Architectural Guide - Böcker

Minsk, founded in 1067, was a small, inconspicuous town lost in the backwoods of Eastern Europe for many centuries. Ironically, it was the devastation caused by the Second World War that drove the Soviet authorities to transform Minsk into a major city of true importance. The post-war development turned Minsk into one of the world’s fastest growing cities in the 1960s and 1970s and also left behind bright, visible traces of how ideas about the ‘perfect’ Soviet city changed over time. Today Minsk is seen by many as a reserve of Soviet architecture and city planning, situated in a rather peculiar political and economic context.This guide takes the reader beyond popular tourist attractions, offering a comprehensive picture of all layers of the city. The architectural works presented range from 17th century churches to arenas and hotels built for the 2014 Ice Hockey World Championships; from iconic symbols of the Belarusian capital to the distant but intriguing outskirts. The author tells the story of Minsk by presenting the ‘seven faces’ of the city: 200 buildings, ten squares, five war monuments, seven parks, all metro stations, as well as ten residential estates and twenty mass series that together contributed to what became known as the ‘Minsk Phenomenon’.

The first of its kind, the Shenzhen Architectural Guide is dedicated to the city’s architecture and conceived as an atlas. The pages inside are filled with more than 150 relevant buildings and places that constitute the physical palimpsest of modern China’s most famous foundational town.Founded in 1978 as one of the first Special Economic Zones under Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, Shenzhen is a young city that was essentially built from the ground up at a rapid pace – hence the infamous ‘Shenzhen Speed’. Unlike most places, it has built its fortune on being propelled into the future without any connection to the past. Shenzhen is a place where business, immigration, ports, borders, and nature come together to shape a unique and, at times, mystifying architectural experience.This guide will introduce the reader to Shenzhen’s kaleidoscopic architecture with the help of bilingual coordinates and geodata. It will also refer to the city's political history and cultural geography. By photographing these state-of-the-art works in 2020, the book captures a sort of 'here-and-now' that will soon be transformed once again.

Today Kharkiv's unfortunate geographical position on the eastern edge of Europe makes it a frequent target for the Russian army's relentless shelling and airstrikes. Yet, not long ago, Ukraine's second-largest city was a vibrant centre of student life, progressive art, intellectual thought, and techno-logical innovation, all spiced by the tough post-industrial identity of its citizens. Born from waves of migration, modernization, industrialization, and revolution, Kharkiv trod a stormy path from its origins as a Cossack military fortress to a period (1919-1934) when it was the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. This decade and a half was a golden age, marked by a dramatic construction boom that turned Kharkiv into a legendary Modernist city.In this publication author Ievgeniia Gubkina takes the reader on a journey through the city's history and architecture, from its Old Centre to its New Centre, home to Derzhprom, a Constructivist gem which was also the embodiment of a new model of social and economic relations. This architectural guide is a tribute to the indomitable spirit of freedom of Kharkiv's citizens. But it is also an important act of remembering and resistance: in documenting the city's buildings in words and photographs even as many of them are, day after day, being destroyed by Russian bombs, it keeps them intact and alive in our minds as a model for the city's future.

Some architects regard a visit to Chicago as equal in importance to a pilgrimage to Rome or Athens: The soaring American metropolis at the shores of Lake Michigan has amassed an unmatched collection of first-rate buildings in every possible style since late nineteenth-century industrialization. This book looks at Chicago through the prism of Post-Modernism — under the premise that this style did not cease to exist sometime in the 1990s, but is, in fact, still with us today.Starting with the 1978 Illinois Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, curator and critic Vladimir Belogolovsky presents 100 structures, most of which were created after the turn of the millennium. These lavishly illustrated building descriptions are supplemented by introductory essays and interviews with Chicago architects, including Stanley Tigerman, Helmut Jahn and Jeanne Gang.

This architectural guide brings together 100 of the most original structures built in New York City since 1999. Vladimir Belogolovsky pairs them with such nicknames as Guillotine, Peacock, Shark’s Fin, Turtle Shell, and Woodpecker. The New York-based author’s selection covers buildings realized by the world’s most renowned architects in a period when their creations were celebrated as art, and personal styles were encouraged by the media, critics, and clients. The featured time span begins with the rise of the starchitect in the late 1990s and ends in the present day. But the mission of the book is not only to document; it is also to celebrate New York’s transformative energy. Many of the buildings were designed either by foreign architects or those who settled in the city and now call it home. Through witty, incisive commentary, catchy nicknames, and quotes from the author’s interviews with the architects, this singular guide allows readers to see many of New York’s contemporary icons in a new way.

