International Shopping Center Architecture: Details, Concepts & Projects

Rating:
Summary: Poor photos spoil a good book.
Review: Books on design make or break their reputation on two factors: text content (tips, advice, project descriptions) and visuals (photos, drawings). Altoon draws on his extensive experience to give a fairly good discussion of shopping center design in the international scene. He contends that while some components or details may be exported successfully to other countries, overall concepts do not usually travel well. He then discusses the components individually and provides a comprehensive portfolio of shopping centers in different cultural milieus. (However, if you're a designer who's had some experience doing shopping centers, the discussion probably has little new to offer you.)

The text, however, cannot make up for the very poor printing quality of the photographs. Almost all of the photos are somewhat blurred - imagine the fifth color copy of a copy of an original. Such a pity since the book ends up less than half effective because of this.