books

On May 13th, 2012, BOOKS BY CARLOS MOTTA…

'We Who Feel Differently' (2012), and "Petite Mort' (2011) by Carlos Motta

…Petite Mort: Recollections of a Queer Public (2011) and We Who Feel Differently (2012) – by artist-activist friend, and contemporary queer culture instigator, raconteur, organizer, and editor – arrived in the mail today, which I look forward to reading, and then adding to our little library at next months Sundown Schoolhouse of Queer Home Economics at the Hayward in London.

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By Fritz Haeg on May 13, 2012 | books
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On April 30th, 2012, PIECING TOGETHER LOS ANGELES: AN ESTHER MCCOY READER…

Piecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy Reader

…is the book by Susan Morgan that finally takes on the legacy of this influential woman – often overlooked in the supposedly manly era of testosterone fueled modern architecture – which I’ve been hearing about and anticipating for a while, and it just came out in March as the first book by L.A.’s East of Borneo…

This much-anticipated volume is the first collection of writings by Esther McCoy (1904-1989), a keen literary stylist and attentive witness to the birth of midcentury modernist design.

McCoy’s impressive writing life spanned sixty years and charted the progressive territory of American idealism. During the 1920s, she pursued her vocation as a writer and apprenticed with novelist Theodore Dreiser. In 1932, McCoy moved to Los Angeles where she wrote for literary journals, popular magazines and progressive broadsheets. Her short stories were awarded numerous prizes, featured in publications ranging from Harper’s Bazaar to The California Quarterly, and adapted for radio and television. After completing a wartime stint as an engineering draftsman at Douglas Aircraft, McCoy went to work as an architectural draftsman for R. M. Schindler. By 1945, her attentive writing had turned significantly to architecture and the design-driven optimism of postwar Los Angeles. Her essays appeared regularly in the Los Angeles Times, Arts & Architecture, Zodiac, Progressive Architecture, and Architectural Forum, and her 1960 book Five California Architects has long been acknowledged as an indispensable classic.

From fiction for The New Yorker to her seminal essays on new architectural forms, McCoy articulated the concepts and vibrant character of West Coast modernism as it was being created. This essential volume includes out-of-print essays, articles, and short stories, as well as hitherto unpublished lectures, correspondence, and memoirs that together illuminate the breadth and complexity of McCoy’s groundbreaking work. An introductory essay by writer and anthology editor Susan Morgan provides a lucid conceptual framework for understanding the development and diversity of McCoy’s writing and the region that inspired it.

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By Fritz Haeg on April 30, 2012 | books
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On February 9th, 2012, DETROIT’S SIGNAL-RETURN PRESS…

the spaces and machines of Signal-Return Press

…established in 2010 by recent Portland Maine transplant friends whom I first met at Mildred’s Lane just before their momentous move west – is one of the more recent exciting indications of a new Detroit – a beautifully design storefront space that also functions as a place for events and exhibitions, currently featuring the work of Fluxus artist Alison Knowles. (website)

Signal–Return seeks to connect the community to traditional + emergent forms of printing as well as offer a resource for entrepreneurial artists + designers to produce for retail clients. Signal–Return is a creative enterprise at the intersection of art and commerce that combines the back-end production process with a front-end retail store and gallery. Intermingling academics, curation and preservation with apprenticeship, the venue will stand as a multi-use center for fine art, design, craft and literary arts. Our overarching goal is to create a hive for dynamic visual production. By tipping over the barrier that often separates print production from the public eye, process is here made apparent, from composing and proofing, to running an edition and clipping fresh prints to dry on a line. The collaborative spirit of Signal–Return will motivate participants to stretch their reach, as they expand their toolkits, vocabularies and means of production.

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By Fritz Haeg on February 9, 2012 | art, books
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On January 5th, 2012, ‘THE ROARING SILENCE’…

The Roaring Silence: John Cage: A Life, 1993

…is the 1993 John Cage biography by David Revill  I picked up at the Strand last week which is now getting a prominent bedside perch as I dive in.

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By Fritz Haeg on January 5, 2012 | books
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On December 11th, 2011, ‘HOME WORK: HANDBUILT SHELTER’…

Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter, 2004

…the super charming 2004 survey of hand made homes (adobe, bark, barns, bottles, camps, canvas, floating, geodesics, green-roofs, mobile, mud, sandbags, straw, stone, tiles, timber, tiny, tipis, thatch, treetops, yurts…) from all over – including up close and personal profiles of the builders – is the book I just picked up by Lloyd Kahn which I am extremely jazzed about, representing for me the height of architecture – a follow-up to his 1973 best-selling ‘Shelter.’

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By Fritz Haeg on December 11, 2011 | architecture, books
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On October 20th, 2011, ‘AVIAN ARCHITECTURE’…

'Avian Architecture', 2011

…is the awesome new book – I just borrowed from my brother for some inspiring travel reading – by Peter Goodfellow from Princeton University Press all about the crazy brilliant things that birds build which make even the most sophisticated human architect look pretty primitive in comparison.

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By Fritz Haeg on October 20, 2011 | animals, books
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On October 19th, 2011, ‘THE JOYFUL COMMUNITY’…

'The Joyful Community,' 1971

…the 1971 book by Benjamin Zablocki that just arrived in the mail (along with a pile of others – which will provide perfect plane reading on lots and lots of long long upcoming flights – ordered from a wishlist which gradually grew from sources I no longer recall) recounts his experiences visiting the Bruderhof – the intentional community he admired the most of  hundred-plus he had visited through the years – which migrated from Germany to England to Paraguay and eventually to a few locations in the U.S. where they began to support themselves in the business of selling their handmade wooden toys, Community Playthings.