Whatever Rotterdam may be, it is not a cliché image of Holland. Maybe that is exactly the reason why characterizations of the city usually cannot do without a comparison with arch-rival Amsterdam. In contrast to its picture-perfect big sister, war-traumatized Rotterdam is full of urban ruptures: buildings come and go like in no other Dutch city. The transitory nature of architecture might also be related to its identity as a harbour city. “Other cities have a harbour, but in Rotterdam the harbour has a city”, goes a local saying. The book Rotterdam. Architectural Guide presents 150 buildings, arranged by neighbourhood. On this foray through the city, the reader is introduced to its history – from the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century to the massive expansion of the harbour in the 19th century, from “the beautiful merchant’s city” to industrial Rotterdam –, even if the focus is clearly on the 20th century and on the latest developments. For although the social problems are great, the city has recently become much more attractive. Around 2014 four iconic buildings were opened: high-rise De Rotterdam, the new Central Station, Markthal, and Timmerhuis. They kicked off a brand-new hype. At the other end of the spectrum lies a range of bottom-up, low-budget projects. Rotterdam offered ample space for such initiatives, with its openness for experiments and and the idea of the city as a prototype that continues to spread there. In combination with the upgrading of the city centre and the gentrification of former harbour areas, all this led to Rotterdam suddenly being called the “Dutch Brooklyn”, praising its off-beat charm in comparison to overcrowded, mainstream Amsterdam. The book Rotterdam. Architectural Guide shows where this charm comes from and where you can find it.

This guide presents over 120 buildings and projects in the Georgian capital. It serves not only as a helpful guide for tourists but also as a documentation of the city’s social history. The selection of buildings covers a broad spectrum of sights that are not only aesthetically interesting but also shed light on the city’s historical developments. The book gives a comprehensive tour of the stylistic contrasts that enrich the city, filled with all manner of structures, from wooden homes to striking works of con-temporary architecture.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first man on the moon, this book for the first time ever looks at the artefacts left behind on the moon from the perspective of architecture. The book looks at every single mission – manned and unmanned – that has actually landed on the moon. It covers the time of the beginning of the Soviet and American space race with the landing of Luna 2 in 1959, to the present with China’s Chang’e 3 moon rover.This architectural guide differentiates itself from other scientific and edu­cational books through its abstract approach to the topic of architecture on the moon. The content does not feature science fiction, but rather the question of what exists and what implications these bizarre structures hold for the future of architecture on other planets – as these topics are quite pertinent in today’s world of the commercialization of spaceflight, with SpaceX and ­NASA planning to take humans to Mars in the next 15 years.The guide brings together authors both from the East and the West. Contributors on the ­Russian side include Galina ­Balashova, the famous archi­tect of the Soviet space program, and the expert Alexander Glushko, son of the deceased chief engineer of the ­Soviet space ­program, Valentin Glushko. Further contributions by Evangelos Kotsioris (MoMA), Brian Harvey (China), Gurbir Singh (India), and Olga Bannova (University of Houston).

For generations, the trilogy of the Kremlin, Red Square, and the GUM department store marked the undis­­puted centre of Moscow. The last decades brought sweeping changes to the Russian ­capital. Today the biggest city in Europe and undoubtfully the heart of Eurasia has many centres. Its new squares and parks have set unprecedented stan­dards in urban design. And the city continues to grow – not least due to the construction of gigantic housing complexes and multifunctional projects.This book guides you through Moscow's history, from the fifteenth century to the present day, taking you to well-known landmarks, industrial areas and residential districts. It includes more than 550 buildings, structures, parks and squares. Well-researched descriptions provide in-depth information on the built environment, while detailed maps and QR codes make it easy to find all the ­featured projects.

Since the Euromaidan, Kyiv has been the place where Europe‘s future is decided between East and West. Meanwhile, the hybrid war in eastern Ukraine and on the Crimean peninsula has escalated into an open Russian war of aggression. Significant buildings in the capital Kyiv and vital infrastructure has come under fire. The Kyiv Architectural Guide presents over 100 buildings worth seeing from 100 years of the city‘s history, compiled by Ukrainian architectural historian Semen Shyrochyn. The typical residential complexes of avant-garde architecture, the imposing palaces of the Stalin era, the iconic designs of Soviet modernism, as well as the most significant construction projects built since independence are also expertly presented. In over 300 pages, this architectural guide proves that Kyiv is much more than the capital of Ukraine. Kyiv is an inseparable part of the European community of nations, where mutual respect of values counts more than the power of the strongest. This title is part of the Histories of Ukrainian Architecture programme initiated by DOM publishers in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty on 24 February 2022.