Observations for Young Architects

Customer Reviews:

Great inspirations for students of architecture!.......2001-09-30

In 200 pages or so and generously illustrated with photographs of his work, Cesar Pelli had summed up a lifetime of his own architectural insights. His thoughts are very pragmatic with a careful balance of theoretical insights. This book really shows how architecture should connect to our past, our present culture, and to our future. It reveals his design process and the way he envisions, plans, and designs his projects. It talks about how materials are related to architecture.

His thoughts are incisive and demonstrate the importance of clear thinking in architectural work. In many ways, his book does not deal with all the academic architectural mumble jumble out there. It shows a very useful path for all "students" of architecture. I really wish more architects would write books like this one. Thanks Mr. Pelli!

Learning from the Great Cesar Pelli Himself.......2000-04-10

I found this book to be very insightful. In this book, Pelli says there are 8 "connections" that influence architecture: time, construction, place, purpose, culture, design process, constituency, and oneself. In each section of the book he goes into each in depth. Reading the book almost makes you feel like Cesar Pelli himself is actually teaching you about the profession of architecture.

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Observations for Young Architects
cesar pelli
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000THF63K

Product Description

Hardcover in dust jacket.

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Observations for Young Architects
Cesar Pelli
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MUDZ64

The Quickest Way to Draw Well
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The Quickest Way to Draw Well
Frederic Taubes
Manufacturer: The Viking Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PRQ890

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The Quickest Way to Draw Well
Frederic Taubes
Manufacturer: Studio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Drawing | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0670585165

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The quickest way to draw well
Frederic Taubes
Manufacturer: Watson-Guptill Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Painting | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007E376S

Quickest Way to Draw Well
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Quickest Way to Draw Well
Fredreic Taubes
Manufacturer: Viking Compass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RAVWBY

Book Description

In this unique collaboration Arturo Patten, one of the most important portrait photographers of our time, and acclaimed writer Russell Banks visit the hardscrabble north country of Patten, Maine, to study its inhabitants. Patten's haunting portraits of the town's residents evoke characters who exist in Russell Banks's fiction. Banks, the author of Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter, and Affliction, observes Patten's "characters" from his remote cabin in the Adirondack hills of upstate New York, where he surrounds himself with the thirty-seven portraits and contemplates what they tell us about Patten, Maine, about portraiture, and ultimately about ourselves.

The Invisible Stranger, therefore, becomes nothing less than a meditation on what it means to be human. By becoming the "invisible stranger" and obscuring himself behind the camera's lens, Patten allows his subjects to emerge and then presents them to the viewer, who, seeing these individuals, also sees himself. Banks, too, acts as the "invisible stranger," studying the townspeople from hundreds of miles away and reflecting on the complex relationships between photographer and subject, subject and observer. Taken together, Patten's portraits and Banks's commentary offer a dramatic and provocative combination of word and image.

Customer Reviews:

Buy this book for the photography........2000-06-04

After seeing the stunning B&W portraits so wonderfully printed in this book, I knew I had to buy it regardless of what the text had to say. Even so, when I got it home I had high hopes that the text would tell me something about the people depicted in its pages, like a National Geographic story might. Or perhaps it would say something about the photographer and why he chose these subjects and what he liked about each image. I would have loved a technical treatise on how one takes such great on-location photographs.

Instead, the text, while well written, doesn't have much to do with the photographs at all--and that's a shame.

On the other hand the photographs are truly wonderful and they communicate for themselves. They show how compelling Black and White portraits can be. If you like Black and White portraits, buy this book for the photography. And if you enjoy Russell Banks' musings on the meaning of life, so much the better.

Heartening........1999-11-04

In response to what I feel was an undeserved criticism of this book--also being from Maine and in fact a Patten by birth--I would just like to say that quite to the contrary of viewing these photographs and their accompanying text as sad, dire, or despairing, I view them as striking at the heart of what it means to be human, with all its contradictory emotions. I consider this book a testament to a willingness to pause and let experience speak for itself. It may not be "quaint" but it certainly is profound.

all of humanity in one book.......1999-10-15

I suggest one copy of the new Harvard University Press Variorum Edition of Emily Dickinson and this incredible distillation/meditation on the human. Take both to a room somewhere and don't come out until you're haunted. Both evoke Death with a capital D.