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By Fritz Haeg on October 19, 2011 | books
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On September 30th, 2011, RENO FOOD AND BOOK DISCOVERIES…

Sundance Books and Music and the Great Basin Community Food Co-op

…came just as I was beginning to think that this town was all casinos and slot machines, just before my talk at the Nevada Museum of Art for the Art + Environment Conference, as I wandered around the corner to find the super cute inviting sophisticated food co-op – The Great Basin Community Food Co-op – and bookstore – Sundance Books and Music – where I bought two favorites: Architecture Without Architects by Bernard Rudofsky and a new edition of Earth-Sheltered House, Revised Edition: An Architect’s Sketchbook by Malcolm Wells.

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By Fritz Haeg on September 30, 2011 | books, food
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On August 21st, 2011, ARTAZART DESIGN BOOKSTORE…

Artazart Design Bookstore, Paris

…on Canal St. Martin in my new favorite Paris neighborhood of Bellevue is a welcome find this afternoon – again biking my way to all corners of town – where contemporary art, design, photography materials are a welcome jolt of inspiration in a town otherwise shuttered for the month, and I wish every neighborhood had such a relaxed booky arty place to drop into any time. (website)

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By Fritz Haeg on August 21, 2011 | books, Paris
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On August 11th, 2011, LITTLE FREE LIBRARY…

Saint Paul's 'Free Little Library'

…is the name of this diminutive wood structure on a post which I happened upon this afternoon gracing the front yard of the cutest house on our St. Paul street – with faux thatch roof, a favorite local domestic feature since childhood – where you can take a book or leave a book. (website)

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By Fritz Haeg on August 11, 2011 | books
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On August 4th, 2011, ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE…

Barbara Kingsolver's 2007 book 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle'

…the influential 2007 familial account of eating products grown close to home for a year by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver, is one of the books I’m dusting off from my ‘to read’ list, finally able to finish with this lazy week on my hands up at the lake – and though it echoes everything I think I know and already believe and feel (especially after our luxurious Roman year of seasonal and local eating), this friendly home-spun activist no-nonsense series of personal stories got me fired up and inspired – ‘yes’ to cheese & bread making, and neighborly crop-sharing, and forever ‘no’ to industrial jet-setting bananas and winter tomatoes! (website)

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By Fritz Haeg on August 3, 2011 | books
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On July 18th, 2011, ‘ROMA MANGIA ROMA’ INTERVIEWS #18-21…

the family home on the ground floor of this newish apartment building with underground parking also features a vast hidden orto

…took us to a family of three generations living in a newish housing development about 8 km south of central Rome – still within the Grande Raccordo Anulare, bordered by a few other housing developments, a few isolated farms, and to the east by the Parco Regionale dell’Appia Antica (the vast greenbelt flowing from the countryside into Rome and terminating at the Circo Massimo) – where they are lucky enough to have the space for a big orto (too bad we don’t have such a specific word in English for the homegrown kitchen/vegetable garden) tended by the definitive cook and oldest member of the family (who grew up Bagheria, Sicily – the picturesque coastal town where the 1988 film Cinema Paradiso was set – in the 1930′s and 40′s in a completely self-sufficient household where they even ate the bread made with wheat grown on their own land) where he is playing out his nostalgic memories of his childhood garden with mammoth Cucuzza Sicilian squash and Sicilian tomato varieties, and at his own family table he is adamant that all are seated together each night at the precise moment that his culinary creations are ready – which his 18 year old son tolerates less and less, as he is out most nights with his his friends (sometimes enjoying quick fast food, that he even convinved his father to try once when they were on a road trip) and his girlfriend of Veneto decent, though in a separate interview acknowledging his appreciation for that one occasion each day that the whole family is together and grudgingly admitting that he will likely require the same of his own family in the future.

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By Fritz Haeg on July 18, 2011 | books, food
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On June 26th, 2011, ‘A PATTERN LANGUAGE’…

#40: Old People Everywhere, from 'A Pattern Language'

…the iconic influential book by Christopher Alexander is standard issue to architecture students since it emerged out of the Berkeley in the 1970′s, which we were introduced to in our first year design studio, but I don’t recall ever actually reading it at the time (perhaps it seemed old fashioned, folksy, retrograde, and even conservative to my youthful architecty spirit besotted by flashy theory and cool shapes) but yesterday I stumbled upon it in the Academy library, immediately swept away into the staggering radical visionary breadth of it’s 253 patterns detailed in decending order from big to small over it’s 1171 pages of brilliant pragmatic idealism, seeming to be as appropriate, urgent, and relevant today as ever – perhaps more so – my neck getting sore from nodding vigorously in agreement with so many of the proposed patterns, like ripping up the pavement on local roads and creating 51 GREEN STREETS, encouraging a diversity of ages in our communities with 40 OLD PEOPLE EVERYWHERE, designing a realm for 84 TEENAGE SOCIETY within the city for those between childhood and adulthood to establish their independence, making formal education a part of everyone’s daily life with 43 UNIVERSITY AS A MARKETPLACE, making safe and accessible places for 57 CHILDREN IN THE CITY, limiting high-rise construction with 21 FOUR-STORY LIMIT, planting 170 FRUIT TREES and 177 VEGETABLE GARDENS where we live, designing a place at home for making 178 COMPOST, leaving places for drama anywhere with 133 STAIRCASE AS A STAGE, planning for a 5 LACE OF COUNTRY STREETS that leave large expanses of open countryside between them, prioritizing places for 63 DANCING IN THE STREET, consciously welcoming 74 ANIMALS into the city, letting kids create their own play spaces like 73 ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND, encouraging the 172 GARDEN GROWING WILD, letting plants invade the built environment with 247 PAVING WITH CRACKS BETWEEN THE STONES, getting rid of conventional space-wasting and isolating bedrooms in favor of 186 COMMUNAL SLEEPING, and my favorite – leaving comfortable public places for 94 SLEEPING IN PUBLIC, and here is the complete list of all 253, which in Alexander’s words “…allow anyone, and any group of people, to create beautiful, functional, meaningful places. At the core… is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets and communities. This idea… comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.”

