london ENGLAND

The aim is a comprehensive theoretical system that offers itself to architecture as its comprehensive self-description describing architecture from within architecture, in its internal constitution, and in its relationship to its societal environment. The premise here is that architecture has always already constituted itself self-referentially, via its own autonomous, disciplinary discourse.
The theory proposed here, the theory of architectural autopoiesis, focuses on architectural communications and “observes” these communications to detect its typical patterns. The theory analyses how individual communications depend upon and reproduce communication structures like the key distinctions, concepts, values, styles, methods and media of the discipline.

new york NEW YORK

The new issue of Log explores the idea of curating architecture. Cynthia Davidson draws on Zaha Hadid, Jeffrey Kipnis writes a letter, Henry Urbach seeks the atmosphere, Hans Ulrich Olbrist alphabetizes concepts, Kurt Forster argues for architecture, and Sylvia Lavin redefines architectural work.

new york NEW YORK

The new issue of Log explores the idea of curating architecture. Cynthia Davidson draws on Zaha Hadid, Jeffrey Kipnis writes a letter, Henry Urbach seeks the atmosphere, Hans Ulrich Olbrist alphabetizes concepts, Kurt Forster argues for architecture, and Sylvia Lavin redefines architectural work.

new york NEW YORK

david MAZZUCCHELLI, the brilliant illustrator of batman year one, city of glass, and rubber blanket, has put out his first full length original work – asterios polyp. The novel’s titular character, an architect who has yet to realize any of his speculative, highly theoretical work, is forced to reexamine his life and career following an accident which takes him from manhattan and ivy league teaching appointments to being a small town mechanic. Mazzuccheli experiments with a number of constantly shifting styles, color application, and drawing techniques to illustrate the story and push the boundaries of image and text’s relationship.

portland OREGON

another great issue of yeti magazine complete with luc sante’s real photo postcards, illustrations by nicholas gazin, interviews with zolla jesus, bishop perry tillis, and elaine radigue as well as a cd full of fuzzed out gems from tyvek, ty segall, mantles, woven bones, and little claw.

FRANCE

jason’s low moon collects five of his shorter pieces including the titular new york times serial into his first hardcover book. continuing in his spare style and his impeccable timing he uses techniques that are reminiscent of silent film as he builds suspense and bizarre laughs at every twist with these stories of murder, sex, and deadpan talking dogs.

new york NEW YORK

the third set of PENGUIN’S beautiful great ideas series is finally available in the united states. the covers feature designs in shades of green by the fantastic david pearsons. this set of twenty pocket paperbacks includes foucault, plutarch, kierkegaard, camus, proust, tolstoy, and freud.

london ENGLAND

amazon.com: farshid MOUSSAVI’s the function of form explores the production of singular affects through systems that relate form and content. this is an essential graphic manual on structural systems and their capacity to produce a variety of forms. extracting their base geometric unit, a wide range of historical projects from the medieval to the present are used as systems to proliferate different forms. the book distinguishes tessellation from modulation as a type of flexible system for producing complex repetition through diverse parts. the research presented aims to move architectural experiments away from ‘mechanistic’ notions of systems for re-producing forms, to ‘machinic’ notions of systems that determine how parts of an architectural problem interrelate and multiply. This open nature of transversal systems leads to new actualized forms and novel affects.

paris FRANCE

the one armed blaise CENDRARS (frederic sauser) is responsible for this explosive surreallist moravagine. a schizophrenic, ranting, romp through the first decade of 20th century europe, moravagine, tells the tale of the title character and his homicidal, jack the ripper tendencies. the author springs moravagine from an international sanitarium where he discovers him in the act of masturbating onto a goldfish in its bowl, and leads him on a trip spanning the trans-siberian highway, paris, new york, and new orleans. evil, humor, anarchists, and plenty of vile edge make this the best book the beats could never write. it contains more edge and wit than naked lunch with a dash of futurism thrown in.

bonner’s ferryIDAHO

“my idea of a health trip is switching to menthols and getting a tan” denis johnson’s neonoir “nobody move” rips along like a tight, quick pop version of cormac mcarthy’s no country for old men. this tale is complete with hit men, a western backdrop, a femme fatale, and plenty of failures. the hapless luntz, with his barbershop chorus and gambling problem, puts a bullet in the wrong guy’s thigh triggering a series of coincidences that endanger everyone in the cast. the chase runs through bakersfield california and on to trailer parks and suburban malls with plenty of ambushes, shotgun shells, painkillers, and booze along for the ride.