Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects: Architecture, Art, and Craft

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Less than expected

Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects

Light and Line

Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects: Architecture, Art, and Craft
Paul Goldberger
Manufacturer: Monacelli
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Criticism | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
General | Architects, A-Z | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 1580930824

Book Description

Over the past 35 years, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, based in Seattle, has created a body of architecture that is recognized for its ability to merge notions of materiality, craft, and lightness, all of which are richly demonstrated in their work on art collectors' residences and art museums. The firm began its creative existence with architect Jim Olson, whose work in the late 1960s explored the complex relationship between dwellings and the landscape they inhabit. In the early 1970s the growing firm broadened its emphasis to include urbanism and the landscape of the city.

Though firmly rooted in the regional features of the Pacific Northwest -- its unique climate and dramatic landscape -- the firm's work extends beyond any regionalist classification. Instead, their projects are charecterized by a relaxed modernism that is attuned to its regional context. Each of the projects featured in this volume exhibit a striking use of both natural and highly refined materials, masterful modulation of light, a careful balance between monumentality and intimacy, and frequent collaborations with artists and craftsmen, especially glass artists such as Ed Carpenter.

Customer Reviews:

Less than expected.......2007-05-13

Being OSKA an incredible architecture studio, and having a very good Web page, I was eager waiting for the book, but unexpectedly, the layout, colors and pictures of the book weren't in the same level

Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects.......2003-06-08

In a characteristically perceptive and graceful introduction, Paul Goldberger suggests that the world has caught up with the good sense and refined sensibility of this Seattle firm. This is a handsome, expansive study of a dozen houses, built for people of means and taste-a rare combination. All but two are located in the northwest, and each immerses you in the natural beauty of its site and its inner serenity. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

Light and Line.......2003-03-30

This book wisely does not try to show all the work of Olson Sundberg Kundig and Allen, one of the Northwest's leading architecture firms. Instead it focuses on a small number of selected homes designed by the firm, and then guides the reader through the creative process, from design through construction to finished product. What emerges is an elegant book of even more elegant homes, each quite different from the other, but all seeming to harness to the max both the power of line and the nurturing complexity of light.

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Graphic Design Foundation Course
Curtis Tappenden
Manufacturer: Cassell Illustrated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Graphic Arts | Graphic Design | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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Graphic Design School, Third Edition

ASIN: 1844032205

Book Description

The latest in the superb Foundation Course series brings artists the best possible practical instruction on the practice and application of graphic design, which is one of the most popular art-based classes. With this visually striking handbook, students can take lessons right at home. Everything a would-be designer needs to know is covered, from fundamental techniques to business procedures, such as examining a client brief and planning a presentation. Novices will learn how to choose the right tools for the job, develop concepts, create logos, choose effective typefaces, develop their drawing skills, produce a good layout, and execute final projects with flair.

Design and Communication for Foundation Courses

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Design and Communication for Foundation Courses
Peter J. Gowers
Manufacturer: Nelson Thornes Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0174386338

Book Description

Spellbinding, vivid photographs portray the diverse ways various cultures celebrate the tradition of matrimony around the globe. The preparations, the ceremonies, the joining together of a couple, the giving away of a child, and much more, are captured in moving, beautiful photographs. An extraordinary collection of touching moments, Weddings joyfully displays the art and spirit of matrimony.

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Return of Marvel's Western Heroes?

Outstanding art coupled to a middling story.

Recommended For Fans of Westerns or Good Comics

Shoot 'em Up!!!

A good read for anyone who rememebers the old western comics

Blaze Of Glory TPB
John Ostrander
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
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Customer Reviews:

Return of Marvel's Western Heroes?.......2005-06-23

For anyone thinking they will see the old Marvel Western heroes of yesteryear, think again. These "new" versions of the old standbys are quite different from the originals of the 50',60's and 70's. Kid Colt (my old favorite)has an anger management problem and shoots defenseless enemies.The other characters also have different slants. They are basically new characters with old names. Once you get past that, Ostrander's story can be viewed in a different light. This story is a recycled Magnificent 7 at best. The art on the other hand is outstanding.If only someone would bring back the old characters with a fresher more original story.

Outstanding art coupled to a middling story........2004-06-11

Once upon a time, comic books used to follow the same genre trends as other popular media. Marvel Comics, these days a company synonymous with the superheroics of Spider-Man and the X-Men, had its share of WWII comics...and westerns, too. BLAZE OF GLORY is a collaboration between prolific writer John Ostrander and Argentinian artist Leonardo Manco, and collects a handful of Marvel's long-disused western heroes in a miniseries that promises much more than it actually delivers.