A well intended concept falls short of its potential........1999-08-23

It's hard to be objective regarding The Invisible Stranger by Russell Banks and Arturo Patten having been raised in Patten, Maine.

When I heard about the book I was rather excited. I left Patten in 1993 to attend college at Seton Hall University in NJ and inevitably stayed in NJ in order to pursue a career in the wilds of Manhattan. Since leaving Patten, I have become a sincere sentimental New Englander and have returned to embrace the wonders of the town in which I was reared.

At best I can be frank about what my expectations of the book were and what the book actually was once I read it.

The concept of someone taking photographs of the residents of Patten, Maine is quite quaint. The thought of someone then looking at the photographs and coming up with a story about all the people made me very excited. After all, I would know the true stories of these people! I would then be able to share this book with my friends that have come to hear all about the town of Patten, Maine and stories that once evoked the question, "Was that soap opera Peyton Place based on Patten?" Not far from the truth, this small Northern Maine town is a veritable treasure trove of deals gone bad and families reared from cradle to grave on the small (insert size) patch of rocky New England earth.

It did not escape my notice that the fact that the photographer's last name is that of the town. I believe that it was that fact that brought Arturo Patten to Patten, Maine. I am sure that he could argue the fact that the roughly hewn landscape and the people who appear to be cut of similar roughly hewn cloth presented a great set of subject matter. But in my mind it was no more than a gimmick for his book. Not that I think that this is an extremely bad thing, after all it made the town that I love the subject!

I think that what upsets me the most is the actual written content. Russell Banks just seems to go on and on with his ego stroking psychobabble about the complexity of man. Oh what lurks behind the hardened stare of a rural New Englander! An example of this being in the last paragraph of the book (one of the few where Patten is even addressed as the subject matter) Banks states, "It is possible that on some long, cold, lonely winter night, each of these good citizens of Patten, Maine, could snap, could descend into a slough of depression and never return, could go crazy? Could he or she awake one morning and, looking around the slowly brightening room, remember with sudden, overwhelming horror what happened last night?"

It's sad that the residents of such a lovely town could be painted in such a dire manner. It's sad that the people who were photographed for this book will forever remain nameless because the authors chose not to acknowledge their true identities. But it is truly the cruelest trick of all that their images will have to sit nestled amongst such dire and depressing text for the rest of eternity. The people of the world will never know the truth about these people. About their moments of kindness or about how despair has touched their lives and yet they have gone on. Russell Banks and Arturo Patten where not kind enough to share those moments.

A well intended concept falls short of its potential........1999-08-23

It's hard to be objective regarding The Invisible Stranger by Russell Banks and Arturo Patten having been raised in Patten, Maine.

At best I can be frank about what my expectations of the book were and what the book actually was once I read it.

I am thankful that I have this book. I am thankful that I have beautiful photographs of so many of the people that I grew up around, though to set the record straight not all are from Patten, Maine. But I am most thankful to be fortunate enough to have had the pleasure to have grown up surrounded by them all and to have had the opportunity to know that the misguided postulations of a self-serving writer can never encapsulate even to the smallest degree what kind of people they truly are.

Invisible Stranger : The Patten, Maine, Photographs of Arturo Patten
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Invisible Stranger : The Patten, Maine, Photographs of Arturo Patten
Russell Banks
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEKXZ4

GrafTool Tutorial Software for use with Microeconomics and Behavior
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GrafTool Tutorial Software for use with Microeconomics and Behavior
Robert H. Frank
Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill College
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: CD-ROM

Microeconomics | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0073660892

The Wal-Mart Triumph: Inside the World's #1 Company
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minimally useful: some basics, but no investigative reporting whatsoever

Great Story Inside a Great Company!

