Karen McCartney: Iconic Australian Houses: Three Decades of Domestic Architecture
Lovely book of modernist Australian architecture from 1950 to 1974. A coffee-table book but a wonderful one. Full notes here. (*****)
JG Ballard: Kingdom Come
Ballard running on only one or two engines, but still chock full of wonderful ideas and observations, and with a few lines that will resonate forever. Curiously full of holes (no CCTV on the original crime?) but as a depiction of an England rotten to the core, timely and useful. (****)
Peter Jones: Ove Arup: Masterbuilder of the Twentieth Century
Slightly haphazard biography of one of the great designers and leaders of the 20thC. The parts on building, design, organisation, context and practice are fascinating, and the portrait of Ove Arup himself is detailed and heartfelt. Some personal aspects are a little uneven and the writing is curiously disjointed in structure but it's a thoroughly good read overall, on one of the great thinkers and practitioners in architecture and engineering. (****)
Agustin Pérez Rubio: SANAA Houses: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa
Excellent book on the Japanese architecture firm. Full review here. (*****)
Nevil Shute: On the Beach
Absolutely fantastic read, if as thoroughly downbeat as a story about the end of the human race ought to be. Set in an Melbourne post-armageddon, as the last few people on earth live out their last months, it's a fascinating portrait of its time (1957) and Australia. (*****)
Elizabeth Farrelly: Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness
Architecture, urbanism, desire, happiness, beauty, obesity, greed, depression etc. A potent mix. A bit uneven, and journalistic in essence (which jars in this form) but good on Australia's architecture in particular, and with a beguiling speculative last chapter. (****)
Robert Hughes: Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir
Hughes is amongst the finest cultural critics and historians, and here focused on the first part of his own history and culture. So we get rich portraits of Australia, WW I and Vietnam, Italy, London, the 60s, art, food, sex, model aeroplanes &c as well as Mr. Hughes. Supreme writing applied to fascinating subject matter. (*****)
W.G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn
Jonathan Raban said "The finest book of long-distance mental travel that I've ever read" and I'm inclined to agree. A quietly majestic book, with peerless clear, evocative prose, drawn from immensely erudite research, and interspersed with simple ghostly photography. (*****)
Bruce Sterling: Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets)
A re-read, due to recent projects. Sterling, like the geeks he so admires, underestimates the richness of sensory information in the physical, when over-emphasising the new importance of the model, the map. The map has outgrown the territory only if you simply look at it. And yet there is no better guide to the map - of modeling, fabrication, the geoweb and arphids, and what this all means. Unlike most books in this field, it's as engagingly written as you'd expect and ultimately so thought-provoking and inspiring that you can forgive the oversight - which tends to come with, er, the territory. (*****)
Lebbeus Woods: War and Architecture (Pamphlet Architecture)
Incredible radical response to the ruined Sarajevo. Must be read to comprehend the brilliance and bravery of his suggestions and visions, but essentially Woods suggests building in and around the 'scabs' and 'scars' of the shattered city, not simply in order to preserve or record history, but to also mitigate against further violence by creating a new heterarchical form of urban organisation. "Architecture must learn to transform the violence, even as violence knows how to transform the architecture." (*****)
David Peace: Tokyo Year Zero
Still dealing with this book. Reading this snapshot of a Tokyo in ruins, physically and psychologically, in 1947, after his shattering book on Brian Clough, feels like an odd change of gears initially. Yet the writing style - a kind of metronomic Ellroy-level intensity - pervades both, as does the startling ability to capture a sense of place and time. This is the more ambitious work, and may end up being one of the great modern evocations of Tokyo. (*****)
Peter Robb: Midnight in Sicily
Perhaps the best book I've read in recent years, by Australian author Robb (see also 'A Death In Brazil') painting a portrait of southern Italy, filtered through history, food, literature, painting, architecture and principally the long-running legal cases against the Mafia. Absolutely extraordinary. (*****)
Geoff Dyer: Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence
Genius. Only intermittently about Lawrence, and as much as Dyer's knees, childish Italians, Mexico, terrible Greeks, writing about place, horrible food, annoying English people, depression, travelling, and how dull Oxford is. One of the funniest books I've read, occasionally devastatingly sad, and also, accidentally/cleverly, brilliant on DH Lawrence. (*****)
Kerry William Purcell: Josef Muller-Brockmann
Wonderfully detailed, carefully illustrated, and generally massive tome on the 20th century's greatest graphic designer. Essential. (*****)
Juhani Pallasmaa: The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses
One of those rare books that changes the way you think about everything. Already a huge influence, and one of the greatest books on architecture and urbanism that I've ever read. (*****)
Jun'ichiro Tanizaki: In Praise of Shadows
A wonderful essay, from the early 20th century, on Japanese aesthetics. A perfect companion to Juhani Pallasmaa, but entirely pleasurable and enlightening on its own. (*****)
Christopher Woodward: In Ruins
Unique book on the perception and understanding of ruins in western culture - specifically art history - by architectural historian Woodward. A bit too classically orientated - nothing on ruins in film, for instance - but some great stories and insights. (****)
Peter Carey: Wrong about Japan
Light (for Carey) but hugely enjoyable and interesting. Learnt few specifics - other than some interesting local insight on manga and anime - but gained a strong overall impression of Japan through Carey's eyes. (****)
Richard Williams: The Perfect 10
Absolutely fantastic book on the great players in the most interesting, creative and challenging position in a football team. Puskas, Pele, Rivera, Mazzola, Netzer, Platini, Francescoli, Maradona, Baggio, Bergkamp, Zidane, all lovingly described by Williams. (*****)
Surveillance: Jonathan Raban
I prefer Rabans's non-fiction - not that it's entirely 'non' - to his fiction, but he's such a good writer it's always entertaining and interesting. Ending a bit, well, open-ended - which is also interesting - but great, important themes here. (****)
Enemy Mine would definitely be at the top of my list! Enemy castaways on a strange planet, political and social commentary...what more could you ask for in a sci-fi film?
