New Books in Architecture

Cooking Sections, "Waves Lost at Sea" (Spector Books, 2026)

02 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Waves Lost at Sea (Spector Books, 2026) traces the evolving practice of Cooking Sections, whose work spans visual arts, architecture, and ecology. S...

Lukas Novotny, "Modern New York: The Illustrated Story of Architecture in the Five Boroughs from 1920 to Today" (Rizzoli, 2023)

25 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Modern New York: The Illustrated Story of Architecture in the Five Boroughs from 1920 to Today (Rizzoli, 2023), Lukas Novotny calls attention not...

Elias V. Messinas, "Synagogues of Greece: A Study of Synagogues in Macedonia and Thrace" (Bloch Publishing, 2011)

13 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Across Greece, once-thriving Jewish communities stood for more than two thousand years. From the Romaniote Jews of Ioannina to the great Sephardic cen...

Tim Altenhof, "Breathing Space: The Architecture of Pneumatic Beings" (Zone Books, 2026)

05 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Breathing Space: The Architecture of Pneumatic Beings (Zone Books, 2026) is a compelling and wide-ranging analysis of pneumatic phenomena in modern c...

Erica Morawski, "Development Design: Hotels and Politics in the Hispanic Caribbean" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Underneath picturesque views of palm trees, fruity cocktails in hotel lounges, and day trips to preserved colonial zones lies a history of tourism des...

Imperial Depths: Mark Letteney and Matthew Larsen on the Roman Prison System (JP)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The notion of abolishing prisons strikes some as an impossible dream: could we could reasonably conceive of a society that responded to harm without t...

Catherine Boland Erkkila, "Spaces of Immigration: American Ports, Railways, and Settlements" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Spaces of Immigration: American Ports, Railways, and Settlements (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025) follows the travel routes of immigrants during a foun...

Lucy Lavers et al.," Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain" (Penguin, 2025)

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At the heart of the modern world lie ventilation shafts. We may not notice them, but wherever there are tunnels, sewers, mines, car parks and energy s...

Veronique Boone, "Le Corbusier on Camera: The Unknown Films of Ernest Weissmann" (Birkhaüser, 2024)

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Le Corbusier on Camera: The Unknown Films of Ernest Weissmann (Birkhaüser, 2024) is based on amateur films, shot by the architect Ernest Weissmann ...

Itohan I. Osayimwese, "Africa's Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage" (Princeton UP, 2025)

03 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Between the nineteenth century and today, colonial officials, collectors, and anthropologists dismembered African buildings and dispersed their parts ...

Iain Jackson et. al., "Architecture, Empire, and Trade: The United Africa Company" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Architecture, Empire, and Trade: The United Africa Company (Bloomsbury, 2025) pieces together a new architectural history of West Africa from the...

Bram de Maeyer, "Building for Belgium: Belgian Embassies in a Globalising World (1945-2020)" (Leuven UP, 2025)

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Embassy buildings are the most tangible evidence of a state’s diplomatic presence abroad. State authorities have invested in the architectural conce...

Edward Dimendberg ed., "Richard Neutra and the Making of the Lovell Health House, 1925–35" (Getty Research Institute, 2025)

25 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Neutra and the Making of the Lovell Health House, 1925–35 (Getty Research Institute, 2025) tells the story of the Lovell Health House, des...

Fernando Luiz Lara, "Spatial Theories for the Americas: Counterweights to Five Centuries of Eurocentrism" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2024)

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

To study the built environment of the Americas is to wrestle with an inherent contradiction. While the disciplines of architecture, urban design, land...

Graeme Brooker, "The Story of the Interior: How We Have Shaped Rooms and How They Shape Us" (Thames & Hudson, 2025)

10 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From traditional nomadic dwellings to state-of-the-art airports, through monumental temples and Baroque palaces to high-rise apartments and high-fashi...

Jessica Kelly and Neal Shasore, "Reconstruction: Architecture, Society and the Aftermath of the First World War" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Reconstruction explores the impact of the First World War on the built environment - examining the immediate effects and aftermath of the Great War o...

Stephanie Barczewski, "How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023)

29 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Stephanie Barczewski is an exploration of the evolution of the quintessentially English ...

Shiben Banerji, "Lineages of the Global City: Occult Modernism and the Spiritualization of Democracy" (U Texas Press, 2025)

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

War, revolution, genocide, rebellion, slump. The economic and political turmoil of the early twentieth century seemed destined to rip asunder the ties...