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By Fritz Haeg on June 26, 2011 | architecture, books
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On June 22nd, 2011, IL VASCHELLO…

Il Vascello propietors Angelo and Dorina

…is the friendly, local, slightly hidden, Monteverde trattoria – just outside of the Aurelian wall from us – presided over since the early 80′s by gregarious hostess Dorina and Sardegnian chef Angelo, whom we have come to visit this afternoon for interview #14 for the upcoming Roma Mangia Roma book (featuring interviews with five generation of people living in Rome about food, how they eat, earliest culinary memories, etc…), to hear their stories of growing up in rural areas, coming to Rome, working in a restaurant under a nurturing father-like mentor prankster chef next to the Pantheon, and finally establishing  Il Vascello – by now a familial hang-out for friends, regulars, locals, the film crowd (such as Gianni de Gregorio) and foreign residents like us – Dorina loves America and has memorized the U.S. state capitals by heart, reciting them in alphabetical order when she can’t fall asleep.

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By Fritz Haeg on June 22, 2011 | food
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On June 13th, 2011, ‘THE CONSCIENCE OF THE EYE’…

The Conscience of the Eye, 1990

…is the obliquely titled and themed 1990 book by Richard Sennett that I just finished reading which is about the divides between inner experiences and outer lives in urban spaces through time – continuing my on-going year of ‘stewing’ on a general constellation of loosely connected ideas – an expanding series of topics – an intentional sense of direction towards a territory I’m interested in, and want to do something about – not yet sure what that is – maybe leaving the city to understand the city, in the country with friends to understand what it is like to start your own little version of a society – but here were some thoughts to chew on…

“…it is curious how the designers of parking lots, malls, and public plazas seem to be endowed with a positive genius for sterility, in the use of materials and in details, as well as in overall planning. The compulsive neutralizing of the environment is rooted in part in an old unhappiness, the fear of pleasure, which lead people to treat their surroundings as neutrally as possible. The modern urbanist is in the grip of a Protestant ethic of space.”

“The first settlers were ravaged human beings. They suffered the dual need to “get away from it all” in order to attempt to “Get control of their lives.” It was an early sign of a duality in modern society: flight from others occurs for the sake of self-mastery.”

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By Fritz Haeg on June 13, 2011 | books
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On May 30th, 2011, ‘URBAN UTOPIAS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY’…

Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century, 1977

…is the illuminating well-written 1977 book of this well-trodden utopian territory by Robert Fishman – which gives a super great overview of the political and philosophical underpinnings of Howard’s Garden City, Wright’s Broadacre City, and Corbusier’s Radient City – continuing my recent reading list of titles growing out of my fascination with the way in which people self-organize and plan new ways of living together when there is a desire to abandon a current arrangement that is deemed unacceptable or doomed. (from MIT)

 

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By Fritz Haeg on May 30, 2011 | books
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On May 16th, 2011, READING ‘LIVING THE GOOD LIFE: HOW TO LIVE SANELY AND SIMPLY IN A TROUBLED WORLD’…

Living the Good Life, 1954 by Helen Nearing

…from cover to cover on the nine hour plane ride from Portland back to Europe is blowing my mind because it seems so fresh, like it could have been written today, but instead dates from 1954 – about Helen and Scott Nearing’s radical 1932 pioneering escape from the the modern ills and materialistic distractions of New York City to the remote rural Vermont land where they homesteaded for 20 years with an open door policy to any strangers or friends who might want to join them for any period of time; meticulously building their own stone homes and out-buildings; earning a minimal income from maple syrup harvest; growing most of the food they consumed throughout the year during a very short growing season; keeping no animals; living on a strictly whole food vegan diet free of sugar, refined flour, coffee, and alcohol; and trying their best to engage and involve their immediate local community in a cash-free system of bartering and sharing – which has me all excited for my own personal ‘back to the land’ fantasies which I have been plotting for the past few months.

“Many a modern worker, dependent on wage or salary, lodged in city flat or closely built-up suburb and held in the daily grind by family demands or other complicating circumstances, has watched for the chance to escape the cramping limitations of his surroundings, to take life into his own hands and live it in the country, in a decent, simple, and kindly way.”