The Wal-Mart Triumph: Inside the World's #1 Company
Robert Slater
Manufacturer: Portfolio Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Business | Professionals & Academics | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Company Profiles | Biography & History | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Strategy & Competition | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Retailing | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Organizational Change | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company

Sam Walton: Made In America

The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy

What I Learned From Sam Walton: How to Compete and Thrive in a Wal-Mart World

The United States of Wal-Mart

ASIN: 1591840430
Release Date: 2004-05-25

Book Description

Two of the toughest challenges for any company are leadership transitions and rapid growth. How do you replace an enormously popular and beloved CEO? And how do you maintain a rapid growth rate without losing the culture and focus of a small company?

Over the past ten years, since the death of the legendary Sam Walton, Wal-Mart has passed both challenges with flying colors. It's now the first company to rank number one on both the Fortune 500 and the Fortune Most Admired lists. Sam Walton's successors have taken the company into far-flung new markets and new directions, without losing the down-to-earth retailing culture that made Wal- Mart thrive in its early years.

With unprecedented access to Wal-Mart's press-shy senior executives, Robert Slater offers new insights about how the company manages its people and its operations, how it is expanding around the world (even in China), and how it is dealing with its many critics and competitors.

Customer Reviews:

minimally useful: some basics, but no investigative reporting whatsoever.......2005-12-31

Wal-Mart has become a controversial company because it has grown immensely powerful - by revenue the biggest company in the world and the largest private employer. From its origins as a southern mid-western company going for neglected rural markets, its story is one of remarkable success.

This book offers a succinct history and some explanation of how Wal-Mart succeeded: it went to markets that its big competitors ignored, made everyday low prices an essential part of its brand image, cultivated a conscientious service mentality in workers, and pursued efficiency through both scale and operations. That is its business model in a nutshell. Slater presents this matter of factly, as a natural evolution that carried the seeds of genius in the personality of earthy founder Sam Walton. The bulk of the story is how Walton's successors expanded the company far beyond what the founder achieved, making it truly global and putting a bureaucratic system into place. This was a bit useful for me as I start to investigate the company for a writing project.

Unfortunately, this book felt to me like Slater was happy to propogate the myth that Wal-Mart wishes observers to believe about the company. He recounts how employees are taught to cheerlead, and acts like they want to, like they feel it sincerely rather than do it because they have to! I can say that I found it hard to believe: big companies are rarely happy and enthusiastic places. Is that conclusion surprising to anyone? It would be for Slater, who himself is a cheerleader.

Even worse, he only perfunctorily asks himself any of the hard questions - such as the company's treatment of labor, its transforming impact on local communities, its use of sweatshops, etc. etc. - and then quickly implies that they are largely superfluous or silly exaggerations. This is nothing short of a simple white wash, and reads like PR that is trying to pose as thoughtful. This is really mediocre and shallow, almost like a company brochure. Slater failed to get inside the company, though he did do some interviews with prepped top officials, or so it appeared to me.

Oddly, as a relatively conservative business writer, I would give Wal-Mart the benefit of the doubt, pending my own investigation as a reporter. But Slater seems to be openly endorsing the company as if it lived up to its own PR. It is appalling to me, and I am no leftie or automatic critic of big companies, but I am a skeptic as a reporter.

Indeed, where he did address issues, they were never detailed enough, but instead were the most simplistic and narrow-minded generalizations. For example, he writes: "A new attitude was beginning to surface...Rather than show disdain for the negativism, the feeling was growing that there was virtue in having the media and community activists monitoring Wal-Mart." That pap is emblematic of the tone of this book and perfectly reflects how superficial it is. It also flatly contradicts what I have heard through the corporate grapevine with only the most simple of inquiries among my contacts.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this book. Reading it is like getting a huge vanilla milkshake for dinner rather than a steak. I will have to look elsewhere for more balanced treatments of the many thorny issues that this huge company has helped to create.

