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Colonial Architecture in Ile-Ife, Nigeria 
A well documented and researched book about the effects of colonisation on the Southern Nigerian City of Ile-Ife - a city adorned with a mystical and religious importance of being the birth place of Yoruba Land, having descended from the Yoruba God Oduduwa. The settlement patterns of the city reflect the nature of its people – nucleated, secure and close. It is also famous for its bronze casting of which the Ife terracote (12th century) is most famous. Although the British Colonisation of Nigeria introduced many new developments such as education, administration, sports and architecture, it also led to distillation of indeginous ways and many people lost their identities. As architecture is one of the guarding factors shaping the way in which people live and interact, the Architecture of the Colonial era led to the introduction and portrayal of a new life to the Nigerian People. Mrs. Codelia O. Osasona and Anthony D.C. Hyland use architecture to question and analyse the processes behind the British Colonial Settlements in Ile-Ife. There was an explosion of public buildings for sports and entertainment, to the general façade of the building and the materials used for building. The fundamentals remained constant in most cases – construction materials were adobe earth bricks or stone, plaster and paint and corrugated iron sheets for the roof. The environment considerations were cross ventilation, overhangs and other shading devices and pest/insect treatments. The plans were almost always linear due to the utilitarian functions of most the buildings, though the residential buildings were more luxurius and gave new definitions to the "residence" and introduced the boy's quarters, the garage, living-dining room which, the garden and the verendah – all symbolising the importance of the house as a resting and social place and which continue to influence the fundamental design of most Sub-Saharan African Houses today. Colonial architecture gives us an insightful account of the European Colonisation of Africa and the driving theories that shaped the design and construction of this period. The authors give us both the advantages as well as the drawbacks of the colonial building (which where mainly the environmental aspects of the building mainly due to the lack of knowledge of climatic variations that the trained designers had). Though the Colonial Era is not in the slightest bit commended by the authors, the book nevertheless acknowledges the contribution that these buildings have made to their beloved city of Ile-Ife. This book is a must-read for students of Architecture and anyone interested in the history of Urban Buildings or an introduction to African Colonisation. 
Tradition Today: Continuity in Architecture & Society 
A unique collection of authoritative essays on the nature and essence of tradition has been published by INTBAU, the International Network for Traditional Building Architecture and Urbanism. With an Introduction by its Patron, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, this innovative book has been written by an international range of experts who highlight the effects of tradition on an inter-disciplinary collection of themes. The range of the subjects is original and impressive but so is the authors' art in forging links as they explore the meaning of tradition from within their individual disciplines. These span architecture, design and building to the fields of linguistics, religion, philosophy, law and gastronomy.
Tradition is shown as not only bestowing a source of stability within society but in the words of INTBAU's Patron, "a fundamental sense of humanity and harmony." Far from being immutable or stultifying, the chapters on religion and law illustrate clearly that tradition is a force of nature sufficiently confident within itself to allow for social adaptation and evolution. In other words, tradition owes its endurance and survival to an inherent flexibility when it is required.
The book shows clearly that tradition is far removed from the clichés of being orthodox and archaic. Far from being strangulated by ancient practices, traditional methodology is being embraced as the way of the future. For example, in the 21st century we have begun to tire of the packed supermarkets and frozen and prepared foods that are so nutritionally barren. Increasingly people prefer to return to more established patterns of gastronomy: eating local, organic foods that are prepared in their own kitchens. In fact, the whole ecology movement, so a la mode today, is a return to the life styles and ways of our forefathers.
Traditional building has endured for thousands of years and appears to be a part of the human psyche. Robert Adams cites research from The Popular Housing Group that shows only 1.5% of the consumers interviewed actually liked modern housing most people likening them to 'nuclear power stations' and 'factories' The population wants aesthetic and ecologically friendly homes, turning their backs on harsh styles of seemingly mass produced buildings constructed from composite materials that lack character, an expression of locale or sustainability.
Tradition Today rings with an upbeat and positive message. Andrew Clegg, an expert on building owns Scotland’s oldest brick factory. He is convinced that the traditional Scottish brick will endure and prosper 'until doomsday' because of its thermal conductivity and insulating qualities, aesthetic lustre, durability and ecological capabilities all learned from the Romans 2000 years ago. His confidence is infectious and anyone reading this erudite and compelling book will be similarly convinced.
The Architecture of Italian Lighthouses: 
If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air, you will love this series. Edited by Bologna-based academic Cristiana Bartolomei, the three volumes are a voyage around the Italian peninsula, focusing on the most prominent features: the lighthouses that, since antiquity, have guided mariners through these seas. Packed with drawings, photographs and with detailed measured drawings of each lighthouse studied, the books have a serious purpose too. The Italian Navy and the Italian Lighthouse Service have both contributed to the work, which records buildings that in many cases are now made redundant, their guiding function replaced by satellite navigation, those artificial stars which have replaced the stars studied so anxiously by the ancients. Volume 1 is slightly longer than the two subsequent volumes, freighted as it is with a raft of preliminary material. There's an 'overture'by Michele Morana, a 'Presentation' by Sicilian professor Francesca Fatta, a Foreword by Bolognese professor Robert Mingucci and a series of Essays by Giuseppe Amoruso, Cristiana Bartolomei, Francesca Faraone, and "Katarxis" creator Lucien Steil. The latter essay draws out the allusive and philosophical meanings of lighthouses, simultaneously offering "reason, guidance and inspiration", and linking Fire and Water between the Air and the Earth. Steil also examines the long influence of lighthouses, both on campanile and skyscraper, far from their watery origins. As the sole antique reference for tall buildings, their were the guiding light for early 20th century architects, called upon to build classically far beyond the usual proportions of the human frame. It is in the gazetteer of lighthouses that forms the majority of these three volumes that the reader will recognise a work of immense scholarship. Each of the dozens of lighthouses has been studied in detail by photogrammetry and more conventional measurement, with large detailed plans for all those tempted to build something similar. It's also a delight for those who like books of architecture filled with plans and elevations. While some are standardised as a pharos and lighthouse keeper's quarters, many are ancient or just idiosyncratic buildings. This is a wonderful piece of work, recommended for all lovers of buildings and the sea. It's supported by a website in Italian and English that provides a useful introduction to the work and regular updates.