It's 1885 and the Old West has begun to pass, replaced by railroads, miners, ranchers and the trappings of civilization. Already the myth building of the frontier is underway in such places as Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. When a small town in Montana, it's population made up predominantly of ex-slaves and Indians, falls under siege by KKK-styled night raiders, it's up to one man with a violent past to find defenders willing to risk everything for a bunch of strangers.

The basic storyline of BLAZE OF GLORY is certainly clichéd. Anyone who's seen THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN or ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST knows exactly where this tale is going and how it got started. Of course the little town in question is of value to a crooked man with a lot of money in his pocket for hired guns. Of course the night raiders want to run off the inhabitants at the bad guy's behest. And, of course, things are going to end with a lot of gunfire and heroic deaths.

It doesn't help matters that there are six major characters and just 88 pages to introduce them all. Four of these six have the word "kid" in their names, too: Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid, Outlaw Kid and Kid Colt. Ostrander clearly has a fondness for Rawhide Kid (he returns in a sequel, APACHE SKIES), and consequently we learn more about Johnny Bart than we do about any of the other gun fighters that form the ostensible core of the miniseries. The stories of these other heroes are conveyed almost by footnote, and with the requisite number of shootings and chases there's little time to do much with any of them before the big climax.

Where Ostrander's story fails on several levels, Manco's artwork succeeds admirably. Manco uses heavy inks and shadow to give his pages amazing texture. This is the best these characters have ever looked; Manco's vision has given even the corniest hero - these characters almost all come from the '50s, remember - a post-Leone appearance that makes them seem all the more plausible as authentic gunslingers.

Manco's art is so good, in fact, that one wishes there was more to Ostrander's overstuffed script. With so much going on, there's no time for Ostrander to do more than pay the briefest amount of attention to any given plot thread. The villain of the piece is uncovered in the space of two pages with no explanation of how it happened. Subplots appear, vanish and reappear without warning. A limited page count, just four-issues originally, generally focuses a story, but BLAZE OF GLORY is all over the map.

Regardless, there's a certain kind of atavistic response readers will have to the story. Decades of westerns where heroes make a desperate last stand have conditioned us to react in certain ways, and BLAZE OF GLORY is no different, thanks largely to Leonardo Manco's outstanding, and evocative, art.

Recommended For Fans of Westerns or Good Comics.......2003-08-26

Many former western heros return to join forces for one last time to defend a small town in this western shoot 'em up.

Although the story is nothing new or innovative, this is still a good comic book. The dialogue is passable in this tale, but the artwork is where the book really shines. Manco's artwork conveys the action scenes and gunfights nicely and his gritty style fits the story well (keep in mind though that his work here is not the painted art style seen in the sequel "Apache Skies").

This book is recommended for fans of old time westerns with many gunfights and comic fans who like an action-oriented story with good artwork.

Shoot 'em Up!!!.......2003-03-02

I have to admit, I'ma sucker for Westerns. These days, not a lot of good movies or books come out about them, other than cliched stuff we got a long time ago. Now I don't remember any of these character of the days gone by, but I do know that this collection is marvellous. I was recommended Apache Skies by a comic bookstore owner during my stay in Toronto, but I couldn't read a sequel without reading the original. Boy, what fun it was to read through this, I might say.

The story, I'm afraid to say, is cliched. But then all Westerns are. This one is different, however in terms of how these characters of the past were brought together by a common goal. To help people in need even when their life was at stake. The cast is eclectic and everyone seems to be called Kid this or this Kid. If kids could actually shoot like that in the old days, good thing we're in the 21st century. Ostrander provides a no hassle, origin free story of the characters and takes them off one by one by the end of this 96 page collection. He does so ith style and with respect to these legends.

Leonardo Manco was born to draw this. His grim style and shadowy outlines make this story come to life in ways, no artist could. He's really good when compared to his early days on Hellstorm. You don't want him to draw spandex. This guy is a method artist and he'll give you reality in its grimmest. With each project, his hand seems to get more and more at ease with making the reader used to his style at a first glance.

Great book with a nice and very sad ending. For a reader who has hardly known these characters, it's very hard to say goodbye in such a short notice. Then again, do people actually die in comics? Better check out the sequel to see where the story was heading when the sun was setting on our heroes at the end.

A good read for anyone who rememebers the old western comics.......2002-10-13

John Ostrander ( Grimjack, The Spectre) says goodbye to the Marvel Western lineup of the sixties and early seventies. In bringing a Spaghetti western sensibility to what were essentially Roy Rogers clones he puts a new spin and fitting ending to these forgotten heroes.

