A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON FORMING THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

Book Review: Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America by Keller Easterling. MIT Press, 1999, ISBN 0-262-05061-7.

Some books about architecture are concerned primarily with individual buildings, or individual architects, or with architectural style. These are all interesting enough subjects, but often far from the built things that most people experience every day.

PALLADIO'S FOUR BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

Editor's Note: In the 16th century, the great architect Andrea Palladio wrote "I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura." The influence of "The Four Books on Architecture" is still felt by professionals four centuries later. Octavo, a publisher of rare books in digital formats, has recently issued a CD-ROM reproduction of a first edition of this classic of architectural literature. The following is excerpted from a commentary by architectural historian Robert Tavernor, which is part of Octavo's publication.

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY URBANISM

Book Review: E-topia: "Urban Life, Jim—But Not as We Know It" by William Mitchell. The MIT Press, 1999. ISBN 0-262-13355-5.

Readers seeking a photographic vision of how future technologies will create science fiction cities of sleek buildings and flying taxis will not find it in E-topia. Author William Mitchell, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, refrains from such specific or fantastical speculations.