Visualizing Density (with CD): 
With the increase of population in the US and the demand for more housing, the issue of density re-emerges to be an important consideration that requires understanding and deliberation to facilitate intelligent decisions regarding development. The issues raised in this book are not new, in fact I am familiar with a booklet that is 55 years older dating back to 1952 in the UK titled: The Density of Residential Areas by the UK Ministry of Housing and Local Government, that addresses many of the issues and concerns raised in this book. In Visualizing Density the measure used for density is units per acre that includes all streets and other public amenities within the measured area. It should be noted that the book is based on the American experience and addresses issues of relevance to the US context only. The book is divided into three parts: Part One-Growing Closer discusses issues related to the Count, the Coming Boom, Spreading Out or Growing In, Crosscurrents, The Benefits, Why We Hate Density, How We Can Love Density, and Visualizing Density. This first part of the book explains issues that are of importance to growth patterns in the US during the coming decades and argues for higher densities that is based on good design qualities rather than only increases in quantity. Air photos by Alex MacLean are used to communicate the points raised in the text. Part Two is divided into two major sections: Planning for Density and Designing for Density. The latter also includes issues related to Building design and Parking layouts. Each of those sections is discussed by specific topics supported by photos from various parts of the US that illuminate the explanation in the text. Planning for Density is addressed by 18 topics, Designing for Density by 17 topics, Building by 9 topics, and Parking by 5 topics, a total of 49 issues raised each of which is supported by an illustration that clarifies the topic discussed. Part Three, which makes up about 60 percent of the book, is The Density Catalog in 88 pages. It shows physical qualities and density measures in units/acre augmented by aerial photos of more than 250 neighborhoods from across the US. Four photos of each location are included: a close up view, a context view, a neighborhood view, and a plan view. Street pattern diagrams for each neighborhood is drawn to the same scale for all examples included in the catalog. However, it is difficult to use these diagrams for measurements because the scale bar is missing, a major omission in my view. The range of densities covered in the catalog is from 1 unit/acre to 296 units/acre. Many examples for the same density are included to provide a sense of difference due to layout and design. I would have liked to see photos from the vantage point of the pedestrian to help acquire a better feeling for the density of the development presented. The book is sold with a CD attached to the back cover that contains all of The Density Catalog in a PDF file. The primary message that comes through from this book is that density as a numerical statistical measure is not what should be emphasized, but rather it is the layout and design qualities of a development that is the critical aspect to consider. The book grew out of a series of Lincoln Institute courses of the same name taught by Campoli and MacLean since 2003. Julie Campoli is a landscape architect and land planner and Alex S. MacLean is an aerial photographer. I am happy to see their material in book format, with a CD, at a reasonable price available for everybody that is involved in or interested in issues related to density.
The Architecture of Rasem Badran: 
This book by James Steele on the work of architect Rasem Badran of Jordan is a wonderful contribution to architectural literature and a valuable documentation of the work of one of the most talented Arab architects of the current period. I know both the author and the architect, and it is indeed a pleasure to see the hard work of James Steele, over many years, brought to fruition. What are most refreshing in this book are not only the photos and discussion of Badran’s built projects but the unique style of his sketches that were used to establish the design concepts and their subsequent development. The sketches are reproduced in their original color and some can be classified as works of art in their own right. The book starts with an introduction, followed by seven chapters, a chronology of Badran’s work, notes, bibliography, a glossary of terms, and an index. The chapter titles sequentially are: 1. A narrative on people, place and culture, 2. Creative heritage and the return to the east, 3. Houses and housing, 4. The fourth dimension is the spirit, 5. Preserving a living history, 6. An earthly paradise, 7. Rediscovering the Islamic city. Chapter two is a testament to how important it is to understand one’s background, such as Badran’s, in shaping his views and outlook on how he uses his skills in forging forward with an architecture that is an important contribution to his region and the world at large. Issues regarding the theoretical implications of Badran's architecture is beyond the scope of this review and might be gleaned from Steele's analysis and interpretations. Finally, to appreciate Badran's distinctive design process I show the following sketches and photos with Steele's commentary. Permission to use these images was granted by James Steele.
