Product Details

The Washington Post - Kirk Savage

Paul Goldberger is America's preeminent public critic of architecture, and his wise, compassionate Why Architecture Matters sums up a lifetime spent exploring, reflecting and writing. Some of the most affecting parts of the book are drawn from his deeply personal experience, growing up in the lively streetscape of 1950s Passaic, N.J., sojourning in the architectural wonderland of Yale University, and coming to terms with the construction and destruction of the Twin Towers.

Publishers Weekly

With a broad topic and a deep reach, this collection of work from New Yorker architecture critic Goldberger reflects on the meanings and effects of architecture, both in the abstract and in everyday life. From specific places like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. ("may be one of the few great architectural works anywhere whose approach is marked only by directional signs, not by a glimpse of the thing itself") to discussion of individual architects (Saarinesen, Lloyd Wright, etc.), Goldberger is clear and direct throughout, occasionally addressing readers directly with questions and thought experiments ("For the next few pages ... think only in terms of what a building looks like when you stand before it") that help recreate the architectural thought process. Sometimes focused too narrowly on the author's own experience (breathlessly recounted memories of architectural epiphany can fall flat), Goldberger occasionally risks alienating readers who lack his enthusiasm. For students and fans of architecture, however, this makes an elegant but energetic tour of building design, aesthetics, construction and inspiration that should encourage new ways of viewing one's surroundings. 55 b & w illustrations.
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The Virginia Quarterly Review

"This generously illustrated volume anchors its speculations in brief discussions of buildings that manage this hard-won equilibrium."—Brian Sholis, The Virginia Quarterly Review

— Brian Sholis

Scottish Sunday Herald

“Best of all, Goldberger combines forensic analysis of the architectural art with a sense of wonder.”--Jonathan Wright, Scottish Sunday Herald

— Jonathan Wright

Blueprint Magazine

“The strength of populist writing like Goldberger’s is that it is accessible and engaging.”--Penny Lewis, Blueprint Magazine

— Penny Lewis

Architecture Bulletin

“Placing on display the most public of all the arts can be astonishing. Paul Goldberger, collecting his thoughts on architecture over 40 years, does this. His book, Why Architecture Matters, could be said to be a portable architectural museum that, by turns, astonishes, intrigues, explains and entrances.”--Architecture Bulletin

Library Journal

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Goldberger has long been recognized by readers of the New York Times and The New Yorker as an architecture critic on a par with venerated peers like Ada Louise Huxtable and Lewis Mumford. With many books to his credit—most recently an incisive take on Ground Zero doings in Manhattan, Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York—Goldberger sums up a lifetime of musings on things architectural with picturesque essays concerning the way the built environment affects the quality of our daily lives. Owing to telling autobiographical insights incorporated into the narrative, we see how this most diplomatic of observers finds merit in the classicists and preservationists of the last two centuries, as well as in avant-garde innovators such as Corbusier and Frank Gehry. VERDICT Although a bias for the East Coast can be detected, Goldberger's trenchant and deftly communicated insights retain a universal validity. These meditations will entrance and enlighten anyone curious about why the buildings around us affect us as they do.—David Soltész, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH