Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago

Kamin, Blair

ISBN 10: 0226423212 / ISBN 13: 9780226423210

Published by University of Chicago Press, 2001

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 0226423212-4-32396101

Bibliographic Details

Title: Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from ...

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Publication Date: 2001

Binding: hardcover

Condition: Fair

About this title

Synopsis:

This work collects the best of architecture critic Blair Kamin's columns, including his acclaimed series advocating the intelligent development of Chicago's lakefront. Centred in Chicago, America's foremost architectural city, the book paints a portrait not just of soaring skyscrapers but also of vibrant immigrant neighbourhoods, troubled public housing projects, and sprawling suburbs. Using Chicago as a barometer of national design trends, the book sheds light on the state of American architecture during "the Nervous Nineties". It is a period of unparalleled affluence and underlying anxiety, of soothing retro buildings and provocative new ones that express the frenzied state of modern life. Chicago perfectly represents the decade's contradictions, rediscovering itself as a city but losing its architectural nerve. Throughout the book Kamin pursues the question of how people actually use space, and how architects and planners might better design it to enrich human experience. Architecture matters, he argues, because it simultaneously reflects and affects how we live.

About the Author:

Blair Kamin has been the architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune since 1992. He also is a contributing editor of Architectural Record. His work has been recognized with 20 professional awards, including such major honors as the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the George Polk Award for Criticism and the American Institute of Architects' Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement. Kamin also wrote the commentaries for Tribune Tower: American Landmark. He lives in a classic Chicago frame house with his wife, Chicago Tribune writer Barbara Mahany, and their son Willie.