graphic designer, curator, and author Ellen Lupton (Cooper-Hewitt, MICA) comments on Multiple Signatures:

“A rich picture emerges of how design is practiced in a large multidisciplinary firm with a unique critical voice. One essay features a cartoon-style conversation between Rock and his partners Susan Sellers and Georgie Stout; each character is illustrated with a deadpan drawing of a talking head. The ensuing conversation feels at once honest and contrived—like good theater. One head pronounces, ‘Our enthusiasm is one of our most recognizable products . . . it has also nearly driven us out of business a few times.’”

From the Publisher. As the 1960s became The Sixties, architect Horace Gifford executed a remarkable series of beach houses that transformed the terrain and culture of New York's Fire Island. Growing up on the beaches of Florida, Gifford forged a deep connection with coastal landscapes. Pairing this sensitivity with jazzy improvisations on modernist themes, he perfected a sustainable modernism in cedar and glass that was as attuned to natural landscapes as to our animal natures. Gifford's serene 1960s pavilions provided refuge from a hostile world, while his exuberant post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS masterpieces orchestrated bacchanals of liberation. Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift once spurned Hollywood limos for the rustic charm of Fire Island's boardwalks. Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's here. Diane von Furstenburg showed off her latest wrap dresses to an audience that included Halston, Giorgio Sant' Angelo, Calvin Klein and Geoffrey Beene. Today, such a roster evokes the aloof, gated compounds of the Hamptons or Malibu. But these celebrities lived in modestly scaled homes alongside middle-class vacationers, all with equal access to Fire Island's natural beauty. Blending cultural and architectural history, Fire Island Modernist ponders a fascinating era through an overlooked architect whose life, work and colorful milieu trace the operatic arc of a lost generation, and still resonate with artistic and historical import.

From the Publisher. The Brussels-based architectural studio Dogma was founded in 2002. Led by Martino Tattara and Pier Vittorio Aureli it has focused almost exclusively on large-scale projects and citywide interventions. These projects venture beyond mere physical size to expand conceptual frameworks and radically rethink what it is to produce an architectural project, in the process challenging the very discipline itself. This book, and its accompanying exhibition at the AA School of Architecture, explores 11 works developed since 2002 that collectively present the Dogma ethos: to see the urban project as a comprehensive domain in which architectural form, the political and the city are reclaimed as one 'field'. Mobilizing and reinvigorating both drawing and text — the quintessential tools of architecture — these 11 projects range from speculative and theoretical proposals to investigations that question today's modes of housing. Complementing the projects themselves are essays by Brett Steele and Gabriele Mastrigli.

From the Publisher. A defining architectural style of the postwar era—characterized by severe, abstract geometries and the use of cast concrete, block and brick—Brutalism arguably produced some of the world's least popular public buildings. The style's international propagation brought modern architecture to ever-larger constituencies, and some argue that the perceived shortcomings of these Brutalist structures led to the demise of the Modernist project. While today often admired (and even loved) by architects, many Brutalist projects—Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Women's Hospital, Marcel Breuer's Ameritrust Tower, Paul Rudolph's Orange County Government Center, Alison and Peter Smithson's Robin Hood Gardens, and Gillespie Kidd and Coia's St. Peter's Seminary, to name a few—are now threatened with demolition. Judging by the work of many contemporary practitioners, however, the influence of Brutalism only seems to grow. Before the wrecking balls swing, it is time to look back on, debate, understand, and learn from Brutalism. CLOG is also introducing Michael Abrahamson as guest editor for Clog: Brutalism. Michael is a designer and critic currently based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A Pre-Candidate in the History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Michigan, he also operates a Tumblr photo blog called Fuck Yeah Brutalism.