 

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By Fritz Haeg on May 16, 2011 | books
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On April 27th, 2011, ‘MAKING IT: RADICAL HOME EC FOR A POST-CONSUMER WORLD’…

'Making It', Rodale Books, 2011

…is the smartly-titled latest book by urban homesteaders Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (previously mentioned here) – and designed by graphic designer friend Roman Jaster – which I can’t wait to dive into  upon returning to a more thoroughly DIY, post-academy, life… (and check out their Root Simple blog)

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By Fritz Haeg on April 27, 2011 | books
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On April 12th, ‘ROMA MANGIA ROMA’ INTERVIEW #9…

Franco & Livia in their Monti neighborhood kitchen

…was conducted this morning with Livia and Franco – who met when they were 14 and have been married for 53 years – in their cozy long-time quarters (inherited from previous generations) in the Colosseum adjacent neighborhood of Monti where he used to own the local newsstand, so it’s hard to walk with Franco more than a step or two down Via dei Serpenti without a friendly greeting – and being a former runner, and living through the war years in Rome surviving on potato milk soup, I was surprised to hear about his very simple austere tastes, eating little meat, mostly dishes like pasta in bianco and very precise small portions (exactly four biscotti every morning).

 

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By Fritz Haeg on April 12, 2011 | books
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On March 21st, 2011, ‘HOW TO IMAGINE: A NARRATIVE ON ART, AGRICULTURE AND CREATIVITY’…

my beat up old copy of "How to Imagine" which has followed me on so many trips unread

…is the 1984 book of musings (as recounted to and translated by Henry Martin) by Italian artist Gianfranco Baruchello (b. 1924) who in 1973 decamped to a modest piece of land north of Rome, near Formello, to begin a life of farming as art – and after years of carrying around this little book which I knew I needed to read, I finally had the chance to finish it in one sitting this weekend while appropriately nestled into a friend’s big old country villa in a tiny old village on top of a hill in the steep rolling Sabina hills of Northern Lazio overlooking the plains of Rome – and the unfolding conversational ramblings covering everything from Duchamp readymades to sheep care made for an absorbing and pleasurable read, further inspiring my future farming fantasies.  (book link)

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By Fritz Haeg on March 21, 2011 | books
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On February 24th, 2011, MUSICAGE…

Musicage: Cage Muses on Words * Art * Music

…the 1996 book by Joan Retallack (subtitled ‘Cage Muses on Words * Art * Music‘) features fantastic reflections on, interviews with, and poetry by this humane, earthy, soulful, rigorous, funny, free-spirited, creative colossus of the 20th century who has always seemed like one of the critical figures for me to get my head around, but the closer I approach, the more elusive he seems – though this book, which I just started today (recently embarking on a reading binge which is firing me up for something), is making me feel a revelatory connection – and worth the ‘price of admission’ was this quote – his response when asked at a 1988-89 Harvard seminar whether he thought his music had political content “…The performance of music is a public occasion or a social occasion. This brings it about that the performance of a piece of music can be a metaphor of society, of how we want society to be. Though we are not now living in a society which we consider good, we could make a piece of music in which we would be willing to live. I don’t mean that literally, I mean it metaphorically. You can think of the piece of music as a representation of a society in which you would be willing to live.” – yes (and parenthetically it just so happens that my evening was punctuated by a fantastic performance by Academy music fellow, Huck Hodge, with whom I have had a few Cage conversations).

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By Fritz Haeg on February 24, 2011 | books, music
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On February 18th, 2011, THE FOOD OF ROME AND LAZIO…

The Food of Rome and Lazio, 1995 by Oretta Zanini de Vita

…the 1994 book by Oretta Zanini de Vita full of fascinating accounts of Roman’s relationships to food through time featuring folklore and recipes (with chapters including Mills on the Tiber, Pastoral Kitchen, Papal Table, Carnival, Osterias, Poet G.G. Belli, Jewish Cooking, Sweets, Tourists & Movie Stars, Tuscia, Sabina, Castelli, Ciociaria, Pontine Marsh, Ex-Terra di Lavoro, Coastal Lazio) is a current inspiration and bible of reference for work on a few exciting upcoming projects I’ll talk more about soon…

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By Fritz Haeg on February 18, 2011 | books, food
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On December 26th, THE SUNDOWN SALON UNFOLDING ARCHIVE…

The Sundown Salon Unfolding Archive

…the limited edition 150 foot long accordion book (with hand silk-screened covers by participating artists) documenting in words and photos the five years of events at my LA geodesic home was released last year by Evil Twin Publications and the publisher, designer, and editor, Stacy Wakefield has also shared PDF’s of the complete book online – where you can see all of the images and read all of the texts from over 50 contributors – which I would like to share with you here:

- PDF of the complete TEXT side

- PDF of the complete PHOTO side

- order the book with Evil Twin, or see more information about it here

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By Fritz Haeg on December 26, 2010 | books
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On December 6th, 2010, THE BISCOTTI BOOK…

A tea reception for the new Biscotti book by Mirella Misenti (left) and Mona Talbott (right)

…featuring recipes from the kitchen of The American Academy in Rome by Mona Talbott and Mirella Misenti just had a very civilized Academy event and tea reception to celebrate the release of the first in a series of books to come from The Rome Sustainable Food Project. (publisher’s webpage)

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By Fritz Haeg on December 6, 2010 | food
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On November 17th, 2010, BRACKET ISSUE #1 ‘ON FARMING’…

Bracket #1 'On Farming' published by Actar

…is the premiere issue of the journal published by the Barcelona based architecture imprint Actar which has its release today at the University of Toronto, where I visited over a few cold days in February 2009 joined by Heather Ring, Michael Speaks, Nathalie de Vries, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White to select a few farming related design projects, from hundreds of submissions, for inclusion in this issue – and upon returning to L.A. with some time to reflect on the topic I composed a little essay called ‘The Building that Farms…’ (Bracket website)

