Architecture in Detail: New York (Architecture in Detail)

Rating:
Summary: New York's Best
Review: Architecture in Detail: New York is a remarkable new kind of book for New York architecture. In 96 pages, author Marcia Reiss narrates the history and significance of 20 buildings of architectural significance in New York's history. Her introductory essay sets the tone, succinctly moving through the last two hundred years of building, from St. Paul's Chapel to the Rose Center for Earth and Space. Throughout, in both the text and the more than 100 photographs, there is a commitment to giving the reader straightforward information on why a particular building matters, as well as the harder task of communicating its special poetry beyond a postcard image.

The series title, "architecture in detail" is borne out by the use of interior, exterior, and close-up photographs. These are produced at as a high a quality as the best coffee table books, but this slim volume has the benefit of a modern efficiency of means-it measures only 61/2 by 81/2 inches. It's hardcover, so it really isn't meant to serve primarily as a backpack guidebook, but it would be perfect book to look read before going out on that daunting quest of seeing "the best buildings in New York." It is also notable for the author's ability to integrate the telling detail, the insightful quote from the architect or critic, and even a summary of New York's high-rise zoning code into the building descriptions. Not to mention a sense of history and literature that goes well beyond the built environment's special story, as when she brings the fictional Holden Caulfield into her evaluation of the planetarium. By organizing the buildings chronologically, Reiss is able to build up a general historical story as she moves forward.

This book will "delight and instruct" many people, but one group in particular has been waiting for it for years: architects, architectural historians who have friends and relatives who want a window into how it is that some buildings (or in one case, bridges) manage to be celebrated by everyone from specialists to cab-drivers. Showing and explaining the big picture and the detail on buildings from architect Cass Gilbert's U.S. Custom House to architects Kevin Roche/John Dinkeloo's Ford Foundation Building, without the specialist information of measured drawings or detailed descriptions, is a very effective way to clarify how great buildings are always more than icons on the skyline, but also have spaces, surfaces, and detail that are integral to its value to the city.

In picking her 20-member roster, author Reiss has balanced considerations of historical importance and architectural distinction, and also managed to have the best known buildings in the world (United Nations Headquarters, among others), as well as ones such as the New 42nd Street Studios by Platt, Byard, Dovell and Anne Miletello which even an architecturally-minded tourist might not yet know about. But they should, and among the millions of tourists churning through 42nd Street and Times Square there may be thousands who look up and see this building thanks to this book.

In short, it is a book that the most general reader, tourist, or New Yorkophile would enjoy, and it is so good at not dumbing down the story, that those very familiar with New York and its architecture can also gain from it. Reiss is an expert on New York and its urban qualities, and there's never been a better time to read a good, illustrated narrative of just how much value architecture can bring to the life of the city.