Posted by: Jimmy | May 27, 2005 at 09:13 PM
Is there more pretentious claptrap than Alphaville. I think not. Snoozeworthier a film is hard to find!
And La Jetee is an interesting formalist exercise, but not much of a movie.
And definitely not better than Mad Max 2 (or, as we Yanks call it, The Road Warrior).
And no Metropolis?
Blade Runner?
The Terminator? (Probably the best 80s sci-fi. The sequel doesn't even come close.)
Robocop?
Forbidden Planet (Creatures of the ID!)
Posted by: peterme | May 28, 2005 at 05:52 AM
What, no Bladerunner?
Posted by: César | May 28, 2005 at 09:35 AM
Alphaville - luverly, not surprising that Ballard loves it. Initially surprised at the absence of THX1138, but then perhaps it's too simplistic a narrative and takes itself too seriously. On rereading the list, it seems a tad underwhelming. Mad Max, Close Encounters? Solaris rather than Stalker? It ultimately emphasises that there should be a Ballard-based movie in this world (and I'm not talking about Empire Of The Sun). Tarkovsky himself might have done a decent job. Cheers, Colin.
Posted by: Colin | May 30, 2005 at 10:26 AM
I'm surprised there haven't been more Ballard film adaptations other than Crash and Empire of the Sun. I'd love to see a film version of High Rise (Amazon UK), (great analysis here), probably my fave Ballard story so far, and with arguably the greatest opening line in the whole of literature:
"Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months."
BBC 4 did a great adaptation, recently shown on BBC2, called Home, of the Ballard short story the Enormous Space, about a man, Gerald Ballantyne, who decides to see how long he can last without leaving the house.
All the familiar Ballardian tropes are here - the character thinly disguised alter-ego of Ballard, middle class, adulterous, and with mental instability, spatial anxiety, (sub)-urban angst and more gratuitous pet cuisine. Excellent, and with a terrific performance from Antony Sher as Ballantyne.
Someone should try making a film of Concrete Island (Amazon UK), a book which unfortunately couldn't live up to the promise of it's back cover blurb:
"A 35-year-old architect is driving home from his London office when his car swerves and crashes onto a traffic island lying below three converging motorways. Uninjured, he climbs the embankment to seek help, but no one will stop for him and he is trapped on the island, where he remains."
Posted by: marty | May 30, 2005 at 12:03 PM
Oh this one could run and run.
Oi Merholz! J'adore Alphaville! 'Tis not snoozesome at all. It certainly has a different pace to the latest Vin Diesel flick, but that is A Good Thing, and in this context, pretension is probably a good thing too (not that that film is, really - you saying Godard is a 'pretender' when it comes to cinema?!). Likewise, La Jettée is a formalist experiment, yes, and therefore a great film, see?!
Good call RE Metropolis, though. Deffo. And I suppose Blade Runner would be up there, yes ... Though then Akira springs to mind, just in terms of a better evocation of an Eastern-influenced info-overload of a future city ...
As for Robocop, it's great fun with some smart touches but not exactly deeeeep. I'd rather have Sleeper in there!
Or Rollerball, maybe. Or Silent Running anyone? I'm tempted, somewhat mischievously, to suggest Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle and Playtime - in the scifi as 'stretched versions of now' definition.
Cheers Colin, and thanks Marty. I too would love to see High Rise filmed ... I guess the issue with filming Ballard is who, amongst today's directors, is talented enough to do a proper adaptation, rather than a simple filming of a screenplay? But agreed, that BBC4's version of Home was excellent. I'd love to see someone take on The Unlimited Dream Company, but christ knows how.
Posted by: Dan | May 31, 2005 at 11:20 AM
Ballard is certainly a big fan of La Jetée: he wrote an essay about it, which is in his User's Guide to the Millennium collection (I think there's also a similar list of his favourite sci-fi films in the book, but my copy's in storage at the moment, so can't check).
Posted by: David | May 31, 2005 at 09:00 PM
Proper adaptation? I still recall the feeling of disappointment experienced on seeing Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. I had so dreamed of something as structurally cataclysmic as the book. That audacity was singularly lacking, but perhaps inevitably so. There was another version of Lunch I seem to vaguely recall seeing which featured Ornette Coleman or am I mixing that up with some kind of film featuring his Chappaqua Suite? In my vague memory it was very self-indulgent b&w 60s claptrap. I'm whittering about Burroughs because of Marty's mention of Crash which I'd quite forgotten - probably for much the same reason. That let-down again of seeing such a fascinating book ill-served by a director one might hope would do better. I do think any proper version of Ballard - or Burroughs - would require a great directorial stylist. Someone with real guts and absolutely no regard for the box office... I loved those quotes from the books - they reveal the author's wonderful if bone-dry humour. Cheers, Colin.
Posted by: Colin | June 04, 2005 at 10:25 PM