Bracket is a new book series structured around an open call for entries that highlights emerging critical issues at the juncture of architecture, environment, and digital culture. It is a collaboration between InfraNet Lab and Archinect. Conceived as an almanac, the series looks at emerging thematics in our global age that are shaping the built environment in radically significant, yet often unexpected ways. On Farming looks at the capacity for architecture to address ideas and issues of productive landscapes and urbanisms. Once merely understood in terms of agriculture, today information, energy, labour, and landscape, among others, can be farmed. Farming harnesses the efficiency of collectivity and community. The issue collects original design projects, installations, and essays which interrogate new typologies, forms, and formats of the built environment. With almost 40 design proposals and 12 essays, On Farming collects emerging designers and thinkers internationally. The Editorial Board includes Fritz Haeg, Maya Przybylski, Heather Ring, Michael Speaks, Nathalie de Vries, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White.

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By Fritz Haeg on November 17, 2010 | books
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On November 16th, 2010, ‘A LANDSCAPE MANIFESTO’ BY DIANA BALMORI…

video still from Diana Balmori interview about books

…is the smart & beautiful new book that I am seeing all over Europe by the innovative and influential New York-based Argentinian – by way of Spain and Britain – landscape architect (who wrote the introduction to the Edible Estates book, and an important analysis and attack on the American lawn first published 1995) – and especially exciting is the degree of activism mixed in with the aestheticism evident in the sweeping set of 25 manifesto principles she lays out:

1. Nostalgia for the past and utopian dreams for the future prevent us from looking at our present.
2. Nature is the flow of change within which humans exist.  Evolution is its history. Ecology is our understanding of its present phase.
3.  All things in nature are constantly changing.  Landscape artists need to  design to allow for change, while seeking a new course that enhances the coexistence of humans with the rest of nature.
4.  Landscape forms encapsulate unseen assumptions. To expose them is to enter the economic and aesthetic struggles of our times.
5.  Historical precedents do not support the common prejudice that human intervention is always harmful to the rest of nature.
6.  Shifts are taking place before our eyes. Landscape artists and architects need to give them a name and make them visible.  Aesthetic expertise is needed to enable the transforming relations between humans and the rest of nature to break through into public spaces.
7.  High visibility, multiple alliances, and public support are critical to new landscape genres that portray our present.
8.  Landscape—through new landscapes—enters the city and modifies our way of being in it.
9.  New landscapes can become niches for species forced out of their original environment.
10. The new view of plants as groups of interrelated species modifying each other, rather than as separate and fixed, exemplifies fluidity—a main motif of landscape form.
11. Nostalgic images of nature are readily accepted, but they are like stage scenery for the wrong play.
12. In his History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (l780), Horace Walpole says William Kent “was the first to leap the fence and show that the whole of nature was a garden.” Today landscape “has leapt the fence” in the opposite direction, to the city, making it part of nature.
13. Existing urban spaces can be rescued from their current damaging interaction with nature.
14. Landscape artists can reveal the forces of nature underlying cities, creating a new urban identity from them.
15. Landscape can create meeting places where people can delight in unexpected forms  and spaces, inventing why and how they are to be appreciated.
16. A landscape, like a moment, never happens twice. This lack of fixity is landscape’s asset.
17.  We can heighten the desire for new interactions between humans and nature where it is least expected: in derelict spaces.
18. Emerging landscapes are becoming brand new actors on the political stage.
19. Landscape renders the city as constantly evolving in response to climate, geography, and history.
20. Landscape can show artistic intention without imposing a predetermined meaning.
21. Landscape can bridge the line between ourselves and other parts of nature—between ourselves and a river.
22. Landscape is becoming the main actor of the urban stage, not just a destination.
23. The edge between architecture and landscape can be porous.
24. Landscape can be like poetry, highly suggestive and open to multiple interpretations.
25. We must put the twenty-first century city in nature rather than put nature in the city. To put a city in nature will mean using engineered systems that function as those in nature and deriving form from them.

- from ‘A Landscape Manifesto’ by Diana Balmori (Yale University Press, 2010)

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By Fritz Haeg on November 16, 2010 | books, landscape
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On November 2nd, 2010, ‘EDIBLE LANDSCAPING’ BY ROSALIND CREASY…

the cover of the new 2010 edition of Edible Landscaping

…which first came out in 1982, and was pretty much the only published resource out there on the topic when I first started the Edible Estates project in 2005, is so important to me that when I saw on my caller ID that Ros was actually calling me out of the blue in 2006 I started to jump up and down, requiring an explanation to my confused guests at the time about exactly who Rosalind Creasy is (the godmother/queen of edible landscaping, that’s all) and of course when I put together my own book it just had to be blessed with an opening story from her, which she was gracious enough to write (an engaging account of her own personal first-hand gardening and social experiences with the front yard edible landscape that replaced her original Bay Area lawn in 1985) – ANYWAY, the much anticipated new edition is finally out today from Siera Club books!

