Funny, engaging, and sharply pointed in his appraisal of the sports complex bankrupting our cities, the celebrated author of A People's History of Sports in the United States returns with a hard-hitting indictment of big business and the corrupt practices that are ruining the sports we love. When attending a baseball game becomes a luxury reserved for the wealthy few and cities build multi-million dollar stadiums while letting their bridges crumble, the price of sports in this country demands reassessment. Bad Sports cuts through the hype and bombast to give us a portrait of sports ownership as irresponsible as the financial shenanigans that drove the nation to the edge of economic ruin. From the outrageous use of public funds for stadium construction to the use of these spaces for religious and political platforms, Dave Zirin raises vital questions about misplaced priorities and moral abdications among the politicians we elect and the owners of the teams we root for. Speaking out in clear and passionate terms for the rights of any taxpayer and sports fan, Zirin returns America's favorite pastimes back to where they belong--in the open and for the people.

This book examines the cultural and artistic awakening of New York City through a detailed look at the city's architecture and urbanism during the years '890 - 1925, when the city first acquired a distinct sense of itself as the representative American metropolis, comparable to London and Paris.

No building was more anticipated than Frank Gehry's stunning new museum in Bilbao, an industrial city in the Basque Country of northern Spain. Philip Johnson, the dean of American architects, declared it "the greatest building of our time," while Sverre Fehn, winner of the 1997 Pritzker Architecture Prize, called the building "fantastic." Gehry's use of nontraditional materials and his sensitivity to the environments of his buildings is legendary; his method of envisioning a building through semiautomatic drawings and handmade models is little known, but provides an immediate entry into his creative process. This book celebrates the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and details its design process, bringing to life one of Gehry's greatest achievements. Coosje van Bruggen, who has collaborated with Gehry on various architectural and art projects, documents the history of the Guggenheim Bilbao from conception through design and construction. With unique access to the architect and his studio, she uncovers scores of fascinating drawings and working photographs, published here for the first time.

The Jewish Museum in Berlin tells the story of German-Jewish history from the fourth century to the present. It consists of two buildings: the first, a former courthouse, was built in the eighteenth century, and the second, a massive extension that opened to the public in 2001, was designed by the world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind (born 1946). Libeskind's building is comprised of a zinc façade and a set of three underground allegorical roads. The first leads to the main stairs, and by implication to the continuation of Berlin's history in the Museum; the second leads outdoors into the E.T.A. Hoffmann Garden, representing the exile and emigration of the Jews from Germany; and the third road leads to a dead end, representing "the Holocaust void." This road cuts through the ensemble as a whole, and evokes, in the architect's words, "that which can never be exhibited when it comes to Jewish Berlin history: humanity reduced to ashes." For Libeskind, a Polish Jew raised not far from Berlin who lost many relatives in the Holocaust, this extraordinary building was an intensely personal undertaking with numerous responsibilities. This volume details this most freighted and complex of buildings.

Thomas Harding adapts his adult memoir of the same name for younger readers, tracing the shadow of war as it falls across a one-story cottage and the people who share it.

"Celebrating Yale's first new residential colleges in fifty years, The New Residential Colleges at Yale examines the role of the residential college system and the evolution of Yale's urban campus, presenting an important new chapter in the history of Yale and New Haven."

Architect, writer, teacher--and agent provocateur--Michael Sorkin was commissioned by the University of Chicago in 1998 to produce an "alternative" master plan for its architectural revitalization. His studio had barely begun before they were dropped from the process. In the capacity of concerned alumnus, however, Sorkin and his group soldiered on and, in Pamphlet Architecture 22, present their background studies and proposed schemes, shown here in models and colorful drawings.This critical analysis of the official plans adopted by the University juxtaposed against Sorkin's "Other Plans" provides concrete evidence of his visionary ideals and what remarkable architecture and planning mean today.

This book is about brick and mortar : the same wry look directed at London itself. The result is a surprising array of unique and varied architecture, so frequently overlooked.

This volume of the College Art Association Monograph series examines the Romanesque wood doors of Auvergne.