Book Description

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune architecture critic has taught millions of readers exactly what this approach can do in the decade he has been writing his fiery, intelligent essays on the state of contemporary architecture. Working from the palette of Chicago, America's foremost architectural city, Kamin also paints on a broad canvas, and in his work he has assessed everything from Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, to the "green skyscraper" as it is developing in Germany to the haunting U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

"Why Architecture Matters" collects the best of Kamin's columns, incuding his acclaimed series advocating the intelligent development of Chicago's lakefront. The columns are organized thematically, providing an accessible and thought-provoking view of architecture in the 1990s, from soaring skyscrapers to vibrant immigrant neighborhoods, troubled public housing projects, and sprawling suburbs. Because Chicago serves as a barometer of national design trends, these writings shed new light on American architecture and urbanism during a decade that Kamin labels "The Nervous Nineties"--a period of unparalleled affluence and underlying anxiety, of soothing retro buildings and provocative new ones that express the frenzied state of modern life. As Kamin demonstrates in his piercing, witty critiques, Chicago perfectly expresses the era's contradictions, rediscovering itself as a city but losing its architectural nerve.