An Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster

Book Description

William Wilson Wurster (1895-1973) has been widely recognized as the foremost proponent of a distinctive Bay Area architectural style. But his ideas extended far beyond California: In private practice and as head of architecture schools at the University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wurster shaped an entire generation of architects and city planners.
An Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster documents Wurster's fifty-year career and his important place in contemporary American architectural thought. Along with his wife, city planner Catherine Bauer, and landscape architect Thomas Church, Wurster was intimately involved in the rise of modern city planning and landscape design in the United States. In keeping with the social and economic conditions of the late 1930s, Wurster encouraged the development of small houses that offered the livability of those of greater scale, and he influenced the building of affordable mass-produced housing. His designs embodied principles of simplicity and economy, yet incorporated complex human needs. Wurster's legacy is especially relevant today, as uncertain economic conditions and social dislocations affect housing for Americans at every level.
Over fifty of Wurster's projects are featured here, with photographs, drawings, and plans, along with numerous projects by his contemporaries. Essays by distinguished architectural historians and critics--several of whom knew or worked with Wurster--provide insights into his personal as well as professional life. Abundantly illustrated, this first large-scale examination of William Wurster's architectural enterprise offers a full appreciation of the man and his work.

Customer Reviews:

Wurster comes back to life.......2000-08-29

This book brings back the many forgotten works of William Wurster. It balances the architect's story and illustrations well. I recommend this book to architecture enthusiasts who want to reach beyond mainstream architecture.

An Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster.

Average customer rating:

An Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster.
William]. Treib, Marc. ed. [WURSTER
Manufacturer: San Francisco & Berkeley: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/University of California
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UG3RIQ

Book Description

Here is a vividly written and fully illustrated assessment of the figured decoration on Late Bronze Age vessels from the Greek mainland, Cyprus, and the Aegean islands. It will become a standard source on the Mycenaean imagination.

Emily Vermeuele and Vassos Karageorghis describe the hunting scenes, chariots, sphinxes and griffins, bulls and birds, people dancing or fighting, and cult scenes on Mycenaean pottery. They analyze forms and styles, sources and influences, and the development of conventions. They relate what is known about hte painters and their workshops, and the overseas trade. A catalogue of the 700 remaining whole and broken examples, now in museums around the world, is appended. Over 950 illustrations provide a comprehensive view of the art.

This study tells us much about Bronze Age civilization, and it opens the way to an understanding of the relationship of Greek art to figure drawing in pre-Classical times.

Customer Reviews:

An Outstanding Resource.......2001-03-12

If you're a grad student in Aegean archaeology, chances are you already know this book. Fun bedtime reading it is not, but it is a fantastic resource for anyone studying Mycenaean vase-painting. It is invaluable in bringing together good photos and line drawings of literally hundreds of pictorial Mycenaean vases and sherds. Perhaps most importantly, it lists provenience and bibliography for each vase or fragment (down to 1981, the date of its publication). The commentary by the late great Emily Vermeule and Vassos Karageorghis is trenchant and to the point. I HIGHLY recommend Penelope Mountjoy's newest on Mycenaean regional ceramic styles as well.

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Book Description

Artwork by C.D. Hoy. Text by Faith Moosang, Paul Yee.

Average customer rating:

Beautifully moving and illuminating

First Son: Portraits by C. D. Hoy.
Faith Moosang
Manufacturer: Arsenal Pulp Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Portraits | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Born in China in 1883, Chow Dong Hoy emigrated to Canada in 1902. Missing the gold rush, he nevertheless settled in the far reaches of the British Columbia interior where he eventually established himself as town photographer. Over the years that followed he took hundreds of photographs of the Chinese, Native and Caucasian members of this isolated community. The accompanying essay provides a close historical reading of these long-lost, startling photographs that bring to life a seldom told tale of modern history. 96 full page duotone reproductions.

Customer Reviews:

Beautifully moving and illuminating.......2000-03-25

I tracked down this book from reading a local review of it, and I'm so glad I did. The full page black and white photos are indescribably evocative and made me wonder what the subjects were thinking, how they coped with the harsh and often isolating demands of early BC interior communities.

The foreword by Paul Yee, and Faith Mossang's textual additons provide excellent details on the photographer - his times and his life. This book is an elegant and moving insight into people who helped build the province. A must-read!