SmartCode and Manual: 
This evolving and latest version of the SmartCode is the result of many years of application, revisions and fine-tuning. The authors and their collaborators are currently working towards version 9.0. The reason the word ‘Manual’ is added to the title is because it contains much supportive material to enhance understanding of the code and advice for its implementation. The pages of the code itself are only 75. The authors say in the Preface that "Because the SmartCode envisions intentional outcomes based on the essential components of urban design and planning, it covers all this material in very few pages." The manual is divided into three parts: Part 1- Commentary in 17 pages provides valuable background information on the origins of sprawl, the alternatives to it, the proposed structure of the Transect and how it works, what the SmartCode does, its elements and structure, implementation and legal issues. Part 2 – SmartCode Annotated comprises the bulk of the manual and displays the annotations for each section and paragraph of the code on the opposite page, so that the text or an illustration of the code is on the right side page and its related annotations are on the left side page. This works well as long as the user of the manual keeps in his/her mind that they are separate entities. Within the language of the code there are words and sentences printed in light blue, which are intended to be replaced with language that is legally pertinent to the locality in which the SmartCode is to be adopted and used. It should be kept in mind that the code is written to fit and be adapted to the legal landscape of the United States. The SmartCode is structured in seven articles: 1. General to all plans, 2. Sector scale plans, 3. New community scale plans, 4. Infill community scale plans, 5. Building scale plans, 6. Standards and tables, and 7. Definitions of terms. Once the user of the code is familiar with its intentions and nuances, the code can then be adapted to specific local contexts. The commentary in part 1 of the manual explains how this is to be accomplished. The term used for this process is ‘Calibration’ which, in my view, must be carefully and sensitively undertaken to achieve successful results. In certain cases this might necessitate deviating from and/or adjusting certain aspects of the code. In general the code illustrations are self-explanatory but some might require refinements to make them cognitively friendlier, others might require additional annotated explanations on the opposite page. Part 3 – Appendix, contains 17 appendices many of them have useful illustrations and cover such topics as: analysis for infill, designing a Greenfield site, design and development center, sector plans, sample infill plan, sample regulating plan, sample enabling legislation and ordinance, and a list of case studies and resource references. These collections of appendices are included to further clarify the workings of the code and provide examples of implementation. It would be worthwhile to expand this part 3 – Appendix to include successful prototypical projects that are already adopted and/or partially built by explaining in detail the calibration process that was followed to achieve the intentions of the code as it is implemented. In addition it is necessary to add comparative drawings and related legal texts of what a typical development would look like if conventional zoning is applied and how it might differ if the SmartCode is used for the same project. Ken Groves, Chad Emerson, and Scott Polikov recently presented a good example of such comparison for a project in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, at the SmartCode Workshop held in Austin, Texas on March 29-31, 2007. Clear comparisons such as this are vital for explaining the differences between conventional and SmartCode coding and their ultimate consequence on the resulting built environment. This review is of the manual itself and is not an evaluation and critique of the SmartCode. That would be more suitable for an article to be published elsewhere. The manual is a must reading and study for those individuals who are interested in considering using the SmartCode in their communities, and for others who just want to understand its details.
New City Life Review by Lee Hardy, PhD, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA 
The photograph that graces the cover of New City Life, depicting the relaxed social interaction of the Danes in Copenhagen’s Sankt Hans Square, signals the central argument of this book. Cities, claim the authors, provide three goods essential to human life: a market place for the production and exchange of goods and services; a meeting place for social contact and communication; and a connection space for these activities, as well as others. Until the middle of the last century, cities served, for the most part, as centralised sites of production and exchange. The city as meeting place was largely driven by the city as market place, and the use of public space was mandated by the threefold necessity of commerce, walking, and proximity. Over the last 60 years, however, many post-industrial cities in developed countries have experienced a significant shift in use. No longer a site of centralised production, the contemporary city is now marked more by consumption, leisure activity, and the staging of cultural events. The use of public urban space is increasingly optional.
Joined to this observation is a rule of proportion already formulated by Jan Gehl in his first book, Life Between Buildings: as the use of public space is increasingly optional, the quality of public space grows in importance. Necessary activities will take place in the public space of streets and squares regardless of the quality of those spaces; optional activities, on the other hand, are highly sensitive to the quality of public space. People will not use streets and squares that are ugly, hazardous and uninviting unless they have to. As more and more our use of public space is optional rather than necessary, the vitality of our cities will depend upon attractive and inviting public spaces. People are no longer compelled to be there by the necessity of exchange, the necessity of walking as the primary mode of transit, or the necessity of proximity. For this reason, if our cities are to be vital, the quality of public space is of paramount importance. The streets and squares of our cities must be designed to welcome the pedestrian, the cyclist, and all those desirous of face-to-face human contact.
But if the use of public space afforded by traditional urban form has become less compelling, why go to extraordinary lengths to support it? Why not consign the streets and squares of old to the dustbin of history and embrace the austere designs of the modernist city, or revel in the junkspace of Koolhaasian interventions, or simply retreat to the private life of the suburbs? There are obvious health benefits associated with traditional walking cities. And such cities are easier on the natural environment. But the most compelling reasons offered by the authors of New City Life are these: the human social instinct is best served by the streets and squares afforded by traditionally configured cities. Many predicted that the privatising communication technologies of television, the Internet and the mobile phone would spell the death of traditional urban public space. But we see little evidence that this has happened. If anything, the privatising of life has led to an increased demand for face-to-face social contact in the public spaces of the city, where life is vivid, full-bodied, and delightfully unpredictable. Hence the recent spread of sidewalk "cappuccino culture".
Second, the built form of traditional cities lends vital support to the maintenance of democratic culture. Democracies depend on the ability of their citizens to negotiate sectarian differences, achieve mutual understanding and cooperate in the interest of the common good. Democratic urban space should be free, open and inclusive, providing options for people with different needs and interests. Such space creates a meeting place for all regardless of social status, culture and age; it provides a shared venue for public communication - for the sending and receiving of messages - apart from the channels dominated by commercial or official party interests. Although encountering "the other" in public space does not in itself guarantee a happy outcome, it can take the edge off gratuitous social paranoia generated by the media and thereby build up the civic trust essential to fruitful democratic deliberation.
