Great Reading

I’m finding out that architects take their books very seriously. Over the years architecture titles have been published that, as book objects, as well as sources of knowledge, are remarkably unlike any other on the market.

There’s something peculiar and a bit abstract about architecture books. Their specialized illustrations, love of detail, interior spaces, and connection to the larger art and public worlds give them a mysterious aura to someone like me, raised mostly on popular media and pulp and classic literature.

Architecture folk are a dedicated bunch, able to sustain ambitious publishing projects and particular and specialized titles. In fact I can’t really think of another practice so common that has such an elaborate and peculiar literature around it.

Art production is too specialized and precious. Cooking literature is too personal, appropriately lush and gushing. Medicine is clinical (although medical books certainly can have excellent illustrations).

Architecture being so closely related to design, the book object must be consciously designed as art, or at least be smart enough to look at, if it is to interest the eye of a passionate architect.

I immediately think of a few titles in our collection that have hand-written text, books that read more like sketch books than manuals, complete with sketchy plans, impressionist diagrams, and personal photographs.

We hope to get titles of this sort for our library. Their magic needs to be celebrated.

Jason Dickson, Library Coordinator

The South in Architecture by Lewis Mumford

Lewis Mumford (1895 – 1990), American author and historian, is considered one of the first thinkers to develop a coherent history of technology.

He certainly was one of the first writers to combine the studies of technology, science, and culture. Mumford sought an inclusive, systematic view of history and technology as a cyclical and understandable process.

He was influenced by Scottish social reformer and architect, Patrick Geddes (1854 – 1932), who in was involved with the reconstruction of the Old Tow in Edinburgh.

Gedde’s concern was the impact of environment on urban development, biology, and human life.

Mumford championed this regional approach, and worked hard exploring the architectural history of America with these principles in mind.

The South in Architecture, currently a part of the Six Degrees library, is a work born out of this interest.

Mumford famously outlined the Regional Survey, a process that, in his words:

is to take a geographic region and explore it in every aspect. It differs from the social survey with which we are acquainted in America in that it is not chiefly a survey of evils; it is, rather, a survey of the existing conditions in all their aspects; and it emphasizes to a much greater extent than the social survey the natural characteristies of the environment, as they are discovered by the geologist, the zoologist, the ecologist – in addition to the development of natural and human conditions in the historic past, as presented by the anthropologist, the archeologist, and the historian. In short, the regional survey attempts a local synthesis of all the specialist ‘knowledges’. (Mumford 1921, p. 279).

He would continue to develop what might be termed an ecological critique of modern American civilization.

It is an outlook that, for its concern with the environment and relationships between people, location, and architecture, is one we certainly champion here at Six Degrees Muskoka.

The Six Degrees Book Wall

Behold our new bookwall!

The book wall is a permanent display meant to highlight themes in our collection. However it is also turning out to be something of a functioning public sculpture.

Finished for the opening of our first art exhibit Trees, Rocks and Water, the wall has puzzled those in attendance, who were interested to see this little explosion of books floating on our north wall.

We thought people would just kind of look at it, and perhaps politely ask for help if they wanted to see a certain book. But that was divinely wrong.

Most dove in and rummaged, pulling books out here, resifting them there, and altogether altering the whole display by the afternoon’s end.

We were delighted. Suddenly we were in possession of a sort of dynamic library sculpture that changes with each use.

Six Degrees staff tried to “clean it up” but really that meant simply shifting it around again to how individually we thought it should look.

And this look in return is simply temporary, as anyone could come in, and through their personal curiosity, change it all around again.

The photo that you see now is simply the first phase of the arrangement. We will be adding more shelves in the future, hoping to have the display climb even further upward.

Also Tamsen has suggested that we also include framed photos of authors and other sorts of related paraphernalia.

Be sure to come back and check up on it. We’ll post more pictures soon.

Collection of Architecture Books at Six Degrees

The Six Degrees Muskoka library houses a variety of titles that are intriguing and inspiring, always with the aim to open the minds of those who investigate its shelves. One of the strengths of the current collection is the many interesting and unique titles on architecture.

The Skinner Family has been in the building profession for four generations, and many of the titles in this collection were purchased by Don’s father. Many have the stamp ‘Donald E. Skinner, Architect’ on their front free endpapers.

A majority of the titles are rare studies of buildings mid-century, with an emphasis on larger public structures, such as schools, apartment buildings, or motels.

Especially interesting is a book detailing how to build era television stations – TV Stations: A Guide For Architects, Engineers, And Management by Walter J. Duschinsky, 1954.

There isn’t a collection of books on architecture in the area quite like it.

6 Degrees Muskoka

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