Rob Holmes et. al., "Silt Sand Slurry: Dredging, Sediment, and the Worlds We Are Making" (Applied Research & Design, 2023)

11 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Silt Sand Slurry: Dredging, Sediment, and the Worlds We Are Making is a visually rich investigation into where, why, and how sediment is central to t...

Benjamin Schneider, "The Unfinished Metropolis: Igniting the City-Building Revolution" (Island Press, 2025)

09 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In The Unfinished Metropolis: Igniting the City-Building Revolution (Island Press, 2025), Benjamin Schneider argues that American city-building is ...

Michael McCulloch, "Building a Social Contract: Modern Workers’ Houses in Early Twentieth-Century Detroit" (Temple UP, 2023)

30 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The dream of the modern worker’s house emerged in early twentieth-century America as wage earners gained access to new, larger, and better-equipped ...

Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, "Barbarian Architecture: Thorstein Veblen’s Chicago" (MIT Press, 2024)

26 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An important critic of modern culture, American economist Thorstein Veblen is best known for the concept of “conspicuous consumption,” the ostenta...

Tom White, "Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster" (Repeater, 2025)

23 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Once used extensively in schools, hospitals, and housing, asbestos has taken the lives of millions. Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster (Re...

John Goodall, "The Castle: A History" (Yale UP, 2022)

17 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In The Castle: A History (Yale University Press, 2022) Dr. John Goodall presents a vibrant history of the castle in Britain, from the early Middle A...

Pablo Meninato and Gregory Marinic, "Urban Labyrinths: Informal Settlements, Architecture, and Social Change in Latin America" (Routledge, 2025)

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Urban Labyrinths: Informal Settlements, Architecture, and Social Change in Latin America examines intervention initiatives in informal settlements in...

Claudia Gastrow, "The Aesthetics of Belonging: Indigenous Urbanism and City Building in Oil-Boom Luanda" (UNC Press Books, 2024)

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After centuries of colonial rule, the end of Angola’s three-decade civil war in 2002 provided an irresistible opportunity for the government to reim...

Cosima Clara Gillhammer, "Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy" (Reaktion Books, 2025)

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With implications for the history of religion and art alike, an exploration of the lasting influence of Christian liturgy across a range of media. Li...

Robert Jan van Pelt, "The Barrack, 1572-1914: Chapters in the History of Emergency Architecture" (Park Books, 2024)

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Barrack, 1572–1914: Chapters in the History of Emergency Architecture (Park Books, 2024) tells the little-known history of a building type ...

Janice Ross "The Choreography of Environments: How the Anna and Lawrence Halprin Home Transformed Contemporary Dance and Urban Design" (Oxford UP, 2025)

28 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Choreography of Environments: How the Anna and Lawrence Halprin Home Transformed Contemporary Dance and Urban Design (Oxford UP, 2025) explores ...

Emily Gee, "Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman" (Liverpool UP, 2025)

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman (Liverpool University Press, 2025) by Emily Gee is the first comp...

Carlotta Daro, "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication" (MIT Press, 2025)

05 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Architecture of the Wire explores the development of telecommunications infrastructure and its impact on the architectural and urban culture of t...

Aaron Cayer, "Incorporating Architects: How American Architecture Became a Practice of Empire" (U California Press, 2025)

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

By the end of the twentieth century, US architecture and engineering firms held more capital than entire countries, employed more people than were hou...

Olga Touloumi, "Assembly by Design: The United Nations and Its Global Interior" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)

30 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For almost seven years after World War II, a small group of architects took on an exciting task: to imagine the spaces of global governance for a new ...

Harald Bodenschatz et al., "Urban Planning in Nazi Germany: Attack, Triumph, Terror in the European Context, 1933–1945" (DOM, 2025)

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Urban Planning in Nazi Germany: Attack, Triumph, Terror in the European Context, 1933–1945 (DOM, 2025) is edited by Uwe Altrock, Harald Bodenschat...

Bench Ansfield, "Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City" (Norton, 2025)

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning!” That legendary and apocryphal phrase, allegedly uttered by announcers during the 1977 World Series a...

Edward Berenson, "Perfect Communities: Levitt, Levittown, and the Dream of White Suburbia" (Yale UP, 2025)

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The rise and fall of William J. Levitt, the man who made the suburban house a mass commodity. Two material artifacts defined the middle-class America...

Nezar AlSayyad and Heba Safey Eldeen, "Cinematic Cairo: Egyptian Urban Modernity from Reel to Real" (American U in Cairo Press, 2022)

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The relationship between the city and cinema is formidable. The images and sounds of the city found in movies are perhaps the only experience that man...

