Product Description

When is a house ecological? Does the use of natural materials and solar cells on the roof make a building an example of "green" architecture? Perhaps even Antoni Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright designed "greener" buildings than most contemporary architects, whose low-energy houses scarcely differ outwardly from traditional ones.James Wines puts up the various - and often irreconcilable - concepts of environmentally-friendly architecture for discussion, making a case for an architecture that not only focuses on technological solutions, but also tries to reconcile man and nature in its formal idiom. Among the examples of contemporary ecological architecture presented are works by Emilio Ambasz, Gustav Peichl, Arthur Quarmby, Jean Nouvel, Sim Van der Ryn, Jourda and Perraudin, Log ID, James Cutler, Stanley Saitowitz, Francois Roche, Nigel Coates and Michael Sorkin.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #591442 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Review
"An interesting exploration into how we might live and how we ought to live in harmony with nature." - Wisconsin State Journal, United States"

About the Author
Philip Jodidio studied art history and economics at Harvard University, and was editor-in-chief of the leading French art journal Connaissance des Arts for over two decades. He has published numerous articles and books on contemporary architecture, including TASCHEN's Architecture Now! series, Building a New Millennium, and monographs on Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, Santiago Calatrava, Norman Foster, Richard Meier, and Alvaro Siza.

Customer Reviews

Interesting dialog, insufficient overall
To be fair, I have not read the book cover to cover. My disappointment lies in the fact that there are many pretty pictures or coffee table book images throughout the book, but little in the way of architectural drawings or renderings. Furthermore, there is some discussion about materials and techniques but it does not seem to go into very much detail and the connection is not there to the images. For example, I am looking at Renzo Piano's Tjibaou Center (featured on the book jacket). There is some information about the use of bamboo and regional/cultural context but it does not go into detail and the pictures of the complex are not even on the same or adjacent pages. The pictures are also not oriented toward the discussion... they are little more than marketing photos so that you can recognize the site but not the materiality, function, or any other important characteristics of the project.

Two books in one.
I bought this book with the hope to find a contemporanean panorama about the green architecture since its beginnings to today but instead it seems a work thinked in the 90's years. I'm reading it but a bit slow, perhaps for its anachronic character. There is no much references to the present and althought the author try to escape and avoid the clichés from the green architecture (for example some people tends to think it as a method to put a bit of grass, so the author fortunately try to find a new real architectural point of view) in some moments he almost seems tempted to repeat the old stereotypes.
Well, but now i have to say that this book actually is two books in one: There is a book of words, and other secret book of images, images that directly don't support to the concepts explained for the author, and almost I think that the author thought his book as an essay without pictures.
To me this book has an interest as essay and of photographic reference(from Jodidio I suppose) to search in amazon. The Taschen edition work as always is great.