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By Fritz Haeg on November 2, 2010 | books
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On September 15th, 2010, THE LIBRARY AT THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME…

The Arthur Ross Reading Room of the recently renovated American Academy in Rome library

…is one of the great treasures of the facilities here, and I finally got my official tour by the librarian today – having missed it this weekend – and I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time here – especially at odd hours, since Academy fellows have 24 hr access – I am already getting excited about cuddling up at 3am in one of the reading rooms with a book like “The food of Rome and Lazio : history, folklore, and recipes” by Oretta Zanini De Vita. (more info from the AAR)

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By Fritz Haeg on September 15, 2010 | architectural, Rome
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On August 13th, 2010, THE RSVP CYCLES: CREATIVE PROCESSES IN THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT…

"The RSVP Cycles : Creative Processes in the Human Environment" by Lawrence Halprin, 1970, George Braziller Press

…from 1970 by Lawrence Halprin – is a book that I’ve had kicking around for a while – but after reading the Anna Halprin biography, I was inspired to pick it up again – and it lays out a brilliant vision for scoring urban space – my particular favorite is the score for the Driftwood Village. (order it here)

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By Fritz Haeg on August 13, 2010 | books
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On August 10th, 2010, “ANNA HALPRIN: EXPERIENCE AS DANCE”…

"Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance" by Janice Ross, 2008

…the recent biography by Janice Ross  – which I just finished today – of the dancer/choreographer (easy & narrow labels that are too small for her) who I LOVE, whose work (especially “Parades & Changes”) inspires me, whose approach to teaching & practice changed the way I thought about my own work & practice, whose desire for witnesses instead of an audience is so significant, whose husband (recently deceased) Lawrence Halprin kicked-ass with his environmental and landscape design (including Sea Ranch and the Nicollet Mall which I grew up with in Minneapolis) and his book “The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment” which I am just starting to spend some time with now…anyway – with the Anna Halprin biography I was finally able to see the trajectory of her life and work, as it responded and contributed the shifting culture of it’s time….I can’t say enough about how important I think she is. (Anna’s website)

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By Fritz Haeg on August 10, 2010 | books, dance
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On August 6th, 2010, “BLACK MOUNTAIN AN EXPLORATION IN COMMUNITY”…

"Black Mountain, An Exploration in Community" by Martin Duberman

….is the engaging 1972 book by Martin Duberman which I just finished this afternoon – about the short-lived (1933-56) rural North Carolina experimental school that has fascinated me for years – and with this controversial record of it’s history, Duberman inserts himself into the narrative, creating a very personal portrait of this place that was always striving towards an ideal that it rarely achieved – but the intimate stories of the hopes and desires that each person brought to it through the years (Albers, Rice, Fuller, Cunningham, Cage, Rauschenberg, Creeley…) is what I am left with.

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By Fritz Haeg on August 6, 2010 | books
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On June 20th, 2010, THE NEW AMERICAN DREAM: SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE – THE BEHAVIORAL GUIDE FOR A LUXURIOUS HOME…

the new booklet from Printed Matter

…published by Printed Matter will be available next week at their NYC store, and at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT as a companion to the show “Something for Everyone.” (see the pdf preview)

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By Fritz Haeg on June 20, 2010 | books
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On June 3rd, 2010, “ABOVE THE PAVEMENT—THE FARM! : ARCHITECTURE & AGRICULTURE AT PF1″…

the cover of "Above the Pavement—the Farm! : Architecture & Agriculture at PF1" from Princeton Architectural Press

…is the book just out from Princeton Architectural Press (for which I contributed the forward “Above the People: The Meadow, the Vegetable Garden, the Apple Tree, and the Cow!“) by Dan Wood and Amale Andraos of Work AC about their Public Farm installed in the PS1 sculpture courtyard in 2008 – and there will be an event/discussion at The Horticulture Society in New York entitled “The Visionary Reloaded – New Scales of Operation in the Age of Information” on June 23rd at 6:30pm to mark it’s release (and that of the new expanded Edible Estates book) which will include a group that I am very much looking to spending some time with:

Dan Wood and Amale Andraos, WORK Architecture Company

James Wines, SITE

Majora Carter, Sustainable South Bronx;

Adam Michaels, Project Projects

Fritz Haeg, Artist

Moderator: Jeff Gordinier, Details Magazine, “Gen X Saves the World”

(more info at Princeton Architectural Press)

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By Fritz Haeg on June 3, 2010 | books, gardens
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On May 24, 2010, THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL OF THE ARTS…

cover of the new Mountain School of the Arts book

…the L.A.-based artist-run program founded by Piero Golia and Eric Wesley, has just released a book (in softcover & hardcover) published with Lulu on the occasion of their 5th anniversary, comprised of contributions and materials from the MSA^ archive, and I just ordered my copy – can’t wait. (MSA^ website)

http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/the-mountain-school-of-arts/10910546
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By Fritz Haeg on May 24, 2010 | books
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On May 21st, 2010, THE MIDWAY CONTEMPORARY ART LIBRARY…

Midway Contemporary Art Library in Minneapolis, Minnesota

…is worth a visit if you are in Minneapolis – and where I went today – with an extensive collection non-circulating books, periodicals, and videos open to the public, and just one part of this non-profit art center which also includes exhibitions, publications, events, and education – more information on their website…

About the Library: The Midway Contemporary Art Library serves to document, present, and preserve the recent history of contemporary visual art in a public context. Founded in 2007, its objectives are to research, collate, and catalog published material in an effort to provide the most comprehensive and accessible resource for research into contemporary art in the region. A non-circulating collection, the library contains thousands of titles from a wide range of publishers from around the world. While group exhibition catalogs and monographs form the core of the library’s collection, the library also contains reference material, a selection of artist books, DVD’s, and an extensive selection of periodicals and journals. We are currently subscribed to a number of monthly and quarterly publications.