New City Life, however, offers not only an argument for the social and political significance public space. It provides a carefully worked out system of categories for the evaluation of public space. The system comprises twelve criteria for the quality of public space in three main categories: protection (from traffic, crime, and sensory offense); comfort (opportunities to walk, stand, sit, see, converse, and play); and enjoyment (human scale, provisions for climate, and aesthetic interest). It is particularly instructive that the categories are not only proposed in the abstract, but applied in the assessment of different types of urban spaces in the city of Copenhagen: urban strollways, central city space, secluded city space, green city space, waterfront space, recreational space, and the like. Unsurprisingly, the places that score low on the categories are typically deserted; those that score high, enjoyed by many.
Beyond proposing categories of quality evaluation, the authors also develop an array of empirical measures by which we can tell what difference the ratings within the categories make. It is possible, for instance, to measure the intensity of the use of a public space by counting how many people linger in 100 m2 of car-free city space. High intensity use comes in at more than 20 persons per 100 m2 between 1:00 and 5:00 pm; mid intensity use between 2-5 people; low intensity use, less than 1. Transit modes, of course, can also be tracked. After making serious provisions for cyclists, 36% of the work commutes in Copenhagen are now by bicycle, only 27% by car. Most of the empirical data in the book are based on the experience of Copenhagen, where major studies of the use of public space were conducted in 1968, 1985, 1995 and 2005. The data are provided by the Centre for Public Space Research in the School of Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
The method practiced by the authors is one of the most refreshing and instructive aspects of this book. Rather than basing their recommendation for the revitalization of the city on someone’s Big New (and untested) Idea, Jan Gehl and his associates work by way of careful observation and measurement, attending to how human beings actually inhabit public space. Gehl’s studies of the way good urban form is apportioned to the standing needs, vulnerabilities and capacities of the human person exposes the cheap historicizing involved in the rejection of contemporary interest in traditional urbanism as an instance of nostalgia. There are constants embedded in the build of the human body, the range of our perceptual powers, the social needs of persons, and the realities of climate. Not all judgments of urban form are to be reduced to the linear category of what is past, present and future. Nature intersects history.
New City Life is a handsomely produced hardbound book, generously outfitted with colour photographs of urban street life in Copenhagen. Among the photographs one will find studies of the disposition of the human body in public space - walking, standing, sitting, lying down, and playing - and frankly inspiring images of the city as a showcase for cultural events and street performance. If there are any limitations of this book, they will be no doubt based on its predominant interest in the case of Copenhagen, a mature city of northern Europe with a long history of antipathy towards the automobile. Although the categories for the evaluation of public space are generally valid, the use of those categories for design and assessment will require some creative transposition in cities with very different histories, cultures and economies.
North American readers of this review will be saddened to note that The Danish Architectural Press has, at this writing, no North American distributor. Copies of this worthy book will have to be ordered through a specialty bookstore, or directly from the publisher at cwww.arkfo.dk" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none;">www.arkfo.dk. The email address of the press is eksp@arkfo.dk. Members and friends of INTBAU may wish to encourage The Danish Architectural Press to pick up a North American distributor, as the books it publishes by Jan Gehl and associates are available in English and would surely find a strong market in New Urbanist circles. For more information on Jan Gehl and his work in urban quality consultation, see the website of Gehl Architects, www.gehlarchitects.dk.
Editor's note: The book is available in the US from William Stout Architectural Books, 804 Montgomery St., San Francisco, CA 94133, tel (+1) 415-391-6757 and Prairie Avenue Book Shop, 418 South Wabash, Chicago, IL 60605, Tel. 800-474-2724.
Alter Architecture Review by Maurice Culot 
All-purpose architectures bringing banality to Europe’s cities and countryside with a vision that is imposed rather than accepted, is it inevitable? The destruction of the public space and the victory of the non-place, is it irremediable? Architecture styles that are nothing more than conceptual and abstract variations, are they inescapable? Imitation, that age-old process of artistic conception, is it now synonymous with the inability to create anything new? These are all questions that this book seeks to answer through contemporary works and a manner of building the city and the countryside that reconnects with what is best in the European architectural tradition. Architectures touched by the wings of the angel of fantasy, sensitive to the breath of the earth, which lovingly embrace the past, savour memory as a source of nostalgia and of pleasure, tread lightly on the environment, do not lend their weight to the imbalance of the world and which resist the all-conquering advances of science, technology and globalisation. From Bordeaux to Moscow, from Madrid to Bologna, from Oslo to Brussels, form the terra firma to the islands, from the capitals to the hamlets. So many illustrations of Frederico Fellini’s maxim: "Be regional and you will be universal." The author, who since 1982 has presided over the Philippe Rotthier European Award for the Reconstruction of the City, has drawn from the prize-winning entries many reference works and projects that bear witness to the continuing genius of European construction.
Editions Archives d’Architecture Moderne
The Regeneration through Heritage Handbook
Review by Alice Mah PhD candidate, London School of Economics
Derelict historic buildings are often captivating, either for their aesthetic beauty or for their connection with former social and economic activities. In many parts of the United Kingdom, redundant historic buildings face little commercial prospect of being restored or reused under current market conditions. Although these buildings are unlisted, they often carry historical, architectural and symbolic significance, particularly for the communities which surround them. The Regeneration Through Heritage Handbook is a step-by-step ‘route-map’ to help community groups and voluntary partnerships in the early stages of regenerating a redundant building. Regeneration Through Heritage (RTH) was set up in 1996 by HRH The Prince of Wales with the aim of promoting the sustainable re-use of historic buildings in the United Kingdom, working to assist the community and voluntary sector in developing proposals for buildings at risk.