Ünver Rüstem, "Ottoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul" (Princeton UP, 2019)

27 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Istanbul, there is a mosque on every hill. Cruising along the Bosphorus, either for pleasure, or like the majority of Istanbul’s denizens, for tr...

Allan Doig, "A History of the Church through its Buildings" (Oxford UP, 2021)

19 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A History of the Church through its Buildings (Oxford University Press, 2021) by Allan Doig takes the reader to meet people who lived through momen...

Jake Kaner and Clive Edwards, "Conservation of Twentieth-Century Furniture" (Routledge, 2024)

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Conservation of Twentieth-Century Furniture (Routledge, 2024) provides comprehensive and accessible coverage of the materials and techniques that ar...

Ignacio G. Galán, "Furnishing Fascism: Modernist Design and Politics in Italy" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

12 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Along with the rise of Mussolini’s fascist regime, the interwar years in Italy also saw the widespread development of its modernist interior design ...

Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler, "Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

09 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Albeit inspired by a progressive vision of a working environment without walls or hierarchies, the open plan office has come to be associated with som...

John Barr, "1960s University Buildings: The Golden Age of British Modern Architecture" (Lund Humphries, 2025)

21 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 1960s continue to hold an almost mythical place in Western culture, particularly in Britain, where change was widespread and infiltrated many aspe...

Todd Reisz, "Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai" (Stanford UP, 2021)

18 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai (Stanford UP, 2020) by Todd Reisz is a critical historical account of Dubai’s transformation into a...

David Serlin, "Window Shopping with Helen Keller: Architecture and Disability in Modern Culture" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Window Shopping with Helen Keller: Architecture and Disability in Modern Culture (U Chicago Press, 2025) offers a history of how encounters between...

Noise and Information in the Office

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ever wonder who’s to blame for the noise and distraction of the open office? Our guest has answers. Joseph L. Clarke is a historian of art and arch...

Tupur Chatterjee, "Projecting Desire: Media Architectures and Moviegoing in Urban India" (NYU Press, 2025)

04 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since the late 1990s, the multiplex in India has emerged as a dominant site of media exhibition, almost always embedded within the shopping mall. This...

Brutalism

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of High Theory Nasser Mufti talks with us about Brutalism. A twentieth century architectural style featuring imposing structures made ...

Roland Mayer, "The Ruins of Rome: A Cultural History" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The beguiling ruins of Rome have a long history of allure. They first engaged the attention of later mediaeval tourists, just as they do today. The in...

Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy, "Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism" (Princeton UP, 2025)

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades preceding World War II, professional architecture schools enrolled increasing numbers of women, but career success did not come easily....

Simona Valeriani, "The Royal Albert Hall: Building the Arts and Sciences" (Brepols, 2024)

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Royal Albert Hall: Building the Arts and Sciences (Brepols, 2024) by Dr. Simona Valeriani takes one of London’s most iconic buildings and decon...

Miles Glendinning, "Mass Housing: Modern Architecture and State Power – a Global History" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

15 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mass Housing: Modern Architecture and State Power – a Global History (Bloomsbury, 2021) is a major work that provides the first comprehensive histo...

Philip Howell, "Pub" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The pub is an English institution. Yet its history has been obscured by myth and nostalgia. In Pub (Bloomsbury, 2025) a new addition to the Object L...

Chandigarh

04 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Chandigarh is the shared capital city of the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, built under the leadership of modernist and brutalist architect Le C...

In Conversation: Islamic Architecture and Europe

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Ismail Patel speaks with Diana Darke about her new book, “Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture shaped Europe”. Le...

Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, "Architecture of Migration: The Dadaab Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Settlement" (Duke UP, 2023)

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Environments associated with migration are often seen as provisional, lacking both history and architecture. As Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi demonstrates in...

Byron Ellsworth Hamann, "The Invention of the Colonial Americas: Data, Architecture, and the Archive of the Indies, 1781–1844" (Getty, 2022)

18 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Invention of the Colonial Americas: Data, Architecture, and the Archive of the Indies, 1781–1844 (Getty, 2022) is an architectural history and ...

James Michael Buckley, "City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry" (U Texas Press, 2024)

18 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

California’s 1849 gold rush triggered creation of the “instant city” of San Francisco as a to base exploit the rich natural resources of the Ame...

Caitlín Eilís Barrett, "Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens" (Oxford UP, 2019)

08 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens (Oxford University Press, 2019) is the first contextually-oriented monograph on Egyptian...

Aurelia Campbell, "What the Emperor Built: Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming" (U Washington Press, 2020)

06 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most famous rulers in Chinese history, the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–24) gained renown for constructing Beijing’s magnificent Forbidden C...

