Book Recommendations

[George_Apley]

It will be nice to have a thread depository for good books about architecture, urbanism, Boston history, etc.

I just dug into this one from 2015 and it’s a good dive into metro-Boston suburban development, evolution and its impacts on the region. Based on my reading so far, I recommend.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

I'm hoping with the current BLM movement that more liberals realize their hypocrisy in helping create (or at least look the other way) racist urban policy.

 

[Vagabond]

A little dated if you want to know about the most modern techniques... but the core insights are still relevant because, well most buildings are old. (Falling down is more fun.)

 

[stefal]

Informal by Cecil Balmond, an engineer that had a bit more of a creative edge and worked with Koolhaas, Libeskind, and the likes to find structural solutions to their designs and/or visions.

From the website:

informal articulates Balmond’s manifesto for a new approach to design. Charting the evolution of form, his explorations into structure, pattern and geometry challenge conventional ideas, uncovering the possibilities for a more intuitive and dynamic approach. Toppling a tradition of Cartesian stability, informal reveals a process that allows for mystery, mysticism, doubt and fluidity, shifting the ground in engineering and architecture.

Through lyrical personal sketches, theory and prose, informal reveals Balmond’s intimate moments of creation with his co-collaborators Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, amongst others.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Informal by Cecil Balmond, an engineer that had a bit more of a creative edge and worked with Koolhaas, Libeskind, and the likes to find structural solutions to their designs and/or visions.

From the website:

As a civil engineer myself with an interest in architecture, that looks like a good read.

 

[theSil]

I recently acquired two books that seem to be the urbanist required reading du jour, The Color of Law and Order Without Design. Very much looking forward to both and hope to report back soon with my opinions.

 

[WormtownNative]

For the history nerds, you may remember about Prop 2.5 when it was implemented and what cuts resulted in public services. You may also remember about the arson spree in the 80's. Burn Boston Burn talks about the investigation of that spree from the perspective of the ATF agent that investigated the case. Was highly recommended by several people to me and I just picked it up myself. Just listening to a podcast interview of the author, some of the stuff in the book is wild (arsonists driving a unmarked cop car with the license plate "Arson", a off-duty cop waving a gun in the air like he's at a rodeo at a fire, people cheering at fires, and other stuff that just seems insane). I can't wait to read it.

 

[ritchiew]

I'll recommend "The Great American Transit Disaster: A Century of Austerity, Auto-Centric Planning, and White Flight" by Nicholas Dagen Bloom, which came out this year. Each chapter is case study on a different city, looking at the politics and decisions along the way from great public transportation to roughly zero public transportation in many cases (like Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, etc).

There are a couple of chapters devoted to Boston, which is held out as an example of generally doing things right, or best as could be in any given era. It's a nice reminder of how good Boston's public transit is (was? can be again, eventually?). Even in the pretty garbage state of the T these days, it carries more people than the metro systems of much larger cities. It's kinda crazy how far Boston punches above its weight

 

[#bancars]

I think People Before Highways by Karilyn Crockett is a good read on community organizing and planning in the context of the Boston highway revolts and Southwest Corridor

 

[thepixelnation]

One iconic book I didn't see mentioned here is Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas, detailing the Bussing Crisis and everything around it.

 

[stefal]

Not directly tied to architecture, but this one has been catching my eye recently at bookstores, and I noticed it is now a free audiobook on Spotify with a premium account. A little into the first interview so far and its pretty good. It does include architects in the discussion eventually (also helps that her father was an architect), and ties a lot of things together on solving the climate crisis. It helps frame climate solutions in the same "visionary" way an architect might think, in my opinion.

This book is an anthology of sorts, a mosaic — 20 interviews, 5 poems, 3 co-authored chapters, 2 artists’ new works, a note from my dad, and a quote from my mom.

It includes visionary farmers and financiers, architects and advocates, producers and policy wonks. Mega brains. All stars.

https://www.getitright.earth/

 

[The EGE]

I would like to highly recommend "Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston". It is incredibly detailed and exhaustively researched - it's explicitly a spiritual successor to "Boston: A Topographical History", and actually corrects a few errors in it. It's also very readable and engaging for an academic text/reference work. I've been savoring a dozen or two pages a night for the last few weeks and I'm sorry it's almost over.