Book Description

Argues that sustainability requires more than technological efficiency.

Customer Reviews:

A hard look at sustainability.......2002-06-11

Sustainability is a very important idea. It is perhaps the most signifiicant response to our emergent environmental crisis yet. But the term is in danger of becoming so broad in meaning that it stops having any real meaning at all, and this is why this new book is so relevant. Davison reviews the short history of sustainability, and the genesis of the key ideas. He takes a hard look at what is happening to the concept, and in particular how it is being coopted by the same people who brought us the problems in the first place. In doing this he directly confronts the ambiguous role of technology, which he sees as one way in which we create our world. He analyses key ideas, and is so lucid in this endeavour that even Heidegger begins to make sense. But more interestingly, Davison tries to determne what meaningful sustainability is, and how the idea can be translated into a personal experience as well as a cultural concept.
This is intellectually a very challenging and pointed work, but it is also very human and immediate. Davison has attempted in this book the rare thing of reintegrating hard science, philosophy, and day to day life. In my view, he succeeds in his set task.
Oh, and he can write, too.

Book Description

Most people understand property as something that is owned, a means of creating individual wealth. But in Commodity and Propriety, the first full-length history of the meaning of property, Gregory Alexander uncovers in American legal writing a competing vision of property that has existed alongside the traditional conception. Property, Alexander argues, has also been understood as proprietary, a mechanism for creating and maintaining a properly ordered society. This view of property has even operated in periods—such as the second half of the nineteenth century—when market forces seemed to dominate social and legal relationships.

In demonstrating how the understanding of property as a private basis for the public good has competed with the better-known market-oriented conception, Alexander radically rewrites the history of property, with significant implications for current political debates and recent Supreme Court decisions.

Customer Reviews:

Hypes minor legal thinkers, misrepresents major ones.......2000-03-28

Alexander's book reads like a standard history of property law turned upside down; it is as if the footnotes and text had been reversed. He glorifies obscure, minor, and in many cases simply bizarre theorists of American property law. Conventional wisdom holds that the winners write the history; in this case Alexander not only writes the losers' version of history but argues that they haven't even lost. To understand the thrust of the book, consider that although it contains 386 pages of text and another 82 pages of endnotes, it presents no substantive discussion of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, despite (or perhaps because of) that clause's seemingly unambiguous constitutional affirmation of the "property as commodity" view (Richard A. Epstein, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain). John Locke gets only a handful of passing mentions. By contrast, the views of many obscure and long-forgotten theorists receive extended discussion.

In many cases when Alexander actually does discuss major historical figures, his interpretations of their views are incorrect. For instance, Alexander reprises the old story that Thomas Jefferson was actually a "civic republican," rather than a believer in the liberal theory of property (chap. 1). He rejects the contrary opinion of the historian Joyce Appleby ("What Is Still American in Jefferson's Political Philosophy?" in her Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination) because--you guessed it--she does not think dialectically: "I view Jefferson's writing as consistently preoccupied with the same basic dialectic, a dialectic of stability and dynamism. Professor Appleby's commitment to a linear framework prevents her from seeing it dialectically" (p. 392 n. 12). Subsequent historical research has tended to confirm Appleby's understanding of Jefferson and to cast further doubt on Alexander's characterization of Jefferson as a civic republican (see John Majewski, A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia before the Civil War).

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Independent Review, published by Independent Institute on June 22, 1999. The length of the article is 1733 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: Commodity and Propriety: Competing Visions of Property in American Legal Thought, 1776-1970.(Review)
Author: Todd J. Zywicki
Publication: Independent Review (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 1999
Publisher: Independent Institute
Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Page: 147

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Conflict, disaster, and destruction—despite their historical and current significance—have not yet been adequately studied from the economic point of view. Economic Behaviour in Adversity brings together ten important essays, several previously unpublished, dealing with the choices people make in times of disaster and conflict. These essays help explain the possibilities and limits of human cooperation under severe environmental pressure.

Part I, "Disaster and Recovery," contains previously unpublished studies of major historical catastrophes, among them the Black Death of the fourteenth century, the Civil War in Russia that followed the Bolshevik revolution, and the mass bombing of Germany and of Japan during World War II. Accompanying the historical studies are several analytical papers that interpret the disaster experience.

