Architecture after modernism /

Ghirardo has written a wonderful worldwide survey of the architecture of the past 30 years. She divides this vast territory into three major areas: public spaces, which she sees as dominated by shopping malls and theme parks; housing, both public and private, single-family and multifamily; and urban developments, such as Canary Wharf in London. This is a "critical" survey, rather than an art historical one such as Heinrich Klotz's History of Postmodern Architecture (CH, Nov'88). In fact, Ghirardo is twice "removed" from her subject matter. First, she writes with the conscience of a concerned feminist; second, she is fortified by the anti-establishmentarianism of critical theory. She peeks behind the mask of good intentions projected by all architectural projects to the bad intentions underneath; concomitantly, she yearns for a less outrageously capitalistic architecture, driven less by sheer power and ego. Her critical judgments are sensitive and acerbic, and she has no tolerance for the fool's game of architectural theory. Like another West Coast writer on architecture, the late Spiro Kostof of Berkeley, she does not comprehend design as a humanistic discipline. Rather more pessimistically, she understands architecture as the unfortunate outcome of overwhelming social, economic, and political forces that bind and ultimately dispel individual talent. In the end, she appears to believe that we build more serious problems than we solve with buildings--a daunting judgment, and one worth knowing and acting on. General; undergraduate; graduate. P. Kaufman Boston Architectural Center

Though students of architectural design are often most engaged by current work, critical histories of recent architecture are not plentiful. For that reason, Ghirardo's (Out of Site: A Social Criticism of Architecture, LJ 4/1/91) book makes a significant contribution to information resources on the architecture of the past 25 years. In particular, the postmodern and deconstructivist work of the last ten years is emphasized in her clear, if not especially elegant, prose. In the introduction, the author constructs a historiography of architectural thought and criticism since the reign of modernism; she then divides the chapters not chronologically but thematically, discussing public space, domestic space, and "the urban sphere," this last section being untypically meandering at times. The strength of the book lies in its broad and international selection of examples, although, regrettably, many of them are discussed without illustration. The biggest disappointment is the relatively small number of photographs in color; by contrast, those in black and white are noticeably less descriptive. Recommended for all architecture collections.‘Paul Glassman, Pratt Inst. Lib., Brooklyn (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.