The handbook begins with the process of adopting a redundant historic building, outlining how to find a building at risk, research the historic and architectural importance of the building, approach the owner, and research possible new uses. The most appropriate buildings to adopt are those which lack a robust private sector proposal. The next stage is finding a voluntary partnership. Particular importance is placed on understanding social, economic and environmental issues, the needs of the community, and the owner’s position. Throughout the decision-making process, the partnership should consider the long-term social and environmental sustainability of new uses and seek out views and opinions from the community. The most visually compelling feature of the book is the interspersion of eight case studies of derelict industrial buildings from various places throughout the United Kingdom Each case study includes a short social and economic history of a redundant building, the context surrounding its proposed regeneration through RTH-established partnerships, and photographs. The case studies are effective and inspiring illustrations of the potential of community partnership-led regeneration. Case studies include Baily’s Factory, Glastonbury, Somerset; Lomeshaye Bridge Mill, Nelson, Lancashire; Navigation Warehouse, Wakefield; Quayside Maltings, Mistley, Essex; Conway Mill, Belfast; Birnbeck Pier, Weston-super-Mare; Harvey’s Foundry, Hayle, Cornwall, and Salt Warehouse and No. 4 Warehouse, Sowerby Bridge.
The handbook is clearly written, practical and accessible. It includes advice about research, consultation, sharing expertise, legal and administrative issues, and how and where to apply for funding. Examples of documents required throughout the process are also provided, such as an initial proposal letter, partnership agreement, agenda for a meeting, vision statement and feasibility study. This book provides a means and method for achieving a viable community and voluntary sector alternative to private sector redevelopment of redundant historic buildings. Community-led, sustainable regeneration of redundant buildings is a refreshing aim in the wider context of profit-led regeneration, which often falls short of meeting local needs and concerns.
"A Counter History" of Modern Architecture:
Review by Matthew HardyBArch PhD RAIA, Secretary, INTBAU
Many readers will be familiar with a version of architectural history in which a triumphant post-war modernism trumps a heavy fascist inter-war traditional architecture. With this book, Ettore Mazzola does us the great service of showing us an alternative history of Modernism in Italy, a history involving Fascist imposition, rapacious property developers and reckless experimentation on a repressed public unable to complain to an autocratic state.
The book examines the production of traditional neo-Baroque public housing in Rome in the period 1920-1930. New dwellings were needed to re-house those pushed out by slum clearance and others coming to the city from surrounding countryside with industrialisation. The Istituto Casa Popolare (Public Housing Institute) built demonstration schemes in Appio at Piazza Tuscolo, Testaccio, San Saba and many other locations, which are lavishly illustrated here. There is a handy reproduction of a period location map on Page 39 (though a modern map might also have been useful too).
The book's focus is on the story of Citta-Giardino Anione and Citta-Giardino Garbatella, founded in 1919 and 1920 respectively. Here in the pre-Fascist period several new Garden Cities were started, using a new semi-urban type of smaller scale public housing around common courtyards and facilities. Construction proceeded quietly in the early period. Changes started with the arrival of Fascism, with rents decontrolled and speculation encouraged in 1923. Now fast and cheap building became the norm for public housing, while private housing became ever more luxurious. Mazzola intersperses these routine accounts of development with violent Cobbett-like outbursts on politics, corruption, modernism, and the state of the world, as entertaining for the reader here as they are in Rural Rides.
The end for Roman public housing came in 1929, with the XII Congresso internazionale delle Abitazioni e dei Piano Regolatore (12th International Congress on Housing and Town Planning). Leading modernist architects were invited to create a model quarter of Alberghi Suburbane (suburban hostels for low-income families). Formerly designed as charming neo-Mediaeval or neo-Baroque ensembles, these now became modernist barrack-blocks in which "it [was] necessary to reduce some spaces that do not represent real needs" (Giuseppe Nicolosi, 1930). Now a kind of mean experimentation - spurred on by the Futurist manifesto's explicit rejection of traditional forms - became the norm in public housing. Mario Fiorentino, architect of the colossal 1970s Corviale public housing block - a social disaster still lauded by modernist critics - quotes his mentor Ridolfi as saying that:
"when you create a design for a client (and public buildings are for clients as is the case for any other private individual), you must always experiment without telling the client you are doing so".
An Italian public used by then to Fascist impositions did not feel able to complain at the time, and such public critiques, though frequent, are often ignored by today's modernist architects too.
The total victory of modernist architecture in Rome came in the year of Hitler's famous and fleeting visit to the Italian capital. The Istruzione per il Restauro dei Monumenti (Instructions for the Restoration of Monuments), enacted by the Fascist Ministry of Public Education in 1938, banned traditional architecture for ever with the words:
"for obvious reasons of historical dignity and for necessary clarity in the present artistic consciousness, the construction of edifices in "old styles" ("stili" antichi) is absolutely prohibited, even in areas without monumental or landscape interest, in so far as they represent a double falsification, involving both the ancient and the recent history of art".