Using the Collection: The library is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm. If you wish to use the library outside of these hours, please contact us to make special arrangements. The library is maintained and run by a dedicated group of volunteers and interns who will be glad to assist you. It is a non-circulating facility; all library materials must stay in the library. The library’s holdings are organized according to two systems: Monographs are arranged by artist’s last name, and all other books are arranged by Library of Congress call numbers. You may come in and browse, or use our online search to find a specific volume.

Donate Books: We are always looking for new and exciting volumes to add to our library’s collection. We welcome book donations, but ask that you please contact us before donating books to see if they are what we currently need. We also encourage you to donate books through our amazon.com wish list.

Book Club: Midway has a book club, which meets every month to discuss fiction, art books, or anything else they choose. More about the book club…

Exchange Program: We welcome the opportunity to establish catalog exchanges with other publishing institutions. If you would like to set up a regular exchange, please contact the library. You can also see a list of institutions currently exchanging titles with Midway.

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By Fritz Haeg on May 21, 2010 | art, books
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On May 5th, 2010, THE EDIBLE ESTATES BOOK ABROAD AND ONLINE…

Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn - expanded 2nd edition, Metropolis Books, 2010

…(new expanded 2nd edition just out from Metropolis Books) is distributed in Europe through Idea Books in Amsterdam, copies in Australia and New Zealand are available through people at Oooby.com (email them here), and check it out on the new Facebook page set up by the U.S.A. distributor DAP (Distributed Art Publishers). (book webpage)

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By Fritz Haeg on May 5, 2010 | books
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On April 25th, 2010, “THE SUNDOWN SALON UNFOLDING ARCHIVE” PUBLISHED BY EVIL TWIN…

The Sundown Salon Unfolding Archive, showing a version with back cover by Melissa Thorne, and front cover by Robby Herbst

…of which there are still some copies available, is a 380 page, 140 foot long, unfolding accordion book, which is the comprehensive archive and account of the Sundown Salon series held in my Los Angeles geodesic dome from spring 2001 through fall 2006 – and features six different hand silk-screened covers by past Salon participants including Katie Grinnan, Robby Herbst, Feral Childe, Shana Lutker, Melissa Thorne, and Janfamily in an edition of 500, priced at $150 each ($75 for contributors to the book) plus there are a couple of special collector copies that have been signed by many of the salon artists (inquire with  stacy@eviltwinpublications.com) – see more info on the Sundown Salon webpage – and order directly from Evil Twin!

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By Fritz Haeg on April 25, 2010 | art, books
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On March 3rd, 2010, WILL ALLEN OF GROWING POWER…

Will Allen talks about compost with visitors to his urban greenhouse

…will be joining me in conversation on April 7th at Princeton University and on April 8th at WNYC’s Greene Space in New York (along with one or two other exciting participants to be announced shortly) for a conversation on food and cities, to coincide with the release of the expanded edition of the Edible Estates book – for which Will has contributed a wonderful new manifesto and call-to-arms for a food revolution, here is a short excerpt/preview:

My Edible Estates, therefore, are schoolyards and vacant lots, abandoned tracts of brownfield land, any plot of any size and condition that can be used to grow food right in the middle of the community that needs it. It is a daunting prospect, to say the least, yet I am optimistic that I will see examples created in which these food deserts will be turned into oases where, again, at least 10 percent of the community’s food needs will be supplied.  I am optimistic about this not because I believe so strongly in my own abilities, but rather because, to my surprise, the people in those communities have been asking me for this opportunity since the day my journey as a farmer began.

When I was born, my father was a sharecropper, but he wanted to free himself and his large family from that particular form of bondage. He saved enough to buy a small farm in Maryland. His market was the Washington, D.C., area, and it became focused on the large population of Southern blacks who were moving north and settling, people who were used to having fresh produce in their diets but who expected it to be affordable.

I saw firsthand, by working with my hands, the amazing amount of produce that could be grown on just eight acres if the most intensive methods were employed. Later, when I was living in Belgium and playing basketball, I got to know a number of farmers who similarly grew astonishing quantities of food on very small acreages by constantly enriching the soil with organic matter.

Eventually I was drawn back to farming, and in 1993 I bought a small roadside market and garden center on Milwaukee’s impoverished north side. The stand was intended as a market for my own produce but also, and I hoped more importantly, as a place to offer fresher, more healthful food to an undernourished community. As it happened, that tiny two-acre plot, with its miniature storefront and handful of timeworn greenhouses, was the last tract of land within the city of Milwaukee that was still zoned for agriculture. It was almost as if some city planner had forgotten something—or that fate had somehow reserved the place for me. At any rate, I realized that I could do a good deal more at what I was then calling “Will’s Roadside Produce Stand” than just sell vegetables from my farm. For one thing, I could grow more vegetables right there on site, and I proceeded to clear a half-acre bed, improve its soil, and plant it with an assortment of veggies.

(book webpage and Growing Power website)

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By Fritz Haeg on March 3, 2010 | food
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On March 1st, 2010, “NUREYEV: THE LIFE” BY JULIE KAVANAGH…

cover of "Nureyev: The Life" by Julie Kananagh with 1961 Richard Avedon portrait

…was one of the best biographies I have read in a while, and it made me completely obsessed with Rudolf Nureyev. (book info)

Here is an excerpt from Laura Jacob’s review in Dance Magazine:

It’s hard to believe there’s now a generation, maybe two, that’s never heard of Rudolf Nureyev. Starting in the ’60s, his surname was a household word combining the high culture of Maria Callas, the iconoclastic.