Great Story Inside a Great Company!.......2005-08-20

Very interesting book! I also liked the book, which is similar to this, "The Wal-Mart Way" which describes the man who had a clear purpose and vision and his greatness of achieving success in forming the World's #1 company.

Book Description

This book about China's integration into the world economy proposes a radically different perspective. Most economists view China's large foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows as the result of China's economic success. This study views the same phenomenon as a function of the imperfections in the Chinese economic system. It uses economic theory to explain FDI to a greater extent than previous studies on the same topic. It also presents comparative FDI data of additional countries, making it more comprehensive than previous studies which focused only on China.

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Customer Reviews:

It's not just another view ..........2004-02-06

I find Prof Huang's "Selling China" much more than just an academic achievement which it is -- with its disciplined arguments supported by a wealth of well-researched facts.

After 18 years of working on the Greater China scene -- most of it foreign investment related, for me, the greatest value of the book is its main theme -- that the large inflow of FDI over the years reflects weaknesses rather than strengths of the Chinese system. It is not just another point of view in the already overcrowded gallery of China commentary. For me, the well-argued and well-researched "unconventional" view answers some of the key China investment related questions at a very practical level, and should have important implications for government policy making and corporate decision making alike.

the year's best book on china.......2004-02-06

I have seen a number of rave reviews for this book in various economic journals and now I have read the book myself. This is a must read for those who wishes to gain a deep understanding of China's fast-evolving economic and business landscape. I also recommend it to readers who are interested in an unconventional and novel take on foreign direct investment

Selling China, Foreign Direct Investment During The Reform Era

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Selling China, Foreign Direct Investment During The Reform Era
Yasheng HUANG
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RJOLZE

Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment During the Reform Era.(Book Review) : An article from: Transnational Corporations

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Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment During the Reform Era.(Book Review) : An article from: Transnational Corporations
Yong Zhang
Manufacturer: United Nations Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0009GQ6PI
Release Date: 2005-08-01

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Transnational Corporations, published by United Nations Publications on August 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1500 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment During the Reform Era.(Book Review)
Author: Yong Zhang
Publication: Transnational Corporations (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 2004
Publisher: United Nations Publications
Volume: 13 Issue: 2 Page: 119(5)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment During the Reform Era.(Book Review): An article from: Pacific Affairs

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Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment During the Reform Era.(Book Review): An article from: Pacific Affairs
Christopher Howe
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000CFWJY8
Release Date: 2005-11-23

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Pacific Affairs, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2005. The length of the article is 622 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment During the Reform Era.(Book Review)
Author: Christopher Howe
Publication: Pacific Affairs (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 78 Issue: 2 Page: 291(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

In analyses of the role of national educational assessment, insufficient attention has been paid to the central place of the classroom. Rather than encouraging a two-way flow of information, today's "standards-based" frameworks tend to direct the flow of accountability from the outside into the classroom.

The authors of this volume emphasize that assessment, as it exists in schools today, consists mainly of the measurements that teachers themselves design, evaluate, and act upon every day. Improving the usefulness of assessment in schools primarily requires assisting and harnessing this flood of assessment information, both as a means of learning within the classroom and as the source of crucial information flowing out of classrooms.

This volume aims to encourage debate and reflection among educational researchers, professionals, and policymakers. Five source chapters describe successful classroom assessment models developed in partnership with teachers, while additional commentaries give a range of perspectives on the issues of classroom assessment, standardized testing, and accountability.

Book Description

A touching and inspirational tribute to the human spirit, The 50 Greatest Letters from America’s Wars reveals our nation’s struggles and triumphs in soldiers’ letters from the Revolution to the operations in Afghanistan.

The 50 Greatest Letters from America’s Wars is more than just a collection of letters recounting the experiences of servicemen and -women. While they are simply written, they speak with power and eloquence about the human face of history.

From members of the Continental Army to today’s Special Forces, the authors of these letters are frontline soldiers, nurses, prisoners of war, spies, and generals—a cross section of the men and women who fought, and sometimes sacrificed their lives, in this nation’s wars. It also tells the stories—in the first person—of their families, friends, and sweethearts.

