Installations By Architects: Experiments in Building and Design

Sarah Bonnemaison and Ronit Eisenbach
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
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Over the last few decades, a rich and increasingly diverse practice has emerged in the art world that invites the public to touch, enter, and experience the work, whether it is in a gallery, on city streets, or in the landscape. Like architecture, many of these temporary artworks aspire to alter viewers' experience of the environment. An installation is usually the end product for an artist, but for architects it can also be a preliminary step in an ongoing design process. Like paper projects designed in the absence of "real" architecture, installations offer architects another way to engage in issues critical to their practice. Direct experimentation with architecture's material and social dimensions engages the public around issues in the built environment that concern them and expands the ways that architecture can participate in and impact people's everyday lives.

The first survey of its kind, Installations by Architects features fifty of the most significant projects from the last twenty-five years by today's most exciting architects, including Anderson Anderson, Philip Beesley, Diller + Scofidio, John Hejduk, Dan Hoffman, and Kuth/Ranieri Architects. Projects are grouped in critical areas of discussion under the themes of tectonics, body, nature, memory, and public space. Each project is supplemented by interviews with the project architects and the discussions of critics and theorists situated within a larger intellectual context. There is no doubt that installations will continue to play a critical role in the practice of architecture. Installations by Architects aims to contribute to the role of installations in sharpening our understanding of the built environment.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

安藤忠雄都市彷徨

安藤忠雄 著
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
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「旅行，造就了人。我仍舊探訪著世界上的城市，穿梭漫遊在大大小小的通路與街道，一再地行走、逗留在綿延不絕的巷弄裡而留下我的足跡。緊張與不安當中一個人迷失在不知名的地方，因著孤獨而感到嚴苛、迷惘，甚至不知所措。但總是能在那當中找出一條活路，順利地全身而退，並繼續邁向下一個旅程。……我的人生也可算是一段旅程吧。在沒有接受專門教育的狀況下而志向建築這件事情，就如同獨自在緊張與不安下迷失在一個陌生地方一樣。……然而像現在這樣回過頭來看，我寧可將那視為是因著在那苦難當中以所得的體驗作為食糧，自己才得以一直生存到現在。往往在孤獨與不安、一個人在都市裡彷徨的時候，那樣的感覺便更明顯而具體地流露出來。……旅行，也造就了建築家。」－－安藤忠雄

安藤忠雄從1965年以來直到1992年於世界各地遊歷途中，所留下的思考軌跡與心路歷程記錄的這本《安藤忠雄的都市彷徨》，那種搭著甚至連航班都未能確定的船隻航向各個我們所無法想像的世界角落，探索著什麼、尋找著自己心之所向所具有的勇氣與強韌意志，令人為之由衷嚮往。同時，那似乎可以說是個充滿了生機、經歷了戰後復甦，對於現況的不滿而帶有濃厚批判性色彩、不斷反省並持續追尋著新歷史走向的年代。或許在跨越了2000年之後的21世紀，我們早已慣習於IT(Information Technology)產業發達對於通訊網路器具的依賴，而陷入一種未能自知的懶散狀態。在持續信仰著科技會提供人類更美好未來的這個技術主義至上教條的同時，許多身為一個人所應具備的靈敏度與嗅覺，似乎也在逐漸消失中。會不會我們現在已經逐漸淡忘了怎麼動起來，而忽視了透過五體直觀所能賦予我們的真實觸感？這個cyber world與real world之間的辨證關係似乎已悄悄取代international style與regionalism之間的關係而逐漸熱烈地展開。

在安藤忠雄這本書的字裡行間，透過異文化之間的訊息傳遞反而更能深刻地體會到這份難以言喻的熱情、一種對於真實世界的體驗與實踐的感動。透過旅行，這些和真實世界的接觸，以及同時與內心深刻的自我交往這件事因而得以實現。

因著旅行，而得以脫離容易陷入惰性循環的日常生活，並且在一個新鮮而未知的境界裡得到嶄新的試驗與刺激；也就更因置身在一個前所未見的困頓境遇中，反而更具有「創造性」之產生的可能。這或許也就是安藤忠雄長久以來，把「旅行」這件事情當作人生中最大的導師、並且不斷地在自己的真實生活與內心世界持續著自己的旅程、並且持續著和自己之間之戰鬥狀態的緣故吧。因著旅行得以發掘自己在日常生活中未能察覺的生命與潛力。再怎麼說這都是對於一個人非常重要而難得的價值吧。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

You Are What You Hear: How Music and Territory Make Us Who We Are

Harry Witchel
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
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Have you ever wondered why music makes you feel so good? Why did we evolve to have music, and what does music do to us? You Are What You Hear is a bit of a romp compared to the usual science book. Dr. Witchel, a specialist in music, pleasure and the brain, explains how the body and the brain are influenced by different kinds of music, why some music makes us joyous, while other music makes us sad, or angry, or anxious, and how the brain interprets this music. He also shows how music plays with your mind what you think, how you decide what to buy, and even how smart you are.

