BLDG BLOG Book Review
THE BLDG BLOG BOOK
Chronicle Books, $29.95
Let's face it most of the web is for short attention span browsing and no one really reads anything lengthy online. This fact makes it odd that I am choosing for my first review in this series The BLDG BLOG Book by Geoff Manaugh.
I thought that everyone browsed the BLDG BLOG. But through some recent casual name-dropping I have discovered that few of my friends have heard of him. Chronicle Books released the book a few months ago and it has garnered a lot of critical attention from architecture nuts to literary mavens and everyone in between.
Manaugh was an Editor at Dwell Magazine, but while there he kept doing his blog about "architecture." It has received over 5 million visitors since 2004 and is one of the most visited sites for fresh insights on the intersection of architecture, with well…everything. The site and book are subtitled "architectural conjecture, urban speculation and landscape futures." and it's the best description I've seen so far that manages to capture the hybrid topics that he writes about.
The book is not a bunch of reprinted excerpts making a "best of" project from his blog. Instead Manaugh brings together some common themes and threads like underground exploration, sound, and climate change and expounds upon his original posts and research. But like the website it's totally packed with information. The book has sidebars and tangents (physical hyperlinks) that can be pursued on the myriad topics of interest framing the main essays. The book also features interviews with the folks that he’s featured on his blogs, fictional rants and tons of drawings and illustrations. And it's all beautifully designed with great layouts. And to kick it all up a notch, the book features color prints throughout printed on a matte paper. The graphic designers at MacFadden & Thorpe really kicked some ass.
Manaugh is a talented writer able to draw connections and relations between the seemingly random subjects. His blend of what he calls a "literary blur between fiction and architectural criticism" is a delight to read. In one chapter Mole Men, caves, science fiction and tunnels meet geology, forensics, urban exploration, the CIA and the military industrial complex. Manaugh describes how a geologist was called by the CIA to help them determine what cave system Bin Laden might be broadcasting from, by seeing the formations of the rocks shown on the Al Quaeda's famous videotapes. All geological evidence pointed to a region in Afghanistan. He follows up that tidbit by relating it to dramatic fiction novels that speculate on future wars with subhuman species from under the Earth.
In his chapter on Redesigning the Sky I learned about weather weaponization and speculations for the future of climate change on the built environment. Future natures, Liquid Films, Water-Signs, Cloud Cities, Undersea Landscapes, speculations on a world without humans are a few other topics that gave me a kick in the head.
BLDG blog and other internet-famous projects have seen the transition from the web to print. Recent titles that come to mind include; Stuff White People Like and The BibliOdyssey Book It's a trend that defies current models of publishing and I love it.
BLDG BLOG book is a cultural literacy primer on how to think anew about your everyday surroundings, where your personal subplots intermingle with your built environment. It should be a required text for architects, artists and creatives of all types that are trying to create a future of possibilities. The end of the book features works for further reading, making this a perfect course book and syllabus for those trying to teach the kids how to re-envision our world.
Manaugh is a talented writer able to draw connections and relations between the seemingly random subjects. His blend of what he calls a "literary blur between fiction and architectural criticism" is a delight to read. In one chapter Mole Men, caves, science fiction and tunnels meet geology, forensics, urban exploration, the CIA and the military industrial complex. Manaugh describes how a geologist was called by the CIA to help them determine what cave system Bin Laden might be broadcasting from, by seeing the formations of the rocks shown on the Al Quaeda's famous videotapes. All geological evidence pointed to a region in Afghanistan. He follows up that tidbit by relating it to dramatic fiction novels that speculate on future wars with subhuman species from under the Earth.
In his chapter on Redesigning the Sky I learned about weather weaponization and speculations for the future of climate change on the built environment. Future natures, Liquid Films, Water-Signs, Cloud Cities, Undersea Landscapes, speculations on a world without humans are a few other topics that gave me a kick in the head.
BLDG blog and other internet-famous projects have seen the transition from the web to print. Recent titles that come to mind include; Stuff White People Like and The BibliOdyssey Book It's a trend that defies current models of publishing and I love it.
BLDG BLOG book is a cultural literacy primer on how to think anew about your everyday surroundings, where your personal subplots intermingle with your built environment. It should be a required text for architects, artists and creatives of all types that are trying to create a future of possibilities. The end of the book features works for further reading, making this a perfect course book and syllabus for those trying to teach the kids how to re-envision our world.