This Fascist idea of artistic progress - modernism as the only permitted expression of the present day - has turned out to have a surprising afterlife. Its provenance ignored in the post-war period, it has found its way into the ICOMOS Charter of Venice of 1964 and thence into UNESCO policy, into the US Secretary of State for the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation of 1977, and into the Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter of 1979-1999. It is now the de facto standard position for almost all architectural teaching and for nearly every conservation authority worldwide. Indeed, the tag 'fascist' is now routinely applied without reflection to new traditional architecture by many who should know better and who have now no excuse not to. (INTBAU intends to challenge this view in its 2006 conference, The Venice Charter Revisited).
There are a few gripes I must make: the constant exclamation marks! that a good sub-editor should have removed, the lack of footnotes or a bibliography, and a few misleading out-of-context translations, such as "Hotels" instead of "Hostels" for Alberghi. These minor problems aside, this is a very valuable documentation of the 'lost' period in 20th century Italian architecture, before modernism conquered architecture, as it had done for historiography.
Ettore Mazzola has produced a valuable building block in the new history of 20th century architecture, and a useful reference for those interested in the shady relationship between Futurism, Fascism and Modernism in Italy. Perhaps the citizens of Rome, recently protesting in force against Richard Meier's modernist museum enclosing the Ara Pacis, have been listening to him.
The Structure of the Ordinary:
Review by Besim S. Hakim FAICP AIA, Albuquerque, New Mexico
This book is a result of decades of observation and study, and it is based on previous book "drafts" by the author. To my knowledge there are three previous books and a number of articles which the author has published on this topic. The earliest was a 42-page booklet by the title of General Principles about the Way Built Environments Exist (1979) in which the author documents in synoptic format the principles which, among others, are discussed in this book under review. It was followed by Transformations of the Site (1983), and The Appearance of the Form (1985), both of which elaborate on the principles outlined earlier in the 1979 publication.
The author’s essential argument can be summarized thus: all actors and agents involved in shaping the contemporary and future built environment need to seek and understand the nature of the workings of the "ordinary" built environment at large, and especially to learn from the wisdom and the lessons embodied in traditional and vernacular built environments worldwide. If this knowledge is acquired and absorbed, then all involved, individuals, communities, and institutions, can intervene intelligently in the ongoing processes that shape our built environments today so that desirable future outcomes can occur.
What is it, according to the author, that we have to observe and learn about the built environment? He suggests that there are three interrelated orders which structure the underlying phenomenon of the built environment. These are the orders of Form which engages the built environment as part of all physical matter and relates to physical aspects; the order of Place which involves the control of space, and deals with territorial behavior and related issues; and the order of Understanding which is rooted in society’s history, values, customs, and cultural attributes. By studying and understanding the details of each order and their inter-relatedness, we can learn about the built environment and begin to feel and "see" more clearly the invisible and dynamic phenomenon at work. The book’s structure is in three parts: Form, the physical order; Place, the territorial order; and Understanding, the cultural order. Each part is divided into six chapters for a total of eighteen.
The author reminds us that change and renewal are the keys to our knowledge of the built environment. It, like all complex phenomena, endures by transforming its parts. He says that "To use built form is to exercise some control, and to control is to transform. ...A complex hierarchy of control patterns within a continuity of action emerges." (p.7). And, "Control thus defines the central operational relationship between humans and all matter that is the stuff of built environment." (p. 8). These ideas constitute the central schemata of the author’s observations and analysis. He uses numerous historical and contemporary examples to support his arguments. Those are from Olynthus, Greece; Pompeii, Venis and Bologna in Italy; Amsterdam and Paris; Suzhou and Beijing in China; Tunis and Cairo from North Africa; Mexico City, and Japanese examples.
This is an important and very valuable book. It will sensitize and educate its readers about the central role of control in the built environment. My anticipation is that it will be very influential for constructing pedagogy in disciplines which deal with the built environment including, but not limited to, architecture, urban planning and design, engineering, archaeology, law, and history. Practising professionals and lay persons will also find it very illuminating and educational.
An earlier version of this review was first published in Cities, 15/6, 1998, p. 473.
The Nature of Order
Review by Besim S. Hakim FAICP AIA, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Book One: The Phenomenon of Life, 2002
Christopher Alexander (henceforth CA) was born in Vienna, Austria in 1936. He and his parents moved to England when he was an infant. Although his parents were trained as archeologists, they became school teachers in England. CA graduated from Cambridge University with degrees in mathematics and architecture. He went on to Harvard in 1958 to pursue his doctoral studies. After completing his PhD dissertation and graduating he was appointed to teach architecture at the University of California, Berkeley in 1963 where he stayed until his retirement in 1998. He subsequently moved back to England and currently resides near Arundel, West Sussex.
CA established the Center for Environmental Structure (henceforth CES) in Berkeley, California in 1967, and used it as his office for practice and related research. Almost all of his work and research was undertaken under the auspices of this Center. In the fall of 2005 he established a European branch of the CES based in London and Cambridge.
When I started undertaking research in 1975 on traditional towns in North Africa, I became aware of CA’s work and made use of his book A Pattern Language (1977) (henceforth APL) for explaining the high quality of the built environment of the village of Sidi Bou Sa'id in northern Tunisia. The book on Sidi Bou Sa'id was published in August 1978 and I sent a copy to CA in mid-1979. He invited me to speak to his graduate students on November 28, 1979 and I presented a summary of my research findings. Since then I have followed CA's work, with much interest, through his various publications, and I am now happy to present a review of The Nature of Order (henceforth TNO).
Click here to read the full review...
