architecture

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Manual for the Machinic Landscape

I've been looking for this book for a while now - anyone know of a source for a copy? In lieu of the actual book, I guess I will be content for now with a recent review, via Archinect:


:: image via Archinect

Landscape Urbanism: A Manual for the Machinic Landscape
By Mohsen Mostafavi (Author), Ciro Najle


"Perhaps the only weakness of this book is in the graphical “explorations”. The pictorial imagery even if data generated, never really addressed specific landscape/plane scale design. They were more often simply formulated form. I think they would have been more powerful, if attached or developed more closely to actual site-specific issues.

The essays however are deeply informative and “challenging”, in the way they strive to move theory into the realm of ethos and practice. I would hope that the strength of their diagrammatic approach could be developed more fully within a site specific argument. Especially of interest is Professor Najle’s announcement of a convoluted contemporary architecture. He argues that the most and best that is achieved “Flickering”, is simply a frantic state of agitation. Also, compelling is Keller Easterling’s examination of the concept of Error and it’s relation to the built environment. Particularly, his suggestion that “site is not topological space, but diverse points of information”

Ultimately, this book would not be as useful to a first time reader looking to grasp the field of landscape urbanism, who might be better served by an anthology such as The Landscape Urbanism Reader. Still this work which sometimes feels like a post-studio publication, is highly stimulating after even a second glance."

No comments:

Post a Comment