Turner Brooks: Work

Rating:
Summary: Absurd and Feeble Architecture
Review: I have never seen such a sorry excuse for architecture in my life. Buy this book if you need a good laugh. Reading the text coupled with the powerfully ludicrous images of Mr. Brook's silly architecture is analogous to watching a poorly scripted B-Movie. There are much better ways to spend your hard earned architectural salary!

Rating:
Summary: Serious students only
Review: This is not your coffee table book of the current architectural fashion. If you are interested in the idiosyncratic efforts of an intelligent practitioner working in an out-of-the-way corner of the country, I heartily recommend this book. As far as his style, it is "odd" much like Jersey Devil (Steve Badanes), but more educated and much more layered, both referentially and visually. Turner Brooks has had a modest amount of publicity, starting I think with Vincent Scully's "The Shingle Style Today" (subtitled "the historian's revenge," and a Record Houses award. The essays are better than the usual drivel which accompanies a monograph, and some of the photos are only OK, but the body of work points out that great work is possible even with projects of minimal scope. We should all do as well, or hope to.