I’m going back to my home town next month and I’d like to buy a present for a friend of mine, whose birthday is just a few days after I arrive. He’s an architect and loves receiving architecture books. I asked him if he would like something, and, after much uhms and erhmms (bless his soul, he doesn’t want me to spend money), he said to pick something about English contemporary architecture.
The problem is that I know zilch about architecture, apart from “it’s the art involved in the devising of buildings and open spaces”, and that is vague enough to give an idea of my cluelessness.
So, um, what can I pick for him? I prefer an advice from someone that knows his/her architecture rather than just going to the Amazon website and wrestling with potentially biased reviews.
Difficult to say, especially if your friend is a avid collector of architectural books, he may already have a lot of the glossy standard texts. (This is a reason I tell people NOT to buy me books, as I have many of the standard books already).
Are you looking more for a glossy, coffee-table photo flick-thru’ kind of book, or a in-depth written thesis on current architectural practices / theories?
Does it have to be English contemporary? There are many interesting international practices that have beautiful and informative books released - like Morphosis, Ushida Findlay Partnership, Toyo Ito etc… I think perhaps it may be better to pick a single practicing (British) architect and purchase a book on his/her works which will give you a mixture of both - the photos and the design philosophy behind the projects. Look for collections outlining the works and thought of Will Alsop, Ian Richie or Marks Barfield, for example.
Coffee-table in the sense of content-free? No, but he is fine with books that go for the “photographic atlas” approach, if well prepared. Analysis is OK for him as well. I know he likes books that are inspirational for him, and give him a good perspective on something he doesn’t know. Coffee-table books, meaning with that something you have around the house to flick when killing a few minutes, are not his kind of thing.
That’s what he asked. Sure I could just pick something else, but it should be something very, very good to pull it off.
Good! Now at least I have a few names to start with. Any more suggestions?
Norman Foster
Richard Rogers
Nicholas Grinshaw
Michael Hopkins
David Chipperfield
Edward Cullinan
Peter Cook
Future Systems (a husband and wife team)
There are plenty of interesting practices about, doing interesting works. I don’t have access to any of my books right now to see what I would/ could specifically recommend as an ideal gift. You know what though (and I realise this isn’t much help, sorry), but my best advice is to head down to your local Waterstone or Borders and browse their architectural section for a book you deem yourself to have the right blend of words and pictures (for the price). It is very easy to be disappointed in a book bought on-line which turns out to be full of dated b/w pictures and dull writing, or NO text at all explaining the highly glossy presentation images…