Principles of Urban Structure
Review by Susan Parham, Chair, Steering Committee, CEU
Nikos Saligaros's Principles of Urban Structure is an extremely timely exploration of "how and why cities are successful or not, depending on their form, components, and substructure". Salingaros sees the discovery of "the principles underlying what can be observed as phenomena in urban space" as the beginning of an urban science rather than relying on "dogma masquerading as rationality".
Salingaros argues that urban networks are the foundation for healthy urban fabric, with living cities depending on "an enormous number of different paths and connections". He explains why some urban spaces are used while others are avoided and establishes the priority of the pedestrian realm as the foundation of a human-based conception of urbanism.
The scaling of the urban is critical. As Salingaros notes "we instinctively recognise what looks and feels ‘natural’ by its scaling hierarchy, and react accordingly". Salingaros explains how modernist urban geometry has produced "inhuman structures that have inverted the distribution of urban sizes so as to favour the large scale, eliminating the small scale". Instead Salingaros argues for the connection to fractals; pointing out how the "mathematical qualities of meaningful environments are precisely those that manifest themselves in factual subdivisions".
Harking back to the work of Christopher Alexander et al, which developed patterns which "encapsulate information about recurring design solutions and human activities", Salingaros argues that we need to link observed patterns together to define permeable urban regions. These in turn allow us to understand the city as a complex interacting system. And "coherent city form emerges from assembling components hierarchically, using intense local couplings together with long-range connections that reduce disorder". As Salingaros puts it "urban coherence can only come about from the correct combination of geometry and connectivity".
This is a remarkable book, based on rational insights from science, yet focused intensely on achieving humane urbanism. It should provide much needed guidance to all those who care about cities and are concerned with the human-scaled urbanist project.
Review by Besim S. Hakim FAICP AIA, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Nikos A. Salingaros (henceforth NS) was born in 1952 in Perth, Australia. He grew up in Greece and the Bahamas. He has a PhD in physics and is a professor of mathematics at the University of Texas in San Antonio since 1983. He developed a keen interest in architecture and urbanism after his association with Christopher Alexander since the early 1980s. NS says on page 14: “Christopher Alexander inspired me to devote my research energy to understanding the built environment. Working with him on his book The Nature of Order taught me much of what I know about architecture and urbanism, as well as how to write about them".
NS has already authored three books, which are primarily compilations of his numerous articles since he first began writing on architecture in 1995. The books are: Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction (2004), A Theory of Architecture (forthcoming 2006), and this book which contains 10 articles (labeled as chapters) published during a seven year span between 1997-2004. Most of the original articles are also available on the web and from his web site .
Although each chapter is introduced by Arthur van Bilsen to place it in the context of the whole book and weave it with the other chapters, the book nevertheless still reads as a collection of articles. As a result the concepts across all the chapters come through as disconnected. Yet they are all in essence connected to each other and make up a comprehensive epistemology. The burden falls on the reader to try and synthesize and relate the concepts together. The titles of the chapters might shed light on this: Chapter 1: Theory of the urban web, 2: Urban space and its information field, 3: A universal rule for the distribution of sizes, 4: Complexity and urban coherence, 5: Remarks on a city's composition, 6: Connecting the fractal city, 7: The information architecture of cities, 8: The structure of pattern languages, 9: Pattern language and interactive design, and 10: Design methods, emergence and collective intelligence.
Chapters 8 and 9 compliment the work of Christopher Alexander and add insight to the idea of patterns and pattern languages. The last chapter touches upon the critical concepts of top-down versus bottom-up design, collective intelligence, emergence and self-organization, and adaptivity and feedback. These issues in themselves require a great deal of elaboration and should be supported by real world examples from the traditional experience of various cultures and from recent projects that embody some or all of these phenomenon.
The author illuminates his arguments with simple and clear line diagrams and sketches that makes it easier for the reader, especially if he or she is an architect, to understand the concepts being discussed. I would strongly urge the author to consider writing one book which brings together all of his ideas, observations, and arguments from the 22 articles (chapters) that make up this book and his forthcoming A Theory of Architecture. A book such as the one I am suggesting would recast all of the author’s arguments in an integrative manner and in an accessible style, and supplemented by as many examples as possible to illuminate the essence of the theory and principles. Such a book, in my view, would be most valuable and necessary given the vast amount of insight the author has accumulated and documented in his various articles and postings. I hope he will do so. Meanwhile I recommend this book to all those who want to know more on how concepts and ideas from mathematics and physics can be directly relevant to the processes of urbanism.
Creating a New Old House:
Review byLauren B. Sickels-Taves, Ph.D
"Timeless patterns in the way old houses are put together can become a template for making something new from something old." This is the theme presented by Versaci, in examining seventeen new houses constructed in traditional ways and selected as representative of "forgotten styles" and for their distinctly American form. But, the true value of this book-beyond mere case studies-lies in the introduction and layout. Versaci has created eight principles in a sequential order essential to proper design and sustainability. Termed The Pillars of Traditional Design, they are worthy of inclusion here:
The seventeen studies are then essays where the Pillars are discussed and in fact, italicized for cohesiveness. Each example is representative of an American style or form, ranging from Spanish Colonial to Shingle, or Western ranch to German stone farmhouse. The text is peppered with clear, colour photographs, including details such as mouldings and paint colours, and floor plans. The design of the layout is excellent, and includes interesting sidebars, entitled "Architectural Details," "Hallmarks of Style," and "Traditional Craftsmanship." Tidbits of information gleaned from these sidebars include pigeonniers, moulding shingles, and pre-aging paint.