Customer Reviews:

Lacking Objectivity, Cohesiveness, and Professionalism.......2006-03-02

I ordered this book because I thought it would give me a modern perspective on what it's like to live in an Arabic-speaking country. I got perspectives, alright. This book is packed full of ethnocentric bias, but lacks a clear sense of narrative direction. Finally, Dr. West should have run this book past an editor or two; the book is rife with spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors.

Dr. West's rhetoric can be profoundly ethnocentric. The first page of the book can be read in so many different ways, it's not even funny. I paraphrase: "Everyone knows that Christianity is/was spread by peace and love" [while comparing life in a primarily-Christian country to life in a primarily-Muslim country]. There are numerous places in the text where he remarks upon local practices and traditional ways of life as "strange," "funny," et cetera. The author (a fervent Christian) admits many times throughout the book his many attempts to testify to high-ranking Muslims. I found all of this to be unacceptable, since the author is, apparently, a well-established member of the medical community.

The book is written in three parts (or sections, whatever you would like to call them). In the broad sense, the book maintains some narrative direction. Broken down beyond several-year spans, though, the book loses this cohesiveness. It seems to be written a broken sort of "stream of consciousness." Every paragraph in the book has a title, like entries in a diary. For example, the titles of four consecutive paragraphs are "Improved Shopping," "The Training of Policemen," "Watch out for the Garbage Trucks," and "Comments About Practicing Religion in Saudi Arabia." This scatterbrained approach to writing is the second of three main reasons why it's so hard to maintain interest in this book.

Finally, Dr. West cannot write. I found the writing style jerky, angular, and rough. Most of the sentences are simple and short; even then, Dr. West misuses commas, forgets what colons and semicolons are, and misspells simple words. This turns an otherwise easy-reading session into a torture session.

In conclusion, avoid this book. It tells one very little about Saudi Arabia from objective eyes. If you're interested in a Western-biased, ethnocentric view of a conservative Muslim country, pick this up. Otherwise, don't waste your money.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent reference & delightful, usable guide book!.......1999-09-02

NATIVE HARVESTS is a popular work of ethnobotany! Well-illustrated with pen & ink botanicals by the author, this little book has become a leading guide book & teaching text - used in high schools, colleges, environmental & national parks centers, & on Indian reservations. Fortunately is has been expanded by the author in a new "20th birthday edition" now available as Native Harvests: American Indian Wild Foods & Mushrooms, published in November 1998 by the Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, CT (250-pages) 860-868-0518. Color folio included! Outstanding!

Native harvests: Botanicals and recipes of the American Indian

Average customer rating:

Outstanding classic on American Indian foods-just republ!
Outstanding classic on American Indian foods-just republ!

Native harvests: Botanicals and recipes of the American Indian
E. Barrie Kavasch
Manufacturer: American Indian Archaeological Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding classic on American Indian foods-just republ!.......1999-07-04

Three new chapters: on healing arts, spirituality, & herbal traditions, along with a section of seasonal menus, plus a new color folio are available in the "just released" 20th birthday edition of NATIVE HARVESTS: AMERICAN INDIAN WILD FOODS & RECIPES (1998), Birdstone Publishers, Institute for American Indian Studies, Washington, CT 06793 @ 860-868-0518.

Outstanding classic on American Indian foods-just republ!.......1999-07-04

Native Harvests: Recipes & Botanicals of the American Indian

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Native Harvests: Recipes & Botanicals of the American Indian
E. Barrie Kavasch
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MC29V4

Native Harvests: Recipes and Botanicals of the American Indian

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Native Harvests: Recipes and Botanicals of the American Indian
Barrie Kavasch
Manufacturer: RANDOM HOUSE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OJEX32

Native Harvests: Recipes and Botanicals of the American Indian No. 05833

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Native Harvests: Recipes and Botanicals of the American Indian No. 05833
Barrie Kavasch
Manufacturer: Random House Inc (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Baking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

Great Book on WW2's First Rangers

Darby's Rangers 1942-45 (Warrior)
Mir Bahmanyar
Manufacturer: Osprey Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1841766275
Release Date: 2003-04-20

Book Description

This title follows one recruit through commando, raiding and amphibious training in Scotland, and into action. It shows how the Rangers differed from the standard infantryman in both their combat mission and their combat skills, and how tactics were modified in the light of lessons learned. The experiences of battle covered include the Rangers' first action during the 1942 Dieppe raid, fighting elite Italian Bersaglieri units at Station de Sened and the Afrika Korps at Dernaia Pass in 1943, spearheading the invasion of Sicily and Italy in late 1943, and the gruelling combat up the Italian boot until war's end. Packed with first hand accounts, and many unpublished photographs, it provides a vivid description of life among the elite soldiers of Darby's Rangers.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book on WW2's First Rangers.......2005-02-10

This is a well researched history of Darby's Rangers. The author gives an excellent ground level view of what it was like to join, train and fight as a Darby Ranger. Excellent photographs and color plates.

