Instructors/ Designers:
Jennifer Minasian
Scott Parker
Scott Callihan
Michael Collins
Laura Cooper
Eric Wegerbauer

Volume5

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FAVORITE BOOKS: Jennifer Minasian

Jennifer Minasian is an architectural historian. She works for Historic Resources Group, an historic preservation consulting firm, and teaches architectural history at Woodbury University. Despite her urban ambivalence, Jennifer has become an advocate for Los Angeles, where four generations of her family have lived.

Five California Architects

by Esther McCoy, 1960

With essays on Bernard Maybeck, Greene and Greene, Irving Gill, and R. M. Schindler, this book is essential for any architecture student in California. For me, Five California Architects made people like R. M. Schindler in particular into living and working human beings rather than "historical figures." That's the kind of thing that makes you as a student realize that you are part of a continuum: it includes you, and includes all of these people who came before. It's inspiring.

The Second Generation

by Esther McCoy, 1984

It's hard to overstate the importance of Esther McCoy's writings, and it's hard to overstate how enjoyable they are. She's an incredibly perceptive and talented writer. McCoy had worked as a draftsman for Schindler, and was a personal friend of each architect discussed in this book: Harwell Hamilton Harris, Gregory Ain, J. R. Davidson, and Raphael Soriano. Like Schindler not long before them, they all started from a base that they chose personally to build their work upon, whether it included new and available technology, a vernacular tradition, a grounding in European Modernism, or all three.

Los Angeles - The Architecture of Four Ecologies

by Reyner Banham, 1971

We're all trying to figure out Los Angeles, and one of the first to take a good crack at it was Reyner Banham. Like most transplanted Englishmen, he was really fascinated by Los Angeles. Banham is an extraordinary writer, and also authored several important scholarly books on architecture and design. He divides Los Angeles into four geographic and conceptual zones, the hills, the flat lands, the beach-side suburbs ("surfurbia"), and...the freeways. His thoughts were sometimes imprisoned by the Los Angeles of 1972 ("A note on downtown...because that is all downtown deserves" - cruel and untrue!), and his categories leave a lot out, but this is one of those books that made Los Angeles into a place with urban characteristics you could talk about on their own terms, not in terms of the expectations raised by other cities. He helped us begin to make sense of Los Angeles, and this is an entertaining and incredibly informative book written from a unique and original perspective. (I also really love his out-of-print Tales from America Deserta, about the deserts of Southern California.)

Invisible Cities

by Italo Calvino, 1978

I have actually only read half of this little 160-page book. I re-read the first half periodically, and I have acquired a copy in the original Italian, all in an attempt to make this book last forever. The premise is that these are stories of far-flung reaches of the kingdom of Kublai Kahn, as told by Marco Polo when he returns to the king after his journeys. Calvino's stories of these imaginary cities capture the essence of the mystery that shapes places in your mind. While Reyner Banham and Esther McCoy's writings are essential shapers of collective, regional memory, this book is the tool of private consciousness with regards to cities and buildings. I can't bear to finish it - there would be no more wonder left if there were no more of this book to read.

FAVORITE BOOKS: Michael Collins

The Futurist Cookbook

by Filippo Marinetti/ translated by Suzanne Brill

Tired of those old recipes. Pick up the Futurist Cookbook which pokes fun at the traditional bourgeois notions of food and preparation techniques. In line with Futurist ideology, the book is fairly revolutionary, but unlike the Futurist Manifesto, the cookbook is definitely full of laughter. I've taken the liberty of including one recipe. Aerofood (formula by the Futurist Aeropainter Fillia) " The diner is served from the right with a plate containing some black olives, fennel hearts and kumquats. From the left he is served with a rectangle made of sandpaper, silk and velvet. The foods must be carried directly to the mouth with the right hand while the left hand lightly and repeatedly strokes the tactile rectangle. In the meantime the waiter sprays the napes of the diners' necks with a conprofumo of carnations while from the kitchen comes contemporaneously a violent conrumore of an aeroplane motor and some dismusica by Bach.

The Critical Tradition

by David Richter

Tired of hearing the word " Decon" and not knowing what it means- ask Derrida, he still doesn't know. Now that I've got your attention, I highly recommend this book which serves as a comprehensive compilation of major literary theory and criticism papers featuring all the "isms" by people like: Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Emerson, Poe, Nietzche, Marx, Benjamin, Lukacs, Freud, Jung, Brooks, Eco, Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, Man, Woolf, Cixous, Sartre, and more. Definitely a book for thought provoking discussions- if you like to hear yourself speak.

Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time & Light

by Leonard Shlain

A book that should remain dust-free. Not often does one hear the words "art" and "physics" except when drawing distinct comparisons between the two. Art = image/metaphor/emotion Physics = numbers/equations. Throughout this book the author provides countless examples of how artists repeatedly created revolutionary images before physicists formulated their visionary new configurations of the world. In the authors own words, " revolutionary art anticipates visionary physics."

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

Artificial insemination, recombinant DNA, Viagra, Advertising alla Zooropa, Consumption, 4 out of 5 doctors recommend, pill popping culture- Are we amidst a Brave New World ourselves? Soma anyone?

Jurassic Park

by Michael Crichton

No, it's not a mistake. In 1991, prior to all the high tech dino hype, I had the opportunity of borrowing this addicting book. I became so addicted to the concept of genetics and the inherent power of re-engineering various life-forms-bacteria, crops, animals, humans? The strength of the book lies in its ability to introduce in simple terms, the powers of a complex science, within the framework of an exciting story. The book forces us to genuinely question our morality and ethics concerning man's continual quest to harness awesome powers, we barely understand.

FAVORITE BOOKS: Laura Cooper

"The Baron of the Trees"

by Italo Calvion

An amazingly beautiful tale of a man who clambered up into the trees at the age of 12 and never came down.

"Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"

by Annie Dillard

Incredibly intricate observations that make you realize that the act of looking and really seeing is a talent we must develop.

"Second Nature"

by Michel Pollan

Great essays that point out just how much culture and history are present in landscapes and gardens we otherwise take for granted

"The Secret Garden"

by Frances Hodgsen Burnett

I recently found my childhood copy, tattered and spine held together by tape. I read this one over and over! I love the idea in this book that a living space ( the garden ) has the ability to transform both plant and human lives. Now I have my own secret garden.

"Through the Looking Glass"

by Lewis Carrol

Of course I love the part about the garden with the grouchy talking flowers. I also liked the way that the space didn't operate the way you would expect ( Alice could never get where she wanted to go by approaching it directly )

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