Shannon Mattern, "A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences" (Princeton UP, 2021)

03 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration—promise to deliver new urban efficienci...

Patrick T. Reardon, "The Loop: The 'L' Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago" (Southern Illinois UP, 2020)

03 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every day Chicagoans rely on the loop of elevated train tracks to get to their jobs, classrooms, or homes in the city’s downtown. But how much do th...

Ben Highmore, "Playgrounds: The Experimental Years" (Reaktion, 2024)

27 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After World War II, a new kind of playground emerged in Northern Europe and North America. Rather than slides, swings, and roundabouts, these new play...

Theresa Flanigan, "The Ponte Vecchio: Architecture, Politics, and Civic Identity in Late Medieval Florence" (Brepols, 2024)

21 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Famous today for the shops lining its sloped street, the Ponte Vecchio is the last premodern bridge spanning the Arno River at Florence and one of the...

Adrian Tinniswood, "The Power and the Glory: Life in the English Country House Before the Great War" (Basic Books, 2024)

02 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour. Nothing lay beyon...

James T. White and John Punter, "Condoland: The Planning, Design, and Development of Toronto's CityPlace" (UBC Press, 2023)

01 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Casting an eye toward the frantic vertical urbanization of Toronto, Condoland: The Planning, Design, and Development of Toronto’s CityPlace (UBC, ...

Brian Donahue, "Slow Wood: Greener Building from Local Forests" (Yale UP, 2024)

26 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Slow Wood: Greener Building from Local Forests (Yale UP, 2024), environmental historian Brian Donahue advances a radical proposal for healing th...

Fiona Smyth, "Pistols in St Paul's: Science, Music, and Architecture in the Twentieth Century" (Manchester UP, 2024)

22 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On a winter's night in 1951, shortly after Evensong, the interior of St Paul's Cathedral echoed with gunfire. This was no act of violence but a scient...

Christopher Bell, "Walking East Harlem: A Neighborhood Experience" (Rutgers UP, 2024)

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

They call it Spanish Harlem or sometimes just El Barrio. But for over a century, East Harlem has been a melting pot of many ethnic groups, including P...

Vishaan Chakrabarti, "The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy" (Princeton UP, 2024)

15 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From one of today's most inspired architects and urban advocates, a manifesto for architecture as a force for addressing our biggest social challenges...

Subhashini Kaligotla, "Shiva's Waterfront Temples: Architects and Their Audiences in Medieval India" (Yale UP, 2022)

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The vibrant red sandstone temples of India's Deccan Plateau, such as the Pattadakal temple cluster, have attracted visitors since the eighth century o...

Paris, Cuba, and David from Any Direction with Lucy Benjamin

27 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode Pat speaks with Dr Lucy Benjamin. Dr Lucy Benjamin is a researcher in architectural theory and creative practice. Her work focuses on ...

René Boer, "Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives" (Valiz, 2023)

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In cities across the world, a new urban condition is spreading rapidly: an ever-increasing push toward efficiency, sanitization, surveillance and the ...

Amanda Shoaf Vincent, "Constructing Gardens, Cultivating the City: Paris's New Parks, 1977-1995" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the space of about two decades, five major parks were proposed, designed, and created in Paris. Some emerged from competitions between professiona...

Anat Geva, "The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s-1960s" (Texas A&M UP, 2023)

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Anat Geva about The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s-1960s (Texas A&M UP, 2023). There is no one mandate on how ...

Lynne B. Sagalyn, "Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change" (MIT Press, 2023)

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is it about Times Square that has inspired such attention for well over a century? And how is it that, despite its many changes of character, the...

Joy Knoblauch, "The Architecture of Good Behavior: Psychology and Modern Institutional Design in Postwar America" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2020)

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Inspired by the rise of environmental psychology and increasing support for behavioral research after the Second World War, new initiatives at the fed...

Farshid Emami, "Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran" (Penn State UP, 2024)

17 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A vibrant urban settlement from mediaeval times and the royal seat of the Safavid dynasty, the city of Isfahan emerged as a great metropolis during th...

Arif Hasan, "The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing" (Oxford UP, 2022)

10 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing (Oxford UP, 2022) sheds light on the global population living in slums, which has increased from...

Swati Chattopadhyay, "Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

03 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Swati Chattopadhyay's book Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2023) recasts the history of the British empire by focusi...

Everyday Architecture in Context: Public Markets in Hong Kong (1842-1981) (Chinese U of Hong Kong Press, 2023)

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do public markets, as ordinary as they seem, carry the weight of a city’s history? How do such everyday buildings reflect a city’s changing po...