Customer Reviews:

a remarkable and devastating compendium.......2005-12-15

"There is very little to eat. Very little to wear. Papa just doesn't get a job. He has no permanent job. Before the leak, he used to work on a boring machine. Now he cannot work on that machine.

"Carbide must be punished. Take them to the police station. Then hit them and then jail them--those Carbide fellows. I can't play. I am weak. My hands and legs ache when I run. I get breathless soon. If I run I fall down immediately."

So said Suresh, an eight-year old student from the city of Bhopal, India, in the aftermath of the December 2-3, 1984 leakage of 80,000 pounds of methyl isocyanate (MIC, an ingredient of the pesticide Sevin) from the Union Carbide plant that killed up to 10,000 overnight. Children have an uncanny sense of truth-telling.

So, too, does the Bhopal Reader, a remarkable and devastating compendium of primary and secondary sources on the disaster. It reprints the charge sheet, arrest warrant, and bail bond for then-Carbide Chair Warren Anderson. Although he was indeed taken to a police station, he was not jailed, and both Mr. Anderson and Union Carbide have been pronounced "absconders" by Indian courts for failing to this day to appear to face charges of culpable homicide, the equivalent of manslaughter in the US. "Those Carbide fellows" have never fully faced the consequences for their role in the disaster, while Suresh (if she survived) and her fellow Bhopal residents live every day with the consequences, which include contaminated water and soil and inadequate medical attention.

The book brings the issue very close to the present, as it also reprints the January 6, 2005 order from the Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate asking Dow Chemical (ticker: DOW), which acquired Union Carbide in 2001, to present the absconders. Ward Morehouse, one of the book's editors, is asking Dow the same question today at its annual meeting, appearing as a representative of socially responsible investment (SRI) firm Boston Common Asset Management to read a letter that the company has failed to respond to before now.

The book touches on shareholder activism as the latest in 20 years of activism asking Union Carbide to assume accountability for the disaster. Boston Common submitted a shareholder resolution asking Dow to address the legacy of the Bhopal disaster last year. When it did so again this year, Dow petitioned the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for permission to omit the resolution on technical grounds, according to Lauren Compere, chief administrative officer at Boston Common.

"The resolution was omitted this year because we essentially reversed the supporting statement and the resolve clause--that was it," Ms. Compere told SocialFunds.com. "The SEC ruled that we were asking about future liability which we have no business doing...."

This position of subverting corporate accountability is completely consistent with the tactics presented throughout the book, as Union Carbide and now Dow seek to do the absolute minimum in taking responsibility for the disaster. Through the course of the book, the reader feels a slow accretion of information that makes it impossible to comprehend the current position of Dow's refusal to accept accountability.

The book documents how the tragedy started years before the actual gas leak, as internal Union Carbide documents reveal how the Bhopal plant was inferior to its sister plant in the United States, and how the company was well aware of multiple safety breaches. The company was warned, both internally and externally, of the risk the plant posed to the surrounding population.

"Phosgene gas that was used by Hitler in his gas chambers, and that is used for the production of methyl isocyanate, is stored in a tank in this factory and if that leaks or explodes it will take one to one and half hour for the death of the entire population of the city," wrote Rajkumar Keswani in the October 1, 1982 edition of Rapat Weekly, two years before the disaster.

The book also reprints Union Carbide and Dow documents and explanations, but the companies' attempts to bolster their case against legal liability only serves to increase their moral liability in the reader's eyes (to borrow concepts advanced by SustainAbility in a recent report). One of the most devastating sections in a book filled with sections that brought this reviewer to tears is "Moral orientations to suffering," a 1995 essay by Delhi University professor Veena Das. The essay points out how the aftermath of the disaster essentially re-victimized the victims while absolving Union Carbide of its culpability.

In the end, the strength of the stories related in each of the sections cohere to become something much larger than a book, and more of a catalyst for readers to abandon complacency.

"I guess I am now expected to make my point, elaborate on the meaning of the stories, draw upon their interconnectedness and present a framework that holds them together," writes Satinath Sarangi, another of the book's editors, in an essay reprinted in the text. "That would, however, be straying away from why I really wanted to tell these stories."

"Why I really began telling these stories was to move you, dear reader, to action. Twenty years is much too long and we have had a lot of words," he continues. "No more interpretations, no more words--the point is to stop the medical disaster in Bhopal."

I originally published this review on SocialFunds.com.

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