The essays in Part II, "Cooperation and Conflict," represent innovative theoretical analyses based on a common theme—that cooperation and conflict are alternative strategies whereby individuals, groups, and different forms of social organization struggle with one another for evolutionary survival. Ultimately, these essays indicate, the political economy of the human species is an instance of Darwin's "economy of nature."

Book Description

If motherhood is a sorority, then pregnancy is its nine-month hazing ritual. Weight gain, mood swings, unfashionable clothes: You need a good sense of humor to get through it all, even if you are the dad! Now there's a great book to help you laugh-and sing-about all the embarrassing inconveniences leading up to the blessed event.Maternity the Musical! is a hilarious songbook of parody lyrics to favorite tunes, all about the true sighs and highs of pregnancy. Experienced mothers and mothers-to-be will be rolling on the floor with laughter and recognition at lyrics like these, sung to the tune of "The Hokey Pokey":You take a short breath in,You let a short breath out,Because your lungs are squished,And you're stuffy in your snout.You eat because you're starving,And then you feel too full,You can't get comfortable!Maternity the Musical! covers all of the ups and downs of pregnancy, from weird cravings and Lamaze class to the plethora of pregnancy advice and impossible-to-assemble baby equipment.Best of all, in addition to the illustrated lyrics pages, the book includes a sing-along CD with 10 songs with piano and voice accompaniment to guarantee audience participation. Maternity the Musical! is a riotous pregnancy sing-along sure to induce laughs (if not labor!) and be the hit of any baby shower.

Average customer rating:

Backyard Birding

Great guide

Great book! Lots of info on nestboxes..

Horrid

The Backyard Birdhouse Book: Building Nestboxes and Creating Natural Habitats
René Laubach , and Christyna M. Laubach
Manufacturer: Storey Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Outdoor & Recreational Areas | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Birds | Field Guides | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
General | Birdwatching | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
Ornithology | Zoology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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The Complete Birdhouse Book: The Easy Guide to Attracting Nesting Birds

Enchanting Woodland Birdhouses

ASIN: 1580171729

Book Description

Includes complete plans for 8 easy-to-build birdhouses tailored to the specific needs of 25 cavity-nesting species. Everything a reader needs to know to become a backyard bird conservationist.

Customer Reviews:

Backyard Birding.......2007-01-12

excellent for the backyard birder. It offers really useful ideas for attracting birds and keeping them coming to your yard.

Great guide.......2006-07-24

I was sent this then-new book seven or eight years ago to review for my newspaper column on birds, and found it to be an excellent guide, not only on how to build boxes for all sorts of cavity-nesting birds, but also how to deal with problems like predators and pests. I built one of the boxes; it went together well and has served quite a few feathered families over the past five or six years.

Great book! Lots of info on nestboxes.........2006-03-27

I was interested in putting up some birdhouses (nestboxes) in my backyard and trying to attract some of the more exotic birds, etc... I checked out about a dozen books form the library.. Well, this one hands down was the best...

Book starts out by going over the birds you would want to attract to your nestboxes, with pictures and bios on all the birds, such as bluebirds, chickadees, titmouses, etc.... Then it goes into the nestboxes, pro and cons of certain nestboxes.. and tells you how to alter each nestbox to attract the birds at the beginning of the book (mainly you just drill a size hole)....
While watching birds in my backyard or building a nestbox, I have consulted this book over and over.. It's a great book, and I have no idea why the other reviewer gave it such a bad review..

Horrid.......2004-05-17

This book was terrible. I couldn't believe how bad it was. It was very out of date and made no sense. The directions are very hard to follow and it doesn't give nearly enough details. This didn't work for me at all. My birdhouses kept falling apart!!! I would highly suggest another book to replace this one, or better yet, you can have mine because I won't be using it!

BACKYARD BIRDHOUSE BOOK: BUILDING NESTBOXES AND CREATING NATURAL HABITATS

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BACKYARD BIRDHOUSE BOOK: BUILDING NESTBOXES AND CREATING NATURAL HABITATS
Rene and Christyna Laubach
Manufacturer: Storey Books Pownal, VT (1998)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000IWT2FE

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