Restaurant or colored, glazed bricks in Saarinen’s luxurious materials, and framed views.

iews. As depicted aspects of the comparison: the contemporary

GM Technical Center. Viewers conditioned by in the extraordinary archive of images that form one emphasis on architecture as commodity and a return
looking at photographs and watching movies of this book’s major contributions, and includes the of pandering to scenographic value in the service of
expected expressive forms and heightened work of Slim Aarons, Ezra Stoller, and Balthazar consumption and branding. The ‘‘starchitecture’’ of
experiences from this new modern architecture. Korab, along with advertisements, fan magazines, elite cultural institutions barely attempts to make
Constructed by experts and aimed at a and Andy Warhol, American glamour was performed architecture more accessible to a popular audience,
knowledgeable clientele, the architecture of in glossy, seductive photographs in the popular and as Friedman claims postwar American glamour did,
American glamour was urban and cosmopolitan, professional press. nor is there a widespread movement to adapt
grounded in popular culture and media, and based Complementing recent studies of postwar and contemporary architecture to ordinary
on the close emotional relationship between people postmodern architecture by Reinhold Martin, Jorge environments. While Alice Friedman gives us a
and things. Otero-Pailos, and Mark Crinson and Claire brilliant account of the logic and the appeal of
In her previous book, Women and the Making Zimmerman, this volume recuperates a period of ‘‘American glamour,’’ we appear to remain alienated
of the Modern House, Friedman focused on houses modern architecture that the architectural from glamour and the optimistic, consumption-dizzy
and their women clients; here, she discusses an establishment denigrated for its very popularity and era that produced it.
array of building types, but retains a close interest seductive ‘‘eye-appeal.’’ Written in an accessible
Patricia A. Morton
in the interaction of creator and user. Psychological style, yet buttressed by an impressive scholarly
portraits of the architects and clients combine with apparatus, this study will be valuable for enthusiasts
elegant formal and visual analysis and narratives of of the midcentury, students, and scholars alike. As
postwar American culture, commerce, and society. Friedman notes, midcentury Modern architecture The Alphabet and the Algorithm
Of Friedman’s case studies, only Morris Lapidus and and design have gained enormous popularity MARIO CARPO
Philip Johnson leap to mind immediately as recently, exemplified by the Mad Men series. This Princeton Architectural Press, 2011
architects of glamour, while the work of Neutra, fascination for an era of fixed gender roles, hard 190 pages, 13 illustrations
Saarinen, and Wright is not usually associated with drinking and rampant consumerism belies, however, $21.95, cloth
theatricality and glitz. While ‘‘glamour’’ might seem a deep cultural schism that Friedman believes was
irreverent when applied to Frank Lloyd Wright’s formed during the tumultuous 60s and alienated The thesis of Mario Carpo’s The Alphabet and the
idiosyncratic Beth Sholom Synagogue, for example, the architecture of the immediate postwar from Algorithm is that the most significant consequence
Friedman reads the Temple as a dramatic narrative postmodern sensibilities. Glamour lost its sheen, of the two-decade-old digital era in architecture is
of American democratic values and Judaism as set displaced by countercultural movements and not its capacity to produce new forms or
out by the congregation’s charismatic leader, Rabbi increasing discontent with both the International sensibilities, but its effect on how architecture is
Mortimer J. Cohen. The pyramidal form, the Style and untrammeled consumerism, and irony and conceived of and made. What is at stake in the
enormous sanctuary filled with colored light, and distance prevailed over the glamorous. adoption of computational-based design methods is
the translucent skin that radiates light at night Friedman ends her volume with speculation nothing less than the 500-year-old notion of what
are monumental, expressive, dramatic forms, about links between postwar American glamour and an architect is and what he or she does.
i.e., glamorous. current ‘‘broadly legible’’ and ‘‘visually exciting’’ While this is by now a somewhat common
Friedman further argues that American glamour architecture, hinting at a return of faith in the refrain, Carpo’s book stands in contrast to similar
resides as much in the representations of buildings power of design. She illustrates Zaha Hadid’s arguments made by designers and practitioners.
as in the buildings themselves. Friedman contends Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Carpo, who teaches architectural theory and history
that American glamour percolated into mainstream Cincinnati, the Seattle Public Library by Rem at Georgia Tech and Yale, grounds his analysis in
culture through ‘‘glamourized’’ images like Julius Koolhaas, and the Guthrie Theater addition by Jean disciplinary rather than professional or technological
Shulman’s famous photograph of Case Study House Nouvel as exemplary of our age, in which architects concerns. Neither a propagandist for digital design
#22 by Pierre Koenig, with which she begins her are called upon to experiment with abstract form tools, nor paranoid of them, his interest in CAD-
book. The buildings themselves were photogenic, and new materials. Yet this somewhat superficial CAM (Computer Aided Design-Computer Aided
staged for the camera with theatrical lighting, conclusion leaves unsaid some of the less savory Manufacturing) and BIM (Building Information

