cover image Nurturing Dreams: Collected Essays on Architecture and the City

Nurturing Dreams: Collected Essays on Architecture and the City

Fumihiko Maki. MIT Press (MA), $29.95 (273pp) ISBN 978-0-262-13500-9

An architect for 40 years, with projects around the world (and currently involved with the World Trade Center reconstruction), Tokyo-born Maki collects 21 wise, enlightening essays on the theory, practice and product of modern urban architecture. Throughout, Maki's style is clear, simple and confident; he has near-global knowledge of architectural history and culture, but never overreaches (on architect Yoshio Taniguchi: ""I do not know what sort of influence this essentially European Harvard education exerted on Taniguchi... but his works have subsequently evolved and the rigorous nature of his details... are by no means Mediterranean but, rather, Germanic in character""). Though Maki admirably sticks to the facts-what he sees and what he knows-he's at his most engaging when he leans toward the personal, as in an essay beginning with a discussion of his own trajectory in the field: ""I was inevitably drawn to the issue of identity in a mass society and the search for ways in which cities might accommodate individual places with identity."" Students and professionals will find Maki a smart and trustworthy source, and Maki's straightforward style should accommodate general readers with a genuine interest. 100 illus.