"Supermannerism" by C. Ray Smith

Paperback, 354 pages, color and black & white illustrations, 8.1 x 5.8 inches.

ISBN-13: 978-0525474241, August 1977.

Published by Plume, out-of-print.

From the inside front cover:

Supermannerism is concerned with the new attitudes that provide the contextual background of design and architecture in America today. It is the first book about the revolution against the style called "Modern" and the development of the current period in architecture and design that is now more and more being called "Post-Modern."

Supermannerism catalogues the beginnings of this movement -- a period from about 1960 to 1970 -- its protagonists and their works, their educations and inspirations, and their influences on students and their works. It outlines the new attitudes that many diverse architects and designers shared in opposition to the Modernists. Among these attitudes are: ambiguity and disorientation; with and whimsy; the pop acceptance of symbols; historicism and decoration superimposition and layering; and adaptability and open-endedness.

The words and works of many spokesmen for these attitudes are presented -- not as they remember them a decade and more ago -- but as they said and designed them while the movement gained momentum. Among these spokesman are Charles Moore, Robert Venturi, Hugh Hardy, and a host of others. The collection of these words and works (illustrated in over 200 halftones and color plates) is by an eyewitness reporter who did much to bring the movement to the attention of professionals in the mid-1960s and who coined the term Supermannerism and supergraphics.

The Jewel Box, Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.

From the web site of the City of St. Louis:

The Jewel Box, located on a 17-acre site in Forest Park, was built by the City of St. Louis in 1936 and is operated by the Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry. It is listed on the National Historic Register. The designation was given by the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The application was submitted by the Landmarks Association of St. Louis on behalf of the City of St. Louis Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry. The Jewel Box was given the designation on the National Register because it is, “locally significant in the area of architecture. The Art Deco building is an outstanding example of greenhouse design.”

The Jewel Box was dedicated Nov. 14, 1936 and cost about $117,000, with about 45 percent coming from Public Works Administration (WPA) funds. It was designed by city engineer William C. E. Becker and Robert Paulus Construction Co. was the contractor.

With its unconventional, cantilevered, vertical glass walls rising majestically 50 feet high, the Jewel Box opened in 1936 to national acclaim. The Post-Dispatch called the Art Deco-style structure, "the latest word in display greenhouses."

Supergraphics?

Where Am I?

"Reveal: Studio Gang Architects" by Jeanne Gang

Hardcover, 256 pages, color and black & white illustrations, 9.9 x 8 inches.

ISBN-13: 978-1568989938, March 2011.

Published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Chicago is famous for its role in fostering modern architecture. Now Jeanne Gang, founder of Studio Gang Architects, is giving the epithet "Chicago School" a new meaning. Her recently completed 82-story Aqua residential tower is already an icon of the Chicago skyline and has been universally hailed as a masterwork for the young firm. Reveal presents an in-depth look at the firm's unique work and working process through drawings, diagrams, sketches, and photographs that illuminate the evolution of each of the book's eight featured projects, both public and private, and ranging in size from exhibition to high-rise.

"Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention," Edited by Alison Fisher, Elizabeth Smith, and Sarah Whiting

Hardcover, 92 pages, color and black and white illustrations, 8 x 11.5 inches.

ISBN: 978-0300167047, October 25, 2011.

Published by the Art Institute of Chicago:

Bertrand Goldberg (1913-1997) was a visionary Chicago architect whose designs for housing, urban planning, and industrial design made a distinctive mark in the modern era. This handsome publication, the first to focus in-depth on the entirety of Goldberg's life and work, traces his development from his early Bauhaus training to his notable architectural achievements. Featuring previously unpublished material, it also includes Goldberg's plans for unrealized projects as well as his collaborations with other prominent modern architects, such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Buckminster Fuller.

Goldberg's interest in the social dimension of architecture was reflected in many of his cutting-edge designs. In 1959, he conceived the plan for his most iconic structure, the sixty-story Marina City residential towers, in the heart of downtown Chicago. He created a number of hospitals that offered a new paradigm for how patients and staff interacted within the space. Goldberg's progressive designs also extended to schools, prefabricated structures, and furniture.

Alison Fisher is the Harold and Margo Schiff Assistant Curator of Architecture and Zoë Ryan is acting chair of the Design Department of Architecture and Design and Neville Bryan Curator of Design, both at the Art Institute of Chicago. Elizabeth Smith is executive director of curatorial affairs at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Sarah Whiting is dean of the Rice University School of Architecture.

"101 Things I Learned in Architecture School" by Matthew Frederick

Hardcover, 128 pages, black & white illustrations, 7 x 5 inches.

ISBN 978-0-262-06266-4, September 2007.

Published by the MIT Press:

This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and abstruse in the classroom.

These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation — from the basics of "How to Draw a Line" to the complexities of color theory — provide a much-needed primer in architectural literacy, making concrete what too often is left nebulous or open-ended in the architecture curriculum. Each lesson utilizes a two-page format, with a brief explanation and an illustration that can range from diagrammatic to whimsical.

The lesson on "How to Draw a Line" is illustrated by examples of good and bad lines; a lesson on the dangers of awkward floor level changes shows the television actor Dick Van Dyke in the midst of a pratfall; a discussion of the proportional differences between traditional and modern buildings features a drawing of a building split neatly in half between the two.

Written by an architect and instructor who remembers well the fog of his own student days, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School provides valuable guideposts for navigating the design studio and other classes in the architecture curriculum.

Architecture graduates — from young designers to experienced practitioners — will turn to the book as well, for inspiration and a guide back to basics when solving a complex design problem.