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 were from the actual building. (Perhaps the most and authorial decisions. In contrast, the more
fascinating part of the book is Carpo’s description interactive open source and ‘‘wiki’’-based platforms
of comparable techniques invented by Alberti for that define the second wave of software
achieving the same effect in painting, sculpture, development has a greater potential to redistribute
and cartography). These methods also helped intellectual and physical labor.The ease and speed
redefine and reorganize labor at the site of with which CAD-CAM and BIM software can
construction, as these new ‘‘authorial scripts’’ accommodate and even analyze new inputs, and the
demanded that workers mechanically carry out their nature of their interfaces enables anybody involved
‘‘author’s’’ instructions, rather than—as Ruskin in the design process to directly affect a project’s
would later lament—having to interpret and shapes, spaces, or surfaces.This possibility is
augment them with their own insights. consistent with, and only made feasible by, the
While this is still the norm today, Carpo increase in computational capacity and the ability to
reminds the reader that the revolution Alberti directly translate information into things via digitally
instigated was in stark contrast to the highly controlled fabrication processes. In a world where
collaborative and embodied knowledge that defined slight differences can be produced at no extra cost,
the medieval work force. While this too is well everybody can get a customized version of a pair of
known, what is noteworthy about Carpo’s restating jeans, an album, a computer, and even a building.
of it are the commonalities between the Variation is built into the system. Authorship may not
participatory and communal ethos of the Gothic be dead, but the Albertian version of it appears to be.
age and the current era of design and fabrication One is reminded of Reyner Banham’s 1961
software. warning that ‘‘if architecture wants to run with
Of course, the medieval master builder and technology,’’ it would have to give up much of the
guilds were also the inspiration for the Bauhaus; the cultural baggage that up until then defined its
argument being that the new mechanical and legitimacy. For Banham, that meant abandoning
Management) software lies in their affinity with industrial means of reproduction demanded a more symbolism and drawing as the respective ends and
past modes of architectural representation and the integrated way of combining thought and means of architectural production and replacing
effects these different techniques have on the role know-how. The difference now, as Carpo sees it, is them with performance-based criteria achieved via
of architects within the production process. that where both the Renaissance and Modernist calculations and diagrams. Carpo’s book suggests
Not surprisingly, Carpo pays particular modes of reproduction envisioned a ‘‘universe of that keeping up with technology now means
attention to the moment in the Renaissance when forms determined by exactly repeatable, visible abandoning formal authorship and replacing it with
Leon Battista Alberti helped to reinvent the role of imprints,’’ digital reproduction occurs via the more open, participatory processes. It does not,
the architect by concentrating architectural creation of ‘‘exactly transmissible but invisible however, reject drawing, or more accurately, THE
production on the making of measured and scaled algorithms.’’ This shift from the physical to the drawing, only the Albertian mode of it as a mode
orthographic drawings. Only this type of informational enables and encourages a new for creating ‘‘notational identity.’’ The interface has
representation, Alberti claimed, could ensure that condition: The making of identical copies from an changed, but the production of variations still relies
the buildings built from them would be ‘‘identical ‘‘original’’ is replaced with the infinite variation of on the manipulation of representations of matter
notational’’ copies of the architect’s vision. The an initial condition or form. (i.e., points, lines, and planes), not the direct
precision of such drawings allowed for a relatively This capacity and emphasis on variation rather transformation of it. Indeed, in CAD-CAM-based
easy transformation from graphic depiction to than conformity has both formal and social processes, it would appear that the drawing—for
physical object. They also helped to establish the implications for architectural production. Carpo better and for worse—is the only thing one ever has
architectural designer as an authorial figure, one recounts how the first wave of digital design in the to master.
whose intentions could not be challenged by 1990s focused on producing formal variation and What then is the would-be architectural author
builders or craftsmen, no matter how distant they continuity but still relied on proprietary techniques to do? Other than returning to traditional

