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Skyscrapers: Fabulous Buildings That Reach for the Sky
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
November 30, 2012
Another eclectic topic book for the collection. Big building architecture.
The selection of buildings is almost standardized anymore regarding inclusion. There has been a minor shift in characterization of the period of certain buildings and classification such as the International Style.
Many of the buildings in this book are lumped into the International Style that at one time had a bit more granularity in their descriptions. Mies & Co., the Bauhaus, etc. are more and more being viewed as ancient history in architecture circles. At least the non-practicing architectural commentary and academic realms are putting the older buildings in the past and calling them all the same if they are not post-modern (what happened to Modernism as a classification???mhmmm) or new or Millenium or sustainable, etc.
This book does mention the various schools of design and their influence, but the organization of the book minimizes it. Page headings and arrangements of the images don't make this as an important a topic/feature as it is in the history of tall steel. Make no mistake, this a tall steel book.
The images themselves are large and beautifully reproduced. Some unfortunately laid out insert photos spoil otherwise great page layout and book design. It could have been a five star bit of building eye candy if it were not for some bad graphic design choices. The Petronas Towers and Kingdom Center sections have magnificent images of the whole building ruined by a detail image planted on top of the photographs. The first two pages of the Petronas section are nearly perfect and then one turns the page and poor design jumps out in an arbitrary and distracting assault. There is inconsistency in the layout from building to building also.
Well made large book that lays flat even without the best style of binding for this type of work. Beautiful repeated front and back inside cover in a blued sepia add to the overall presentation. Heavy pages that support the ink well and don't let light shine through the page and reflect back and display a ghostly image from the opposite side of the leaf. Some unfortunate print banding in illustrations with gradient tones. The Burj Dubai image on page 155 stand out badly with this problem. Noted because this is an easy fix in printing that shouldn't be in a book of this type. Think of a bad inkjet photograph on a low cost printer.
Four stars for the variety, the noted positive points, the inclusion of some unusual or not often seen building, interesting silhouette indexing in the lower edge of left hand pages combined with a relative scale number at the proportionate spot again on the left hand margin. Good design elements overwhelm the bad choices.
A good if not as fine as it might have been, addition to the library of visual reference books.
The selection of buildings is almost standardized anymore regarding inclusion. There has been a minor shift in characterization of the period of certain buildings and classification such as the International Style.
Many of the buildings in this book are lumped into the International Style that at one time had a bit more granularity in their descriptions. Mies & Co., the Bauhaus, etc. are more and more being viewed as ancient history in architecture circles. At least the non-practicing architectural commentary and academic realms are putting the older buildings in the past and calling them all the same if they are not post-modern (what happened to Modernism as a classification???mhmmm) or new or Millenium or sustainable, etc.
This book does mention the various schools of design and their influence, but the organization of the book minimizes it. Page headings and arrangements of the images don't make this as an important a topic/feature as it is in the history of tall steel. Make no mistake, this a tall steel book.
The images themselves are large and beautifully reproduced. Some unfortunately laid out insert photos spoil otherwise great page layout and book design. It could have been a five star bit of building eye candy if it were not for some bad graphic design choices. The Petronas Towers and Kingdom Center sections have magnificent images of the whole building ruined by a detail image planted on top of the photographs. The first two pages of the Petronas section are nearly perfect and then one turns the page and poor design jumps out in an arbitrary and distracting assault. There is inconsistency in the layout from building to building also.
Well made large book that lays flat even without the best style of binding for this type of work. Beautiful repeated front and back inside cover in a blued sepia add to the overall presentation. Heavy pages that support the ink well and don't let light shine through the page and reflect back and display a ghostly image from the opposite side of the leaf. Some unfortunate print banding in illustrations with gradient tones. The Burj Dubai image on page 155 stand out badly with this problem. Noted because this is an easy fix in printing that shouldn't be in a book of this type. Think of a bad inkjet photograph on a low cost printer.
Four stars for the variety, the noted positive points, the inclusion of some unusual or not often seen building, interesting silhouette indexing in the lower edge of left hand pages combined with a relative scale number at the proportionate spot again on the left hand margin. Good design elements overwhelm the bad choices.
A good if not as fine as it might have been, addition to the library of visual reference books.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review