Inspiring and intriguing, this book is filled with the voices of ordinary heroes, voices that speak of courage, love of country and family, and sacrifice in the name of freedom. Now more than ever, these letters show us what matters most.

Customer Reviews:

Short work that is actually heartbreaking in parts.......2003-05-27

How one chooses THE 50 GREATEST LETTERS FROM
AMERICA'S WARS must be a difficult task, but David H.
Lowenherz (the book's editor) has done it well . . . he has
selected a range of letters from the Revolution to the operations
in Afghanistan and presented them with fascinating commentary
about both the combat and the writer.

Presidents, ranging from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower,
are included . . . but so are frontline soliders, nurses, prisoners of
war, generals, and even spies who I would have never heard of
until I read this short work that is actually hearbreaking in parts.

It is one thing to study history in the abstract . . . it is
another to hear stories--told in the first person--that have
actually been written to families, friends and sweethearts.

I recommend this book highly.

There were so many memorable passages in these letters that
it has made my job difficult; i.e., to present just a few for
your consideration . . . but I'll try, nevertheless . . . so please
consider, if you will:

(Captain Rodney R. Chastant to his parents from the Vietnam War)
Mom, I appreciate all the letters. I appreciate your concern that some
of the things you write about are trivial, but they aren't trivial to me.
I'm eager to read anything about what you are doing or the family is
doing. You can't understand the importance these "trivial" events take
on out here. It helps me keep civilized. For a while, as I read your
letters, I am a normal person. I'm not killing people, or worried about
being killed. While I read your letters, I'm not carrying guns and grenades.
Instead I am going ice skating with David or walking through a depart-
ment store to exchange a lamp shade. It is great to know your family's
safe, living in a secure country; a country made secure by thousands
upon thousands of men who have dies for that country.

(Fireman 1st class Keith Lynch to his family in World War II)
To think that a thirty-pound bomb the size of a basketball, exploding a
thousand feet in the air, could cause such a holocaust was simply
unbelievable. I shudder to think what these people underwent when
the blast occurred. A blast that literally dissolved their homes, family,
friends and any other material thing in the vicinity. A blast that pushed
over huge steel structures a mile and a half away as if they were made
of blocks. Now I can see what they mean when they say Dead City. A
city with no buildings, no trees, no facilities, and no people. All you see
from the top of the hill is a ground covered with bricks, burned wood,
twisted and pushed over steel frames of buildings for several miles in
each direction. There is nothing for the people of this Dead City to do
but walk around and think, "What manner of people would do such a
thing to us, who are a peaceful, courteous and civilized people?" I
wondered what they thought when they looked at us as we were
driving along. "Are these the barbarians who did such a thing to us?
What can we expect now that we are at their mercy?" I only wish they
could be made to suffer a tenth of the atrocities that they performed on
our men whom they held prisoner. People can say these people are
simple, ignorant of the facts, or under a spell, but a nation cannot wage
war as they have without the backing of the majority of their people.

(Major Sullivan Ballou to his wife in the Civil War)
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come
creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I
have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and
burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might
still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to
honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims
upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me-perhaps it is
the wafted prayer of my little Edgar-that I shall return to my loved ones
unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love
you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will
whisper your name.

Nine men of power
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Nine men of power
Roy Jenkins
Manufacturer: British Book Centre
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | World | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 082774465X

Arkansas Birds: Their Distribution and Abundance
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Arkansas Birds: Their Distribution and Abundance
Douglas A. James , and Joseph C. Neal
Manufacturer: University of Arkansas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Birds | Field Guides | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
General | Birdwatching | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
Ornithology | Zoology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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Arkansas Birds: An Introduction to Familiar Species

ASIN: 0938626388

Arkansas Birds: Their Distribution and Abundance
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Arkansas Birds: Their Distribution and Abundance
Douglas A.; Neal, Joseph C. , Illustrated B James
Manufacturer: The University of Arkansas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OHEHJO

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