Writing About Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities

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Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2012, English

Nonfiction, Architecture

7.3 x 9.6 inches, 160 pages 20 black-and-white illustrations

ISBN: 9781616890537

Suggested Retail Price: $24.95

From the Publisher. Writing About Architecture is a handbook on writing effectively and critically about buildings and cities. Each chapter opens with a reprint of a historically significant essay written by a renowned architecture critic, followed by a close reading and discussion of the writer’s strategies.

On 2 book lists

Alexandra Lange

On list of Books by Alexandra Lange

Alissa Walker

On Alissa Walker’s Notable Books of 2012 list

If I could hand-pick someone to write the handbook for my profession, it would be the passionate, provocative, prolific Brooklyn-based architectural critic Alexandra Lange. In her singular voice, Lange essentially allows us to sit in on her lectures for the graduate classes she teaches at New York University and School of Visual Arts, including entire pieces by famous critics—like Herbert Muschamp's legendary review of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao—followed by comprehension questions. But even those of us who don’t aspire to make a living off our writing will benefit from reading Lange's book. While her intent is to educate the next generation of architectural critics, she is also focused on expanding the profession—building an army of citizen critics. Those of us who live in buildings should not only decide how we feel about a particular building, she explains, we should actively aspire to make the building, the block, the neighborhood, better. Writing About Architecture purports to be a textbook, but it’s really Lange's highly personal guide for any urban dweller on how to experience, explain, and improve our cities.

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