Design by Competition: Making Design Competition Work

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: A compelling and comprehensive book about the problems with design competition architecture and signature architecture. It analyzes competition successes and failures through history; and provides a detailed analysis of Peter Eisenman's competition winning design for the Wexner Center, a full blown disaster that the critics loved. He shows that the emperor is wearing no clothers. It is a must read for any citizen concerned about their built environment and for anyone involved in a design competition--sponsors, jurors, competitors, and concerned citizens.

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Summary: A voice of reason and social responsibility for architecture
Review: Have you ever seen a building that won a design competition and wondered what planet the people who designed it and chose it came from? Jack Nasar's latest book, Design by Competition, brings the same clarity of thought and sound aesthetic sense shown in his earlier work, The Evaluative Image of the City, to another fundamental aspect of urban design: design competitions. Here he again relies on solid social and behavioral surveys, and a deep commitment to community, to dispell the elitist values of architects who place the pursuit of the grand architectural "statement" above sound function, responsible economics, social relevance, and even beauty. He strips bare the hollow ideology of avant-garde architecture pawned off in competitions on a public it disdains, showing it to be out-of-step with the values of those it claims to lead. It also calls into question the underlying educational and professional atmospheres that reward such work. Written in a tone reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's From Bauhaus to Our House, William H. Whyte's The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, and Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Nasar holds up a mirror to the conduct of design competitions and finds a distorted image in reflection. In response, he offers many common sense suggestions for improvement. While the book reads in places like a journal article written for the professional social scientist, it's a must read for all with professional or lay interests in architecture, city planning, urban design, and landscape architecture.

Rating:
Summary: If you liked Wolfe's From Bauhaus to our house, read this
Review: I've wondered about the trophy architecture I've seen in my city and elsewhere. As did Tom Wolfe in From Bauhaus to our house, Design by Competition goes beyond the publicity to tell the true story: The emperor's wearing no clothes. Nasar packs the book with facts and anecdotes about flaws in competition designs through history, and the disastrous results of a Peter Eisenman competition winning design. If you liked Wolfe's book, you'll love this one.

Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read about twentieth century architecture
Review: The best book I've read on design competitions. In fact, the best book I've read about architecture. A must read for anyone interested in the field

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Worth to read for all architects, developer as well as environmental psychologists