New Books in Architecture

By Marshall PoeArts Visual Arts

New Books in Architecture episodes

August 17 Amihai Mazar and Nava Panitz-Cohen, "Tel Rehov: A Bronze and Iron Age City in the Beth-Shean Valle" (The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University, 2020)
This interview with Professor Amihai Mazar was conducted by Željko Stanojević for the New Books Network. The conversation focuses on Tel Reḥov: A Bronze and Iron Age City in the Beth-Shean Valley, especially Volume V, where the report turns from architecture and pottery to smaller objects and scientific evidence that help reconstruct life at the site.
Amihai Mazar is a leading archaeologist of ancient Israel. His research examines the Bronze and Iron Ages, archaeology and biblical history, ancient Near Eastern art and architecture, and historical geography. Tel Reḥov is especially important because it offers a rich archaeological sequence from the Beth-Shean Valley and evidence for the social, economic, and environmental history of northern Israel.
Volume V is particularly revealing because it asks what can be learned from material that might appear secondary beside monumental architecture. Its first part examines clay, bone, stone and gypsum vessels; grinding stones and other stone implements; metal objects and metallurgical evidence; beads; objects connected with textile production; scale weights; and lithics. Together, these finds illuminate household work, craft activity, exchange, measurement, and technology.
The volume also analyzes the spatial distribution of finds in a distinctive group of ninth-century BCE buildings in Area C. Archaeology is also about understanding where objects were found and how groups of finds functioned together. Distribution patterns can help reconstruct activities within buildings and suggest how work, storage, production, and daily routines were organized. It also includes Assyrian-period burials and later Islamic-period material, showing the site's long history.
The second part of Volume V brings natural-science methods directly into the archaeological interpretation. Radiometric dating contributes to chronology. Studies of animal and fish remains, molluscs, and botanical material offer evidence for diet, agriculture, environment, trade, and the use of local and non-local resources. A soil-flotation project recovers small botanical remains that might otherwise disappear from the archaeological record. These studies show how modern archaeology depends on collaboration between excavators and natural-science specialists.
One striking example is the paleomagnetic study of tilted walls in Area C, Stratum V. Instead of treating damaged architecture only as a descriptive feature, the researchers used physical evidence to investigate seismic destruction. This demonstrates a central strength of Volume V: interpretation is built by combining objects, context, chronology, biological remains, geology, and physical-science methods.
Our discussion with Professor Mazar therefore uses Volume V to ask a larger question: how do small finds and scientific analyses change the historical picture created by excavation? The volume shows that understanding an ancient city requires more than identifying buildings or connecting archaeological horizons with historical narratives. It requires reconstructing technologies, food systems, craft production, movement of goods, environmental conditions, patterns of use within buildings, and the events that transformed them.
Željko Stanojević is a host with the New Books Network and President of the Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature, Belgrade. He is also Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the European Hebrew Journal, an international Diamond Open Access journal supporting research in Hebrew, biblical, Jewish, linguistic, historical, and related studies. He also coordinates the European Hebrew Journal International Online Conference, New Discoveries and New Directions in Biblical, Hebrew, and Theological Studies. Authors of recent academic books are welcome to contact him regarding possible New Books Network interviews.
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41 min
August 16 Karen M'Closkey and Keith VanDerSys eds., "Media Matters in Landscape Architecture" (Applied Research & Design, 2025)
Media Matters in Landscape Architecture (Applied Research & Design, 2025) goes
behind the scenes to consider how media technologies that have emerged
in recent decades are shaping the practices of artists, designers,
engineers, and scientists. The media infrastructure of climate science
and Earth remote sensing, coupled with the increased availability of
spatial information and modeling software, provides the context for many
of the chapters in that the media and methods employed are designed to
capture phenomena that are not directly visible to human perception, and
where there is a high degree of uncertainty or changeability due to
dynamic material conditions. Co-editors Karen M'Closkey and Keith
VanDerSys bring together authors from a wide range of
disciplines—landscape architecture, media studies, science and
technology studies, history of science, engineering, ecology, and
architecture—to examine how the creation and use of data, images, and
models act as the mediums through which a particular understanding of
“environment” or “landscape” arises. This framing of environmental media
emphasizes the relationships among various design media and the
specific material and social environments within which they operate.
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49 min
August 16 Gregorio Astengo and Davide Spina eds.,"Real Estate: Histories of Architecture and Capital" (gta Verlag, 2026)
Real Estate: Histories of Architecture and Capital (gta Verlag, 2026)challenges