Despite the contributions of this book, several critical issues must be raised. Given the attention to handmade roofing tiles or hand-tooled floorboards, are these houses affordable en mass or merely the elite? Also, Portland cement is cited for simulating weathered lime mortar; and yet in the same breath, beer and dung are recommended for aging stone. Why not lime, given it is a traditional and available material that has proven its longevity and in many cases, its superiority to Portland cement? And, lastly, let us not forget that not all old buildings are beyond repair and suitable only for salvaging for the 'new old' houses.
Versaci has written a unique and much-needed book in the midst of a tidal wide of McMansion construction. His philosophy on traditions - be they materials, craftsmanship, or styles, and their use in construction - has precedence in Vitruvius's The Ten Books on Architecture, Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture, and Downing's Country Houses, to name a few. If Versaci's views on proper construction are adopted widely in house construction, historic preservationists will have something to preserve, worthy of preservation, and suitable to call historic in fifty years.
Dr Lauren B. Sickels-Taves is Professor/Conservator of Historic Preservation at Eastern Michigan University in the US. Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction
Review by James Stevens Curl
This book should be required reading in every institution concerned with the teaching of architecture, planning, and all other aspects of the built environment. It should also be read by every person claiming to be an architect.
That, however, is a forlorn hope, as most architects seldom read at all: they only look at seductive pictures and absorb slogans. There are a very few honorable exceptions; these are those rare individuals who conserve and restore old buildings, add to them or adapt them with sensitivity and scholarship. It includes those who can still design buildings that delight and enhance life rather than threaten it, and who understand the nature of the materials used in their buildings without having to call in engineers and contortionists to enable their designs to be realized.
The rise of Deconstructivism and its adherents can partly be explained by the spread of the contagion Salingaros, in this essential and timely book, calls "the Derrida Virus", and partly by the Imprimatur given to the style (for that is what it is) by Philip Johnson. Before the 1939-1945 War, Johnson had also encouraged the pandemic of the International Style with the exhibition he and H. R. Hitchcock organized in New York City. Now, Deconstructivism has been hailed as a "New Paradigm" by those who ought to know better, and the cult is being forced on students in those breeding grounds of the ugly and the unworkable, namely the Schools of Architecture. (In the reviewer's opinion, they ought to be properly renamed Schools for the Destruction of the Environment, and, in any reasonable society, closed down because of the menace they pose for the future).
This excellent and thoughtful book dismantles the flimsy codification known as Deconstructivism, showing how the ill-educated have been fooled by obfuscation, which they have mistaken for profundity. It also warns of the wholly negative nature of Deconstructivism. How many more of these so-called "iconic" buildings, with their jagged forms and uncomfortable spaces, their grotesquely impractical corners, their expense, and their disregard for context, can be sustained? Already, LAUS DEO, there are rumblings of discontent, and certain projects are being called into question as support falls away. Despite the pseudo-intellectual apologies for this cult/style, buildings resembling crumpled boxes, or with fronts looking as though they are sliding off in shards, cannot be justified, even using obfuscatory non-language. Nor can all the glossy pages of the journals that purport to be "architectural" (but are nothing of the sort) justify them, raising questions about trades descriptions.
"The Emperor Has No Clothes" is an old adage, but, in the sad case of Deconstructivism, it is absolutely appropriate, as the style is really nothing more than Modernism in a new guise. Modernists, notably the Bauhäusler, aimed for the clean slate the tabula rasa jettisoning everything that went before. Yet, at times, they claimed links with antecedents such as the Parthenon (Jeanneret-Gris alias Le Corbusier, and company), the English Arts-and-Crafts Movement (Pevsner et. al.), and Prussian Neo-Classicism (Mies van der Rohe) to give a spurious historical ancestry to their aims and creations. Now all sorts of barmy links and precedents are being claimed for the works of Deconstructivists by Deconstructivist architects and their supporters.
As this book points out, 'architects and architectural critics have become expertly adept at fancy wordplay, sounding impressive while promoting the deconstructivist style's unnatural qualities. This linguistic dance is used to justify a meaningless architecture of fashion'. Quite so, except that to some of us, blessed with a Classical education, it does not even sound impressive. We know it is simply empty jargon, meaningless pseudo-language, and ranting drivel of the worst sort. Cults invent their own liturgies and fraudulent language. Deconstructivism is a perfect example of this.
Deconstructivism is just another phase in the creation of the inhuman world dreamed of by Modernists. That world of uninhabitable cities, incessant noise, violent and pornographic entertainment, destruction of natural resources, an uncivilized, dangerous, selfish population, and all other attendant horrors, is rapidly becoming a nightmare of the most ghastly kind, in which even the buildings are distorted, misshapen, and menacing.
Architects are trained nowadays to destroy: they are brainwashed into killing off living organisms such as cities, and have no feeling for old buildings other than to wreck them too.
They are also trained to worship, starry-eyed, the few "star" architects who have gained favor with the arbiters of taste the journals so that when the stars go out or fall from the firmament, they have nothing left to worship. What is to become of them? They cannot do anything expect ape the once-fashionable and that which is passé, so (empty-headed and unskilled as they are) they really ought to be retrained to do something useful in a completely different field. Probably a mindless job which seems to be the most common these days, and one for which the products of most architectural schools are eminently suited is appropriate.
This book is the beginning of a long-overdue counterattack.
Professor James Stevens Curl is a leading architectural historian, and author of The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture, 1999.
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Page 70: Al-Talhouni residence, Amman, Jordan. The orientation of each courtyard must be carefully adjusted to permit maximum airflow, with sectional proportions adjusted accordingly.