Jorge Almazán et al., "Emergent Tokyo:: Designing the Spontaneous City" (Oro Editions, 2024)

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If ancient Kyoto stands for orderly elegance, then Tokyo, within the world’s most populated metropolitan area, calls to mind–– jam-packed chaos....

Victoria Perry, "A Bittersweet Heritage: Slavery, Architecture and the British Landscape" (Hurst, 2022)

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The 2020 toppling of slave-trader Edward Colston's statue by Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol was a dramatic reminder of Britain's role in tra...

Piotr Florczyk, "Swimming Pool" (Bloombury, 2024)

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This instalment of the Object Lessons series focuses on the Swimming Pool (Bloomsbury, 2024). The book explores the pool as a place where humans see...

Hsuan L. Hsu, "Air Conditioning" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Air conditioning aspires to be unnoticed. Yet, by manipulating the air around us, it quietly conditions the baseline conditions of our physical, menta...

Sarah El-Kazaz, "Politics in the Crevices: Urban Design and the Making of Property Markets in Cairo and Istanbul" (Duke UP, 2023)

15 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Politics in the Crevices: Urban Design and the Making of Property Markets in Cairo and Istanbul (Duke UP, 2023), Sarah El-Kazaz takes readers i...

Despina Stratigakos, "Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway" (Princeton UP, 2020)

11 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In her new book Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway (Princeton University Press, 2020), Despina Stratigakos investi...

Seth Bernard, "Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy" (Oxford UP, 2018)

07 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy (Oxford University Press, 2018), offers a holistic treatment of the developme...

Kateryna Malaia, "Taking the Soviet Union Apart Room by Room: Domestic Architecture before and after 1991" (Northern Illinois UP, 2023)

07 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Taking the Soviet Union Apart Room by Room: Domestic Architecture Before and After 1991 (Northern Illinois UP, 2023) Kateryna Malaia examines th...

Virginia Chieffo Raguin, "The Illuminated Window: Stories Across Time" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

05 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Illuminated Window: Stories Across Times (Reaktion, 2023) is a unique journey through stained-glass installations that spans both time and place....

Susanna Phillips Newbury, "The Speculative City: Art, Real Estate, and the Making of Global Los Angeles" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)

04 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Underlying every great city is a rich and vibrant culture that shapes the texture of life within. In The Speculative City: Art, Real Estate, and the ...

Daniel Campo, "Postindustrial DIY: Recovering American Rust Belt Icons" (Fordham UP, 2023)

20 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A pioneering Detroit automobile factory. A legendary iron mill at the edge of Pittsburgh. A campus of concrete grain elevators in Buffalo. Two monumen...

Tristan G. Brown, "Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China" (Princeton UP, 2023)

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to another episode of New Books in Chinese Studies. I am your host, Julia Keblinska, and I am speaking today to Prof. Tristan Brown about his ...

Joshua Skarf, "ArchitecTorah: Architectural Ideas in Judaism and the Weekly Torah Portion" (Urim, 2023)

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Joshua Skarf's book ArchitecTorah: Architectural Ideas in Judaism and the Weekly Torah Portion (Urim, 2023) is a collection of 178 short essays tha...

Daniel Jütte, "Transparency: The Material History of an Idea" (Yale UP, 2023)

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Transparency is a mantra of our day. It is key to the Western understanding of a liberal society. We expect transparency from, for instance, political...

Richard Schoch, "Shakespeare’s House: A Window onto his Life and Legacy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 – known colloquially as the 'B...

Lydia Zvyagintseva and Mary Greenshields, "Land in Libraries: Toward a Materialist Conception of Education" (Library Juice Press, 2022)

23 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The question of land is largely absent in libraries. Deeply committed to the neoliberal project as a guiding ideology of the profession, libraries exi...

Ruth Dalton, "Living in Houses: A Personal History English Domestic Architecture" (Lund Humphries, 2022)

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Living in Houses: A Personal History of English Domestic Architecture (Lund Humphries, 2022), Dr. Ruth Dalton presents a rich and rewarding histo...

Chad Randl and D. Medina Lasansky, "Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space" (MIT Press, 2023)

09 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

An essay collection exploring the board game's relationship to the built environment, revealing the unexpected ways that play reflects perceptions of ...

Faiza Moatasim, "Master Plans and Encroachments: The Architecture of Informality in Islamabad" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

30 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Among urban designers and municipal officials, the term encroachment is defined as a deviation from the official master plan. But in cities today, suc...