| Books i wish were available in every language... |
| Memories, Dreams, Reflections |
| A Pattern Language |
| R. B. Fuller: Education Automation: Freeing the Scholar to Return to his Studies |
| Christopher Alexander - copyright 1977 Oxford University Press |
| Carl Gustav Jung, Aniela Jaffe - copyright 1963 (translated from the German by Richard & Clara Winston) Collins and Routledge & Kegan Paul Links to Jung WebSites |
| "...this is one of R.B. Fuller's most accessible books, and re-confirms his unusual ability to see into future technological applications. You may come away from this book convinced, as I was, that Fuller was the most farsighted thinker on useful computer applications, and the inspirational architect of the internet age... (...don't worry, he limited himself to 83 pages this time!) ...just to give you some idea of what kind of a futurist Fuller really was, he actually started re-designing the University soon after the Computer became a demonstrable reality..." |
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| "...Christopher Alexander has re-invented the book. (Short chapters, concise arguments, extensive cross-referencing.) A ground-breaking reference volume for Architects, Builders, Urban Planners, and anyone dedicated to sustainable democratic values..." |
| The Crystal Chain Letters: Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut & His Circle |
| Iain Boyd Whyte (Editor) - copyright 1985 MIT Press |
| "Perhaps of interest only to students of architecture... ...this volume nevertheless proves the power of personal correspondence, as the ideas exchanged between a small number of professional associates lighted the way to the creation of the Bauhaus school in Germany." |
| Richard Buckminster Fuller - copyright 1962 Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press |
| Tragsysteme/Structure Systems |
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| Heino Engel, Ralph Rapson (preface), Hannskarl Bandal - copyright 1998.02 Hatje Cantz Publishers |
| "This is a nearly exhaustive encyclopeadic exploration of every possible building form imaginable." "...also, if you can find a copy, check out his book "The Japanese House"... |
| Beyond the Cube: The Architecture of Space Frames & Polyhedra |
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| J. Francois Gabriel (Editor) - copyright 1997.07.29 John Wiley & Sons; Publishers |
| "This book includes an intriguing and thought provoking chapter on the history of the study of abstract Geometry & Polyhedra." |
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| The Timeless Way of Building |
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| Christopher Alexander - copyright 1979 Oxford University Press |
| "...In general, Christopher Alexander is a strong believer in The "slow-growth" approach to architecture and urban-planning, but "appropriate-scale" also seems to be one of his most deeply held convictions. He is very concerned about the enourmously difficult problem of the Architect creating environments that users themselves feel that they had a part in creating. When growth occurs too quickly, or the 'scale' of buildings is innaproppriate for the size of the 'social-organisms' that will utilize the buildings, they feel the loss of control even before they take occupancy. Alexander has a series of books that seems to address most of the errors of the "modernist" school. If a shoemaker tried to sell you a pair of shoes that were uncomfortable, & made 'mobility' nearly impossible, one would immediatly conclude that the salesman were either an absolute lunatic, or completely incompetent! In the profession of architecture, we have been learning our lessons at a much slower pace. Architects for the last century have been attempting to define the proper role of an Architect when he is wielding the enourmous power of human industrialization. Architecture still seems to lag far behind most other industries in terms of application of industrial capacity, but this seems to be due to the peculiarly "localized" nature of real-estate capital... ...as well as the apparent human psychological need for a 'sense of place'... ...unique and 'set apart' from any others. The cracks in the foundation of Architecural Modernism began to appear in the 1960's, and the ideology of Post-Modernism is a 'pause- button' at best... ...Alexander has done the job of establishing a truly sustainable forum for future architectural progress. |
| The Theory of the Leisure Class |
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| Ernst Fritz Schumacher - copyright 1999 (originally published in 1973) James Robertson & Paul Hawken Hartley and Marks Publishers - Point Roberts, WA - Vancouver, BC |
| "...This is the same line of thinking for anyone studying Economics, or just going into Business. Personally, i wish this book had a different name, (or perhaps a hundred different names with different covers, because it was written for everyone who struggles with the anonymity of working in large scale enterprises.), but it is NOT about people with "small-dreams", or "small-ambitions"... ...what it IS about is people who want to change the world in a really BIG way, AND not lose thier humanity in the process." |
| "...Veblen was not just an economist. He was a student of the Human Condition, and asked "strange" questions of himself and others like... 'why do people feel they need things' that obviously do nothing to improve their lives?' a bit of a psychologist, he certainly qualifies as one of the best observers of Human behavior at the turn of the 20th century. (...did they use the term "anthropologist" in his day?) He fully analyzes the deeper psychological foundations of the "class-struggle" in this book, and never once suggests that you will have to wait for some kind of world-wide revolution to find happiness for yourself. " |
| Small is Beautiful:Economics as if People Really Mattered |
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| Thorstein Veblen - copyright 1994 (originally published in 1899) Penguin Viking Press - New York - London |