Architecture book news

A weighty book with which to administer beatings to doubters

(Image credit: phaidon.com)

last updated 10 October 2022

Concrete
Edited by William Hall

Ah, concrete. Has there ever been a more divisive material? Regular readers will not be remotely surprised to find us singing the praises of a hefty book devoted exclusively to the sculptural qualities of the grey stuff. Concrete gets down and dirty with the notorious material, unashamedly singing its praises through a series of captioned photographs that run the full range of concrete's structural, sculptural, textural and technological applications. Sure, there's plenty here that a savvy Wallpaper* reader will know like the back of their hand, but Hall and his team have done a good job of digging up the more esoteric examples of concrete design. A weighty book with which to administer beatings to doubters.

Published by Phaidon, £29.95; www.phaidon.com

Writer: Jonathan Bell

Sainte Bernadette du Banlay Church, Nevers, France — *Sainte-Bernadette-du-Banlay Church, Nevers, France, by Claude Parent and Paul Virilio, 1966*

Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum — *Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by Oscar Niemeyer, 1996*

*Mori Crematorium, Kakamigahara City, Japan, by Toyo Ito, 2006*

The Architectural Model: Tool, Fetish, Small Utopia
Edited by Oliver Elser and Peter Cachola Schmal

Published to accompany a lavish exhibition at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, The Architectural Model is a must for lovers of the care, craft and complexity of the architectural model. Works of art in their own right, the book catalogues the miniaturised origins of some of the most recognisable celebrated pieces of architecture in the world, from shop fittings to entire cityscapes. Some of these projects never progressed further than balsa and wire, while other elaborate structures became works of art in their own right.

Published by Scheidegger & Spiess, £61.50; www.scheidegger-spiess.ch

Writer: Jonathan Bell

Houses with Curtains model, by Raimund Abraham — *'Houses with Curtains' model, by Raimund Abraham*

Glass jar Model — *Model, by Haus Rucker*

Le Corbusier: Furniture and Interiors 1905-1965
By Arthur Rüegg

A mighty book for a massive subject, Furniture and Interiors is a catalogue raisonné of all of Le Corbusier's non-architectural design work, ranging from the well-known to the extremely obscure, from the neo-classical work of his early years through to the machine age influences of the 1920s and 30s and the more personal, artistic works of his later years. Extensively illustrated throughout, with archive photography showing many of the pieces in situ, this is a must for all Corb obsessives.

Published by Scheidegger & Spiess, £140; www.scheidegger-spiess.ch

Writer: Jonathan Bell

A mighty book for a massive subject, Furniture and Interiors is a catalogue raisonné of all of Le Corbusier's non-architectural design work

Polychrome kitchen and dining area of a two floor residential unit — *Polychrome kitchen and dining area of a two-floor residential unit. Furnishings by Jean Prouvé, 1945-1952*

Great Lakes Regional Headquarters of the Reynolds Metals Company, by Minoru Yamasaki, 1960

Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography
By John Comazzi

One of the giants of mid-century modernist imagery, Balthazar Korab's black and white imagery of American architecture helped propel the careers of Eero Saarinen into the corporate stratosphere. Included within this new monograph - the first on Korab's work - are detailed portfolios of the construction and completion of the TWA Terminal at JFK and numerous little known classics from around the States.

Published by Princeton Architectural Press, £25; www.papress.com

Writer: Jonathan Bell

*Bench with decorative enameling, Le Corbusier*

Study unit on wooden flooring — *Study unit, Le Corbusier, 1931-32*

Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography
By John Comazzi

One of the giants of mid-century modernist imagery, Balthazar Korab's black and white imagery of American architecture helped propel the careers of Eero Saarinen into the corporate stratosphere. Included within this new monograph - the first on Korab's work - are detailed portfolios of the construction and completion of the TWA Terminal at JFK and numerous little known classics from around the States.

Published by Princeton Architectural Press, £25; www.papress.com

Writer: Jonathan Bell

Balthazar Korab's black and white imagery of American architecture helped propel the careers of Eero Saarinen into the corporate stratosphere

*Interior view of the TWA Flight Center, New York Idlewild Airport, 1964*

*Corridor of the Detroit Receiving Hospital, by William Kessler and Associates, 1979*

Architecture: From Commission to Construction
By Jennifer Hudson

One for the true building buff, this is a fascinating look at the long drawn out process of building. If you've ever wanted to go behind the scenes and see how sketches are fleshed out into fully-fledged buildings, Jennifer Hudson's densely packed new book is for you.

Published by Laurence King, £28; www.laurenceking.com

Writer: Jonathan Bell

Exterior view of the house — *YTL Residence, by Agence JouinManku*

Museum without Walls
By Jonathan Meades

Few people can do architecture on the small screen like Jonathan Meades. Inventive, surreal, bilious but always erudite and insightful, Meades has spent three decades creating irreverent and unique television documentaries. Museum without Walls brings together some of the best of these film scripts with a wide selection of Meades' other writings about the perversities of the built environment, our relationship with buildings and the personalities that shape them.

Published by Unbound, £18.99; www.unbound.co.uk

Writer: Jonathan Bell

A man with Donald duck — *Jonathan Meades, photographed by Martha Wailer*

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).