99 REVIEWS | BOOKS
techniques of production, one possible answer is for interactive platform such as the Internet, it is also
the architect to become the designer of the subject to regular change.The advisory board will be
algorithm—or objectile—that creates the generic modified depending on the topic or theme the editors
form or parameters that can subsequently be decide to take up.The publication draws expertise
manipulated and adjusted by others. In other words, from the worlds of both web (e.g., Archinect) and
to design the conditions out of which individual print-based publishing (Actar).
variations are possible, as Bernard Cache does in his As far as its subject matter is concerned,
‘‘designs’’ for interior furnishings and Greg Lynn did Bracket is dedicated to covering ‘‘emerging critical
in his Embryological House. issues at the juncture of architecture, environment
Is this really the future for architecture? And if and digital culture.’’ In its first issue, the editors
so, is it a good thing? Carpo’s short text, with take up the theme of farming, which they
limited contemporary examples, fails to provide understand as a mediated space of production, one
enough evidence to make his a historically rigorous that necessarily entails the ‘‘modification of
proof. But that does not seem to have been the infrastructure, urbanisms, architectures, and
ambition. This ultimately polemical book makes a landscapes.’’ Fortunately, on this account, they go
strong case that the discipline’s self-image, agency, beyond tired clichés about the farm as a pastoral
and unexamined ideologies are being threatened by retreat, focusing instead on its connections with
the very tools it is using. As the example of Alberti technology, information, and industrialization: ‘‘Fish
reminds us, our tools and our way of working have At the same time, though, they suffer from their farms, server farms, energy farms, information
never been aesthetically or politically neutral. What relative insularity (they are written by specialists for farms, Wikipedia, Twitter,’’ the editors write, ‘‘our
the reader of this book is left with is not a clear specialists), they are not especially accessible (they contemporary daily life owes so much to the
solution to this problem, but a keen awareness of cost money and are not available in all countries), resourceful, convenient intelligence of farming.’’
the dilemma and the conceptual and disciplinary and they are not flexible (it takes a very long time The essays and projects in this publication do
implications of it. It is up to each of us to either to see one’s article or book in print). Websites and an outstanding job of fleshing out Bracket’s
write our own variation on this now dominant online blogs are wonderful alternatives to the editorial aims. They cover topics ranging from
theme or seek out alternatives to resist or move journal and the book because they are democratic, mail-order produce to waste management and
beyond it. cheap, and mutable. But here, we are dealing with recycling. Przybylski’s notable contribution treats
an ephemeral medium. Who knows if my browser the history of the catalogue and discusses how it
David Salomon
will be able to ‘‘read’’ an essay, interview, or book was used as an urban and regional planning tool.
published in .html format one or two decades from This essay reminds us of the important role that
Bracket 1: On Farming now? communication and information have played in the
MASON WHITE and MAYA PRZYBYLSKI, Editors Enter the newly released Bracket, an history of planning and urban design in general. The
Actar, 2010 extraordinary publication that seeks a middle ground author considers the civic and urban implications of
272 pages. color illustrations between the ephemerality of the Web and the Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, which
$34.95 (paper) permanence of the print-based academic journal or functioned, she notes, as a ‘‘participatory forum of
book. Conceptually, Bracket’s editors, Mason White information exchange’’ when it was first released
Traditionally, scholarly research has primarily been and Maya Przybylski, understand their new project as during the 1960s. A kind of latter-day Farmer’s
disseminated through blind, peer-reviewed, an almanac, which, they write, represents ‘‘an Almanac, the Whole Earth Catalog, Przybylski
print-based journals or university press publications. essential medium of common cultural understanding writes, sought to serve ‘‘geographically
Peer-reviewed journals such as JAE are necessary of the future.’’ Similar to a scholarly journal, Bracket disconnected yet functionally connected
outlets for scholars because in the best of cases has an advisory board made up of recognized scholars populations by delivering curated sets of items and
they provide a forum within which to develop and and researchers, people like Michael Speaks and making clear the channels by which these items
share ideas in a rigorous and sustained fashion. Charles Waldheim. Similar to a more decentralized or could be acquired.’’ A second essay, Charles

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