After 25 years of running this blog under various names — all of which can be lumped under the "Archidose" monicker — I've decided to shut it down, moving this hobby, this labor of love, to Substack, which I have used since mid-2021 and where I will continue to send out weekly newsletters focused on architecture books, but in a new format. (You can subscribe to my newsletter here or on Substack.) So, this isn't "goodbye" as much as it is "see you in your inbox."  Grayer and hopefully wiser: me, John Hill, from the mid-1990s until today Besides thinking something along the lin ..read more

Instead of digesting a new book or diving into a novel, something others do often but I do rarely, I spent my holiday break reading a five-year-old book about a trio of intertwined topics I'm particularly fond of: drawings, exhibitions, and New York City. Drawing on Architecture: The Object of Lines, 1970-1990 by Jordan Kauffman, published by The MIT Press, 2018 (Amazon / AbeBooks) As the book's subtitle indicates, Drawing Architecture covers a two-decade period — the 1970s and 80s — when architectural drawings produced by contemporary architects increased in popularit ..read more

For the fifteenth and last time on this blog, I'm highlighting my favorite books of the year, selected from the many books I reviewed or featured as "Book Briefs" on this blog, and the few titles that I reviewed at World-Architects. From the 86 books I featured in 2023, 15 (or 16) books made my list of favorites, organized into three categories: history, monographs, and exhibitions (the books are alphabetical by title within each category). As in previous years, not all of these books were published this year, given how slow I can be at digesting books and my departure from the annual spring/f ..read more

Just as last week's Places in Time III post featured a trio of books that were initially listed in my earlier holiday gift books post, two of the three monographs featured here were also on that list. As happened when I wrote this post, each book begins with a rhetorical question pertaining to monographs. This post features the last reviews of the year. A week from today I'll have a year-capping roundup of my favorites from the many books featured on this blog in 2023. An Atlas of Es Devlin by Es Devlin, edited by Andrea Lipps, published by Thames & Hudson, December 2023 (Ama ..read more

This third and most likely last installment in the inadvertent "Places in Time" series looks closely at three books: the first about Chicago from the Great Depression to the mid-1980s; the second one about the broader American built landscape over roughly the same period of time; and the third jumping to Switzerland and tracing the urban development of Schlieren, near Zurich, over a 15-year period this century. All three of the books were in my roundup of holiday gift books a couple of weeks ago. The first two Places in Time posts looked at Detroit/Chicago/St. Louis and Paris/Indones ..read more

This year's roundup of books to give to discerning architects for the holidays is presented in pairs. While at least one book in each pair is new, the other one isn't necessarily so — new, old, or not-so-old, it is related to the first in some manner, as explained in my descriptions. A few of these books will receive longer reviews next month. In the meantime, with this lengthy post and Thanksgiving coming up later this week, I'll be taking next week off, resuming regular posts the first week of December. HEADY STUFF FOR BRAINY ARCHITECTS AND ARCHITECTURE HISTORIANS: Architectur ..read more

A review of a new book released this week: The Japanese House Since 1945 by Naomi Pollock, published by Thames & Hudson, November 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop) What makes modern and contemporary Japanese houses so appealing? Much of it stems from the novelty of residential designs, which can be traced to a litany of factors, including a cultural acceptance of demolition and renewal that creates a constant stream of new architecture; a litany of legal requirements pushing architects — both young and established — to be formally creative; and let's not leave out the clients willi ..read more

The recent publication of two books prompted me to ponder the future of cities and do a write-up of them together: Implementing Urban Design: Green, Civic, and Community Strategies by Jonathan Barnett, published by Routledge, June 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop) Renewing the Dream: The Mobility Revolution and the Future of Los Angeles edited by James Sanders, published by Rizzoli Electa, September 2023 (Amazon / Bookshop) Implementing Urban Design is the latest of many books about urban design and planning by Jonathan Barnett, whose career and CV span ar ..read more

In 1939, Otto Neurath's Modern Man in the Making was released by Alfred A. Knopf. Neurath was director of the International Foundation of Visual Information and used the Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education) system to "teach through the eye." A recent article describes Modern Man in the Making as a "pictorial statistical history of human technological adaptation and social cooperation [that] addressed a modern audience searching for optimistic narratives amid an economically, politically, and socially volatile era." The book is a classic, and for someon ..read more

Over at World-Architects I reviewed As Found: Experiments in Preservation (Flanders Architecture Institute, 2023) edited by Sofie De Caigny, Hülya Ertas and Bie Plevoets, the companion to the exhibition of the same name at the Flanders Architecture Institute. Read my review here ..read more