Review on Book(Architecture & Modernity)

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home. —Anna Quindlen

So, I was lying around fiddling with my phone when I received a call, an old friend who needed help. All I had to do was to read a book... Drum Rolls... baa...dum..tush... AND GET PAID! Do your favorite job reading and writing and get paid. Yes, writing didn't I mention about writing review, nevermind. It was amazing. My day was sorted, but there was a problem, I had never really written a book review and this book was a course book not the simple novel or story-books that I read, but who says no to a job?

A free PDF here ;)

So I thought of posting it on my blog, it may help if not many then some. :/

The Book: Architecture & Modernity(BUY:Amazon)

Architecture and Modernity is a book that bridges the gap between history & theories of twentieth century architecture and Cultural theories of modernity. The author Hilde Heynen is more of a architecture critique that takes past architectural exhibition from the real world and implements by citing out the positive discriminating from what could be negative for the modern era. The writer here assesses architecture as cultural fields of daily life inheriting modernity. What I felt while reading was more like, it was just defining modernity rather than explaining it. It is the duty of author to explain not just define but plot the differences between two subsequent meanings.

The author sights examples from past, late past as she talks about civilizations and it's concept on time ie. Present and future. She quite agrees to Octavio Paz and even I do so. His work is ideal and still matches this era. The writer moves to explain modernization, modernity and modernism with just the definition cited by others without giving any examples. This quite confuses me a lot as the choice of words and vocabulary seems limited. Talking about vocabulary, I'd like to state that this book talks about modernity yet chooses to use words that cease to be used long back. Ofcourse the words are not totally impossible to comprehend but if students are concerned, it lacks proper use of words. Moving on the writer has handpicked some noble piece of concepts that are not just written but also presented as projects or speech in cultural discussion.

Further reading the book in concepts of Modernity, the book cites nature of relationship of aesthetic modernity with bourgeois modernity of capitalized civilization. It also includes pastoral and counter pastoral views. "Dwelling" is yet another term used profoundly attached with architecture. Not just associated with architecture also with cultural living,she explains book of Heidegger "Building. Dwelling. Thinking" Architecture and Modernity also has a visual journey apart from historical records to amuse the readers and take notes of historic builds.It even explains a few images in brief to get the direction into which the author is moving. The book is seen to jump to Architecture from Modernity and later shows minimal relations between the two.An understanding of the context of some of the theories of writers like Walter Benjamin and Sigfried Giedion, for example, is either assumed or not made overly clear at points, but the book would have probably doubled in size if Heynen tried to accommodate that ;) Broad range of works explored with lots of images to support, making some quite complex theories much more accessible. Very useful text for a students trying to get their head around the incredibly broad subject of modernity.

To conclude, I will say her writing is quite assessable, clear and interesting. It's a positive discourse of critical theory and very helpful overview of principal position in critical arguments over modernity. This was my first public review on an academic book, please don't judge me :P I may do more reviews but for sure just novels and story-books!