Summer reading suggestions from John King

John King, the excellent urban design writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote a column before leaving on vacation with suggestions for architecture-related reading for the next month or so... "Pick up some light summer reading on cities, and you'll never see your surroundings the same again"

Here it comes, the last full block of summer, the weeks where you force yourself to slow down and relax. But as you pack the duffel bag and prepare to visit that flat in the Marais or the houseboat on Shasta Lake, one thought looms above all else: What to read? What nifty books on urban design can be tossed in alongside Sean Wilsey and J.K. Rowling?

From time to time, I'm asked what's out there in the way of accessible architectural reading, so let me make a few modest suggestions. Nothing too heavy, no matter how good -- wait until September to open that copy of Rafael Moneo's "Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects" -- and they're all in paperback and in print. And each one will help you survey the built terrain with a bit more clarity.

One critic who excels at both a grasp of architecture and an appreciation of place is Ada Louise Huxtable; along with the Chronicle's irreplaceable Allan Temko she brought newspaper architectural criticism to life in the 1960s and '70s (Temko's blend of witty eloquence and absolute verdicts is found in "No Way to Build a Ballpark," a 1993 collection that's out-of-print but easily found).

All of Huxtable's books are good, but I'm a particular fan of her first collection of pieces, "Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard?" ... The predecessor to Temko and Huxtable was Lewis Mumford -- and while I'm in no hurry to plow through his hefty discourses on civic culture, check out "Sidewalk Critic," a selection of New Yorker columns from the 1930s. While much of what he critiqued has vanished, it's a great primer on how to gauge the scenery because of Mumford's sharp eye and even sharper prose. And best of all, watch his early disdain for Rockefeller Center -- "we are all a little huffed about Radio City" -- eventually warm to a sort of magisterial pardon...

And since we're in the neighborhood, the closest thing to beach reading on this list is Daniel Okrent's history of what the Rockefellers hath wrought: "Great Fortune." Once past the strained first chapters it's a gliding delight, both for Okrent's wry take on how cities get built and the fact that New York in the 1930s was as much the hub of culture and politics as a city can be....

But enough of the then and there, you say. What about the here and now?

At last count, I'd say there are 739 glossy hardbacks that show off pristine images of contemporary architecture at its most austere. Push them aside; instead, grab Hans Ibelings' "Supermodernism: Architecture in the Age of Globalization." In size, it is not much more than a mass-market paperback, which is why the $20 price tag made me wince. But it's a smart and surprisingly readable look at how globalism pulls architecture in one direction while hermetic fakery tugs it in another.

At the other end of today's spectrum is the movement that bills itself as New Urbanism, with its embrace of traditional patterns of growth that stress walkability and human scale. The best broadside from the true believers is Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck. Equally good and far more personal: Global City Blues by local architect Daniel Solomon, in which an affable modernist who also co-founded the Congress of the New Urbanism confronts the frustrating fact that society learns from neither its mistakes nor its triumphs. Or to put it in Bay Area terms: "Alice Waters has not prevented the obesity of teenagers from becoming as epidemic as the obesity of automobiles."

And before space runs out, a quick mention for:

-- Stuart Brand's How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built for reminding us that neither buildings nor cities should be frozen in time -- or discarded as obsolete.

-- Why Architecture Matters, by Blair Kamin. If Chicago's your destination, be sure to bring along this collection by the Chicago Tribune's Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic. Spirited and fun.

-- Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880-1950, by Robert Fogelson. Granted, this one is academic in tone and 50 pages too long. But what a fascinating look at urban history! Learn why some cities imposed height limits and some didn't, why some built subways and some didn't -- and how cities in their rush to protect their importance after World War II made everything worse. People complain that downtown streets are crowded? Then level all the buildings and erect parking garages. Hey, where'd everybody go?