Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago [Hardcover]

Blair Kamin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226423212 | ISBN-13: 978-0226423210 | Publication Date: October 1, 2001 | Edition: 1

For more than a decade, Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin has been writing fiery, intelligent essays on the state of contemporary architecture. His subjects range from high-rises to highways, parks to public housing, Frank Lloyd Wright to Frank Gehry. Why Architecture Matters collects the best of Kamin's acclaimed columns, offering both a look at America's foremost architectural city and a taste of Kamin's penetrating, witty style of critique.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"(M)ight have read like a sequence of frozen appraisals if Kamin didn't write with such a good eye and heart." -- Metropolis

"(P)owerful and eloquent...(Kamin) is a master of activist criticism." -- Robert Fishman, The Washington Post

"(Why Architecture Matters) sparkles with observations of how seemingly mundale design decisions affect public spaces." -- Cindy Hoedel, Kansas City Star

"Kamin's affection for his city colours every page....a felicitous mix of design, sociology and political science." -- Witold Rybczynski, Times Literary Supplement

Kamin's affection for his city colours every page. . . . A felicitous mix of design, sociology and political science. -- Witold Rybczynski, Times Literary Supplement

[M]ight have read like a sequence of frozen appraisals if Kamin didn't write with such a good eye and heart. -- Metropolis

[Why Architecture Matters] sparkles with observations of how seemingly mundane design decisions affect public spaces. -- Cindy Hoedel, Kansas City Star

From the Inside Flap

"Activist criticism is based on the idea that architecture effects everyone and therefore should be understandable to everyone," Blair Kamin writes in Why Architecture Matters. "Activist criticism invites readers to be more than consumers who passively accept the buildings that are handed to them. It bids them, instead, to become citizens who take a leading role in shaping their surroundings." The Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune critic has taught millions of readers exactly what this approach can do in the decade he has been writing his fiery, intelligent essays on the state of contemporary architecture. Working from the palette of Chicago, America's foremost architectural city, Kamin also paints on a broad canvas, and in his work he has assessed everything from Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain to the "green skyscraper" as it is developing in Germany to the haunting U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Why Architecture Matters collects the best of Kamin's columns, including his acclaimed series advocating the intelligent development of Chicago's lakefront. The columns are organized thematically, providing an accessible and provocative view of architecture in the 1990s, from soaring skyscrapers to vibrant immigrant neighborhoods, troubled public housing projects and sprawling suburbs. Because Chicago serves as a barometer of national design trends, these writings shed new light on American architecture and urbanism during a decade that Kamin labels "The Nervous Nineties"—a period of unparalleled affluence and underlying anxiety, of soothing retro buildings and provocative new ones that express the frenzied state of modern life. As Kamin demonstrates in his piercing, often witty, critiques, Chicago perfectly represents the era's contradictions, rediscovering itself as a city but losing its architectural nerve.

An architecture critic's most important role, Kamin believes, is to articulate standards that help people judge the quality of their surroundings, contrasting the esoteric theory of how buildings and public places are supposed to work with the unpredictable reality of everyday life. Throughout Why Architecture Matters, he pursues the question of how people actually use space, and how architects and planners might better design it to enrich human experience. Architecture matters, Kamin argues, because it simultaneously reflects and affects how we live. "Every building," he writes, "is a new piece of the evolving metropolis, a new layer of the ever-changing urban collage. This collective work of art forms an unflinching record of who we are and what we do."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 408 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226423212
• ISBN-13: 978-0226423210
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,896,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Blair Kamin is the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune. A graduate of Amherst College and the Yale School of Architecture, he holds honorary degrees from Monmouth University and North Central College, where he serves as an adjunct professor of art. Kamin has lectured widely and has discussed architecture on numerous programs, from ABC's "Nightline" to NPR's "All Things Considered." He is the winner of more than 30 awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the George Polk Award for Criticism and the American Institute of Architects' Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement. He has twice been a Pulitzer Prize juror. Kamin lives in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette with his wife, Chicago Tribune writer Barbara Mahany, and their sons Will and Teddy.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Activist criticism at its best, January 31, 2002

By 

Mark D. Johnson (Lynchburg, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago (Hardcover)

At the heart of this book, a collection of Kamin's Chicago Tribune articles spanning nearly a decade, is the author's adherence to his "consistent but flexible principles" of Activist Criticism. His critiques are not mere assessments of buildings as works of art; they are convincing arguments that as a whole show us the significant role architecture plays in a city. Far too many urban-dwellers blindly take whatever buildings go up around them and fail to realize how architecture shapes their lives, for better or worse, but Kamin implores us and our civic leaders to be more discerning, demanding worthy projects that will strengthen our cities.

Blair Kamin is not just a great critic with sharp insight: he's a terrific writer whose articles are seasoned with wit and a highly readable eloquence. Upon reading his work, it is no surprise that he won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism. It helps to be familiar with Chicago's landmark buildings, but that is not a prerequisite to learning some important lessons. This book is not just pleasure reading for architecture students, but for anyone who cares deeply about the architectural decisions being made in his or her city. By frequently reviewing proposed projects, Kamin goes on the offensive, raising some keen questions that go alarmingly unasked by the developers and politicians involved. This approach, with the resulting influence he wields, has altered the course of events in Chicago many a time (though, sadly, not always). One wishes he had the final approval on all the city's projects before groundbreaking. Architecture, as he says, is the "inescapable art" we all have to live with on a daily basis, and Kamin's activist criticism encourages us to learn from past mistakes in order to form a more livable city.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great, but mistitled, book about architecture, September 3, 2004

By 

David Greusel "urban architect" (Kansas City, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago (Paperback)

Okay, first, why mistitled?
This book is a compilation of columns and articles Blair Kamin wrote for the Chicago Tribune. He writes passionately (and well) about architecture, and the book is definitely worth reading. But the title is all wrong. If you want to know "Why Architecture Matters," don't buy this book. It won't tell you. If Kamin has a thesis about why architecture matters, he never comes out and says what it is.
What you will get, if you buy this book, is excellent commentary on the state of contemporary design, particularly as it relates to that most architectural of cities, Chicago. Kamin covers his beat well, and has opinions which are, as Michael Feldman would say, "well reasoned and insightful." Particularly powerful is his extended analysis of how architecture does and does not impact the social pathology of public housing in Chicago. This is great stuff--well researched, well reasoned and well written. Kamin looks past the conventional wisdom about the evils of high-rise public housing to what's really going on there--and whether what's going on has anything to do with the architecture or not. As I said, great stuff.
If he'd just called the book "Architecture Matters," I'd have given him 5 stars. The "Why" in the title begs for a thematic core that, unfortunately, is just not there.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book for city lovers, January 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago (Hardcover)

He makes clear the difference between a building as a structure and a building as part of a living city. While the examples are mainly from Chicago, this book is a must-read for anyone who loves cities.