Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City [Paperback]

Stan Allen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1568981554 | ISBN-13: 978-1568981550 | Edition: 1

Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City is a book of New York architect Stan Allen's writings and projects that propose new architectural strategies for the contemporary city. Organized in the form of a user's manual, it juxtaposes speculative texts outlining Allen's general principles with specific projects created by his office.
The book's title refers to this interplay of practice and theory, evoking not only the points of activity and the paths of movement found in a contemporary city but also the points of speculation and lines of argument in theoretical discourse.
Projects include the Cardiff Bay Opera House, Wales; the Korean-American Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Museo del Prado, Madrid; and White Columns Gallery, New York. Each project is accompanied by explanatory text as well as numerous drawings, models, photographs, and computer renderings. K. Michael Hays contributes an introductory essay; R. E. Somol writes the postscript.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stan Allen worked for Richard Meier and Rafael Moneo before opening his own practice. He teaches at Columbia University and is projects editor of the journal Assemblage. His work has been published in Assemblage, A+U, Interiors, and Architectural

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568981554
• ISBN-13: 978-1568981550
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #928,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars potential energy, June 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City (Paperback)

This book contains some of the more useful thoughts published on diagrams to date. Although many architects frequently refer to diagrams as a methodology, Stan Allen has made them one of the focal points of his work. This book and his lectures often excite controversy over the way in which architects use diagrams. Diagrams have a kind of potential energy which can be interpreted in a number of ways to generate a piece of architecture. The book Points + Lines introduces ideas with which every student should be familiar and which each architect should address. Stan Allen makes a refreshingly clear delivery of his ideas in a contemporary architecture culture of overcomplication, vacant formalism, and thoughtless commercial production. We can only hope that the author's relatively young age will privelege us with the production of more written work.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forcing Form/Forming Force, February 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City (Paperback)

This book addresses a universal question in regards to understanding and, more importantly, presenting an abstract, yet more comprehensible reference between architecture and other contextual elements. Stan Allen proposes that they are all fractions of a common system, the most complex order of `the city' in this case. He has eloquently woven various aspects of these manifold connections through his writings, and validated them in extremely stimulating diagrams. The results are projects that are filters for seeing figures of architecture in exchange with the background of the city. Architecture is complicated; not by itself, but because it is a component in a complicated network. This condition in the city can be manipulated by (and through) architecture--in the form (and force) of a point, other times of a line, but most of the time both.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Point, June 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City (Paperback)

Stan Allen is a rare architect today in that he maintains both a theoretical and built practice. Points + Lines contains a series of articulate, clearly written essays, loosely paired with projects that explore his theoretical position on architecture and its relation with the contemporary city. This book which is essentially a monograph of architectural writings and projects that confirm the viability of an architecture that encompases both theory and practice simultaneously.