Pondering the musicality of everything from bird songs to the language he calls "motherese," Dr. Witchel illustrates the power of music and addresses the questions:
- Why do we listen to music?
- Why does music make sex better?
- Why do some people love Beethoven and others rap music?
- Is musical taste 100% nurture, or is there a role for nature?
- Why do aggressive young men blare out booming music from their cars?
- Why do we listen to sad music?
- Does violent music lead to violent behavior?
- Does listening to Mozart make you smarter or just happier?
- Does music make the brain grow larger?
- Can music surreptitiously influence what we decide to buy in shops?
- Can music cure?

Dr. Witchel's interests run the gamut from music, dating and laughter to the body language of the British Prime Minister, which he has analyzed on the BBC. he shows that, like birds, we use music to establish and reinforce territory, for ourselves and for our social groups. In this way, music defines who we are.

You Are What You Hear is an erudite and entertaining study that is unique in many ways. No other book has thoroughly elaborated the connection between music and social territory in humans, although in other music-making species scientists have shown this connection to be clear-cut. Given the wealth of scientific evidence and historical narratives presented in You Are What You Hear, an intellectual investigation of this avenue is long overdue. Written by a psychobiologist, the work straddles hard science and psychology, approaching music from a unique interdisciplinary perspective. Successfully bridging these strands of evidence, You Are What You Hear elucidates the significance of territory not only in music but in daily life. This lively and engaging book will have a broad appeal not only to the general public, but to students interested in the relationship between music and culture. Anyone from seventeen to seventy will have the potential to gain something from this book.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

人類的音樂 (Music of Man)

耶胡迪・梅紐因 (Yehudi Menuhin) , 柯蒂斯・W・戴維斯 (Curtis W. Davis) 著
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
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在這本十分優美的書中，表達了作者許多精心選擇的個人觀點。本書將帶給讀者廣泛的閱讀樂趣，引領他們踏上一次激動人心的漫游音樂世界之旅，到世界的許多地方去對人聲、歌曲、和聲及器樂的發展探幽覽勝，把它們的種種動人形態盡收眼底。

《人類的音樂》是一本知識豐富、闡述詳盡、充滿深刻感悟和獨到見解的佳作。它探討了音樂在其漫長歷史中形成的各種形態，描述了各個時期創作及演奏音樂的歷史名人，闡釋了音樂在世界不同地區所扮演的社會角色。它追溯了因人類不斷變化的需要而應運而生的各種音樂流派、風格的演化過程，而那些促使音樂演化的因素，既有宗教和歷史的，也有社會和個人的。

(摘錄自dangdang.com)

Contemporary Instrumental
Chinese Music
Relaxation Music

Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril

online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
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Moral Ground brings together the testimony of over 80 visionaries — theologians and religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturists, activists, and writers — to present a diverse and compelling call to honor our individual and collective moral responsibilities to our planet. In the face of environmental degradation and global climate change, scientific knowledge alone does not tell us what we ought to do. The missing premise of the argument and much-needed centerpiece in the debate to date has been the need for ethical values, moral guidance, and principled reasons for doing the right thing for our planet, its animals, its plants, and its people. This book encourages a newly discovered, or rediscovered, commitment to consensus about our ethical obligation to the future and why it’s wrong to wreck the world.

 

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

 

失控的世界 : 全球化如何重塑我們的生活 (Runaway World)

安東尼‧吉登斯 (Antony Giddens) 著
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
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本書從政治、文化和生活的角度對全球化問題作了深刻的分析，生動地論述了不斷增長的全球依賴性是如何影響我們的日常生活，如何影響我們當中的每一個人的。全書共五章。

安東尼‧吉登斯，英國著名學者，現任倫敦政治經濟學院院長，曾任英國布萊爾首相和美國前總統克林頓顧問，至今出版著作30餘部。吉登斯近年來發表的《現代性的後果》、《現代性與自我認同》、《親密關係的轉型》、《超越左與右》、《為社會學辯護》和《第三條道路︰社會民主主義的復興》等著作引起國際學術界和政治界的廣泛關注，他的著作已被譯成22種語言，其主要著作大都已譯成中文在我國出版。此外，專門對吉登斯的著作進行研究的書籍就達十種之多，其中還有一部四卷本的研究專著。1996年，他成為BBC萊思講座主講人。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)