 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | PAUL GOLDBERGER
ON THE AGE OF ARCHITECTURE
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by Frank Gehry, the CCTV Headquarters by Rem Koolhaas, the Getty Center by Richard Meier, the Times Building by Renzo Piano: Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Paul Goldberger’s tenure at The New Yorker has documented a captivating era in the world of architecture, one in which larger-than-life buildings, urban schemes, historic preservation battles, and personalities have commanded an international stage. Goldberger’s keen observations and sharp wit make him one of the most insightful and passionate architectural voices of our time. In this collection of fifty-seven essays, the critic Tracy Kidder called “America’s foremost interpreter of public architecture” ranges from Havana to Beijing, from Chicago to Las Vegas, dissecting everything from skyscrapers by Norman Foster and museums by Tadao Ando to airports, monuments, suburban shopping malls, and white-brick apartment houses. This is a comprehensive account of the best—and the worst—of the “age of architecture.”
On Norman Foster:
Norman Foster is the Mozart of modernism. He is nimble and prolific, and his buildings are marked by lightness and grace. He works very hard, but his designs don’t show the effort. He brings an air of unnerving aplomb to everything he creates—from skyscrapers to airports, research laboratories to art galleries, chairs to doorknobs. His ability to produce surprising work that doesn’t feel labored must drive his competitors crazy.
On the Westin Hotel:
The forty-five-story Westin is the most garish tall building that has gone up in New York in as long as I can remember. It is fascinating, if only because it makes Times Square vulgar in a whole new way, extending up into the sky. It is not easy, these days, to go beyond the bounds of taste. If the architects, the Miami-based firm Arquitectonica, had been trying to allude to bad taste, one could perhaps respect what they came up with. But they simply wanted, like most architects today, to entertain us.
On Mies van der Rohe:
Mies’s buildings look like the simplest things you could imagine, yet they are among the richest works of architecture ever created. Modern architecture was supposed to remake the world, and Mies was at the center of the revolution, but he was also a counterrevolutionary who designed beautiful things. His spare, minimalist objects are exquisite. He is the only modernist who created a language that ranks with the architectural languages of the past, and while this has sometimes been troubling for his reputation . . . his architectural forms become more astonishing as time goes on. |
Average Customer Rating:   Fascinating! This book is a collection of articles written by Paul Goldberger and published in the New Yorker and Metropolis magazines between 1997 and 2009. This makes for very short, eminently readable chapters. They are not grouped chronologically but thematically : People and Places, Museums, Buildings that Matter, etc.
Though not groundbreaking, this provides an enthralling critical overview of architectural production, exhibitions and books over that period, not only in New York City but throughout America and around the world.
The author is very respectful of his sources and generally soft-spoken, though far from colourless. On certain subjects, such as the Westin Hotel on 42nd Street, he is actually quite vehement.
True to the New Yorker tradition, illustrations are not this book's strongpoint and, regrettably, at most one black and white photograph is provided for each chapter.
Overall, this book is strongly recommended to architecture and urban aficionados. For more detailed information on New York City's development in recent decades, one may wish to refer to the massive «New York 2000», where Mr. Goldberger is deservedly much quoted.
Paul's New Yorker Anthology This is a collection of Paul Goldberger's "New Yorker" and "Metropoilis" writings.
The essays cover a wide range of architectural and urban issuess.
Current publication is organized in thematic sections:
1. Buildings that Matter
2. Places and People
3. New York
4. Present and Past
5. Museums
6. Ways of Living
Over 50 essays, he wrote about NY, architecture, architects, museums, cities, and design.
Some writings are on new buildings by star architects, some on passed architects (Eames & Kahn),
some on luxury apartment in NY.
He zooms in for us to acknowledge what kind of strokes architect
used in his details to achieve particular effect. He zooms out for us to see the setting
and it's impact on the public. His microscopic and telescopic analysis skills also extends
to invisible state of architectural imagination and creativity.
Anyone can experience a building and like it.
But, good writings can double the experience, Goldberger's writings are like that.
His writings on Kahn can be sublimely profound, his writings on luxury condos can be sarcastically
witty. His writings on Robert Moses of NY and Burnham of Chicago explains why Paul is Paul.
History is resuscitated with present glamour. His thoughts on "white brick (glass)" overflows with
insights.
I was touring west coast -SF, LA, Seattle- when I read this book (I bought my copy in Borders,
4th Avenue, near Seattle Center). I couldn't agree more of his writings on De Young, Getty Villa,
Disney, Moneo's Church, and Rem's library. Each architects' strengths are well organized and
balanced.
Painstaking work of Herzog Demeuron on materials and light, Machado Silvetti's innovation
on renovation, Gehry's another splendor in form and hearing experience, Moneo's
Corbusier & Scarpa-like church, and Rem's site & program-suited ingenuity are all mentioned in his book.
His eyes are keenly fine and his hands are glowingly divine, just like great architects he mentions
in the book.
Good portion of the book is dedicated to NY and its architecture. His earlier "Up from Zero"
on 911 is a good companion if the reader wants read further on NY.
His recent publication "Why architecture matters" is another good companion if the reader wants
to probe deeper into Goldberger's architectural themes and values.
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