David Leatherbarrow Boeken

"Richard Wesley was witness to a revolution. As both a celebrated participant and eager student of the Black Theater Movement in the late 1960s, he became part of a seismic force in American culture, breaking down barriers and helping to disrupt the cultural landscape. It's always loud in the balcony: a life in black theater, from Harlem to Hollywood and back is both history and memoir, tracing Wesley's roots from riot-torn Newark, New Jersey, across the rocky terrain of Harlem, and finally to Hollywood, where he became partners with Sidney Poitier, writing several successful films before returning to New York and the theater world -- a trip that Wesley has wryly characterized as 'black power to black establishment.' Wesley unfolds the history of black theater with love and precision, from the emergence of Amiri Baraka, and his own debut, the fiercely militant Black terror -- which landed him a deal with a legendary producer Joseph Papp -- through his moviemaking experience in Los Angeles, working with Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor, among others. Wesley lands on solid ground in the twenty-first century as an elder statesman, a happy witness to the great success of a new breed of black theater that includes the widespread success of Tyler Perry and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, which brought hip-hop to Broadway. It's always loud in the balcony if the passionate, firsthand account of a crucial American art movement whose effects will be felt for generations to come."-- Provided by publisher

Urban architecture of built works in modern cities, that are no smaller than a single building and possibly as large as an urban block, are shown to activate and actualize latent potentials for cultural experience and environmental intelligence, allowing the city to surprise itself and delight in its discoveries.

Visually, many contemporary buildings either reflect their systems of production or recollect earlier styles and motifs. This division between production and representation is in some ways an extension of that between modernity and tradition. In this book David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi explore ways design can take advantage of production methods so that architecture neither ignores nor is dominated by technology.Leatherbarrow and Mostafavi examine the theoretical and practical isolation of the building surface as the subject of architectural design. The autonomy of the surface, the modernist "free facade," presumed a distinction between the structural and nonstructural elements of the building, between the frame and the cladding. Once the skin of the building became independent of its structure, it could just as well hang like a curtain, or like clothing. But the properties of a building's surface-whether made of concrete, metal, glass, or other materials-are not merely superficial; they construct the spatial effects by which architecture communicates. Through its surfaces a building declares both its autonomy and its participation in its surroundings.In tracing the handling of this surface, the authors examine both contemporary buildings and those of the recent past. Architects discussed include Albert Kahn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Alison and Peter Smithson, Alejandro de la Sota, Robert Venturi, and Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.

Focusing on the temporal dimensions of architecture, this book offers in-depth analyses of both contemporary and classic buildings. It emphasizes the importance of time in the architectural experience, arguing that a grasp of temporal aspects is essential for appreciating quality design. Through its unique approach, it challenges traditional spatial-centric views and highlights how time influences architectural meaning and significance.

"While most books on architecture concentrate on spatial themes, 'Building time' explores architecture's temporal dimensions. Through a series of close readings of buildings, both contemporary and classic, it shows why an understanding of time is critical to understanding good architecture. All buildings exist in time. Even if designed for permanence, they change, slowly but inevitably. They change use, they accrue history and meaning, they decay. Meanwhile, the sun traces a path in time through a building, as do the movements of the human body from room to room. Time, this book argues, is the framework for our spatial experience of architecture, and a key dimension of a building's structure and significance. Examining works by distinctive modern architects--from Eileen Gray to Álvaro Siza and Wang Shu--'Building time' is a book for theorists, designers, and anyone who wants to understand our experience of architecture. Through it, theorists will find a way to rethink the fundamental premise of design work, while designers will rediscover the order and ideas that shape the world around them--its buildings, interiors, and landscapes."--Page 4 of printed paper wrapper.