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Title: S M L XL: Second Edition
ISBN: 1885254865
Author:
Rem Koolhaas
Bruce Mau
Hans Werlemann
Publicate Date: 1997-10-01
Publish: 1997-10-01
List Price: $85.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $53.52
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $39.98
Amazon Merchant Price: $53.55
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| Customer Review: |
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1: "Don't judge a book by its cover" by Lira Luis, AIA, RIBA, LEED-AP
I received a copy of this book as a christmas gift. As an architect, I tell you the guy who gave it to me scored some major brownie points from me that holiday.
Rem Koolhaas defies tradition both in his architecture and his literature. He is foremost a journalist before fully shifting gears to architecture. In this book, he engages the reader by making you realize that while an immediate impression of intimidation engulfs you at first glance of its sheer density, once you start flipping the pages, you realize that you don't have to follow any order in reading it. There are no rules or boundaries on how you read the book: you can flip, you can toss, you can flicker, and in each and every method you will find amusement with the visual eye candy the images, graphics, and text, this book gives you. Nice addition to any architecture book collection/library/coffee table.
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2: Browse someone else's copy
An acquaintance had a copy of this so I looked through it during a dinner party. Blah. Bah! It's full of facetious, egotistical monoliths (from the edifices to the book itself) that offer nothing but themselves to the rest of the urban experience. Le Corbusier of the late 20th century. Gawd, I hope Koolhaas doesn't take that as a compliment.
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3: Uma boa aquisi????o!
Realmente atendeu as expectativas. Um bel??ssimo livro em um bom pre??o e no prazo de entrega informado.
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4: thick and dry
So much information that it took too long to get through it before most of it wasn't relevant any longer.
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5: Extra Medium...
There's a terrific line in Breakfast at Tiffany's. George Peppard proudly hands neighbor Audrey Hepburn a copy of his just-published book. She has no idea what to do with it, so she puts it on a shelf next to a vase, backs away and says "Doesn't that look nice?"
This book is a lot like that. A self-conciously designed object for the homes of style consumers who already have the right clothes and the B&B Italia furniture. A prop for the still-life they want to inhabit. If they ever got around to "reading" it, they'd discover to their great relief... it's NOT a book to be read in any strict classical sense.
It also reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon where one associate asks another, "Read the first few pages of any good books lately?" The age of the short attention span is not going away any time soon. This hefty grey slab is easily recast as the shiny new headstone for verbalized intelligence.
As Kracauer holds it, there's nothing wrong with framing a culture via fragments, but I have plenty of qualms about advancing one's own ideas that way. And I'm suspect of ideas that trowel on style in the abundance seen here. If I could believe Bruce Mau's intentions were more than just trying to look new, (This 'look' now permeates architecture publications) I'd have more respect for this, but it was obviously calculated as a totem of style and style-suffusion.
For better or for worse, the book got noticed, the industry was distracted by the pretty surfaces and the ascent of Koolhaas is a done deal.
If you want to actually READ a book full of Koolhaas' thoughts, skip this and get a copy of Delirious New York.
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