And was any face better made for the spotlight, the flash bulb, than Rudi’s? He had the high cheekbones of a big cat, the rapt eyes of a Romantic poet, the sensual lips of a cad. It was the decade of the photographer, and Nureyev was like solar heat, answering the camera with his own Promethean fire. His burning desire was to dance every day, every role, everywhere. His life, in fact, was about desire–his own desire for the stage, for stardom, and the world’s desire for him. His first performance after defection was in The Sleeping Beauty–the role of Prince Desire.

Here in the West, we tend to think of Nureyev’s life as having begun on June 16, 1961, the day of his defection. And in the newsreels and photographs he does look a babe, an orphaned fledgling suddenly finding flight (his second role in the West was Sleeping Beauty’s Bluebird–notice, by the way, how happily metaphors fit this dancer). Within months he formed a now-legendary partnership with Margot Fonteyn, 19 years his senior. The maternal calm she brought to his youthful burn added a powerful poetic dimension to their stage chemistry. Nureyev, however, wasn’t as impressionable or innocent as the imagery suggests. In a fascinating new documentary, Nureyev: The Russian Years.

The documentary takes us to the rural city of Ufa, where Nureyev grew up in grinding poverty. It shows us the kind of local folk dance club he joined and tells of the visit to Ufa’s opera house, Rudi’s first glimpse of ballet, which ignited his passion for classical dance. Despite his father’s deep disapproval, Rudi went to ballet class on the sly. By the age of 17, through his own implacable push, he made his way to the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, and once there pushed further into the fabled class of Alexander Pushkin. Interviews with roommates and friends reveal a teen who lived and breathed ballet. “I will be the number one dancer in the world,” he declared. Arrogant, yes, but he was willing to sacrifice everything to that goal.

The clips of Nureyev dancing, many of them never seen before, show us an arrowy young man with a tiny waist and an ardent intensity. His chain,s are whip-quick (and would become a signature), his grand jet,s not long and reaching but high and hilly. His double tours en l’aire are clean, plumb, but the fifth positions from which he takes off are a mess, something between third and fourth position. Witnesses to these early Kirov performances all remark on the wild excitement, the exotic beauty, of Nureyev.

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By Fritz Haeg on March 1, 2010 | books, dance
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On February 27th, 2010, “HUNGRY CITY: HOW FOOD SHAPES OUR LIVES” BY CAROLYN STEEL…

Hungry City by Carolyn Steel

…is a fascinating book that I just finished:

…about how cities eat. That’s the quick definition. A slightly wordier one might that it’s about the eternal engine driving civilisation. Feeding cities arguably has a greater social and physical impact on us and our planet than anything else we do. Yet few of us in the West are conscious of the process. Food arrives on our plates as if by magic, and we rarely stop to wonder how it might have got there. (book website)

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By Fritz Haeg on February 27, 2010 | cities, food
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On February 19th, 2010, “FRAGILE ECOLOGIES: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS’ INTERPRETATIONS AND SOLUTIONS”…

The catalog from the Fragile Ecologies exhibition at the Queens Museum of Aert in 1992

…is a book by Barbara C. Matilsky that I am revisiting this morning – from the exhibition of the same name at The Queens Museum of Art – which had a huge influence on me when it came out in 1992, featuring many artists that I had not been very aware of at the time, including Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Alan Sonfist, and Buster Simpson.

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By Fritz Haeg on February 19, 2010 | books
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On February 9th, 2010, THE EXPANDED SECOND EDITION OF “EDIBLE ESTATES: ATTACK ON THE FRONT LAWN”…

The cover of the new expanded 2nd edition of "Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn" featuring before and after photos by Leslie Furlong of gardener Clarence Ridgley in his Regional Prototype Garden #6 in Baltimore, Maryland

…arrived in the mail last night – the first advance copy of the new book from Metropolis Books and DAP which will be out in stores by early April – and I am so excited about all of the new content including essays by Will Allen of Growing Power and Eric Sanderson of The Mannahatta Project, chapters on all eight gardens, and new stories from the gardeners in London, Austin, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and New York City. (book webpage)

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By Fritz Haeg on February 9, 2010 | books
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On February 2nd, 2010, CAMPS: A GUIDE TO 21ST CENTURY SPACE…

The warm cozy cover and raw exposed spine of Camps by Charlie Hailey, The MIT Press, 2009

…the great newish book by Charlie Hailey from MIT Press just arrived in the mail – which I had first heard about last year as a submission to A Library for the Future – is a beautiful object to look at and to open and to hold in your hands, which provides an amazing survey of camps (not Sontag camp) which I am eager to devour given my recent camping related activities.

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By Fritz Haeg on February 2, 2010 | publications
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On January 11th, 2010, TREASURES FROM A LESBIAN LIBRARY…

The treasure from the lesbian library on January 6th, 2010, from "The Furies: Lesbian/Femanist Library."

…is what I’m reading, which is a blog – started coincidentally on the same day as this one, January 1st, 2010 by my photographer friend Eve Fowler – where she shares the obscure lez delights of her library. (link to Treasures From a Lesbian Library)

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By Fritz Haeg on January 11, 2010 | glbt links
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