the conventional assumption that architects and planners are the
principal authors of urban form. It instead foregrounds the developers,
builders, financiers, and media strategists whose pursuit of profit has
shaped cities, particularly under global capitalism. Bringing together
studies spanning the eighteenth century to the present, the
editors, Gregorio Astengo and Davide Spina, and
the contributors establish real estate development as a significant
field of inquiry within architectural history. It also proposes new
methods and sources for understanding how speculation and market
mechanisms have produced the built environment.
This interview was conducted by Matthew Wells, Senior Lecturer in
Architectural History at the University of Manchester. He researches
nineteenth-century European architecture, focusing on artistic
techniques, technology, and political economy. Wells is the author of Modelling the Metropolis: The Architectural Model in Victorian London (gta Verlag, 2023).
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44 min
August 12 Lauren Stara, "Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects (Bloomsbury, 2025)
is a book designed for librarians, trustees, local government
officials, architects, and interior designers who are designing or
planning to build, renovate, or reconfigure library spaces. Most
librarians embark upon a library building project with little experience
in space planning, architecture, or construction. Written by a
registered architect and professional librarian, this is a guidebook for
librarians embarking on a library building project. It includes a brief
history of library facilities, placing them in the context of public
buildings. An introduction to library planning principles and a
discussion of library design concepts and trends are presented,
including the impact of the 2020 pandemic on library design. Sections on
working with architects, building design/construction terminology and
the basics of reading architectural drawings provide insight into
unfamiliar jargon and visual communication. Extensive illustrations and
photographs show examples of library layouts and furniture and
equipment, and the final chapter addresses the challenges inherent in a
major building project. As library services change, buildings must adapt
to accommodate and provide these new innovations. Buildings are living
things, and this book will offer guidance to those embarking on a
project of any scale or size.
Guest: Lauren Stara is a registered architect and a
librarian, specializing in library building design. Her past library
experience includes everything from front desk clerk to director. As a
Library Building Specialist for the Massachusetts Board of Library
Commissioners, Lauren administers grant funds and provides technical
assistance and advice from initial planning through construction of
public library projects. She writes, consults, and speaks on library
design, service design, and future trends in libraries and is coauthor
of Responding to Rapid Change in Libraries: A User Experience Approach (2020).
Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program &
Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at
Delaware County Community College.
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53 min
August 11 William Whyte, "The University: A History in Stone, Silk, and Blood" (Harvard UP, 2026)
We often idealize the university as a sanctuary for disinterested
reason, where material concerns are set aside in favor of higher
principles. Yet when we remember our own college experiences, what
springs to mind are not just lofty concepts but also material realities:
cramped dorm rooms and musty library stacks, gothic towers and freshly
mowed quads.
The University: A History in Stone, Silk, and Blood (Harvard
University Press, 2026) puts such seemingly inconsequential details at
the center of the institution’s 900-year history. Constructing each
chapter around an emblematic material—straw, stone, flesh, blood, silk,
paper, iron, and concrete—Professor William Whyte traces the intimate
connections between the university’s shifting physical form and its
evolving social and cultural meanings. From the medieval University of
Paris, where students purchased bundles of straw to use as chairs in
otherwise-unfurnished classrooms, to the ocean of concrete at
postcolonial Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University, Professor Whyte shows
how competing visions of higher learning left their imprint on
generations of university architecture, landscaping, and furniture.
Along the way, he highlights perennial fears that, within the social
space of the university, the life of the mind would recede before
worldly interests: that student bloodlines would be tainted by racial
intermixing, that courting donors with buildings named in their honor
would become more important than research and education, that the allure
of powdered wigs and silk gowns would undermine scholarly discipline.
A richly textured chronicle, The University concludes that,
even in the age of remote learning, the college campus is irreplaceable.
The future of higher education includes fiber-optic cables, but stone,
brick, and steel are here to stay.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/architecture

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39 min
August 10 Marco Pompili, "Public Housing in Japan: The Dōjunkai Apartments One Hundred Years On" (Brill, 2026)
Public Housing in Japan: The Dōjunkai Apartments One Hundred Years On
(Brill, 2026) is the first comprehensive English-language examination
of the Dōjunkai Foundation (1924-2024). Compiled and edited by Dr. Marco
Pompili through interviews and studies, it is a must-read for anyone
interested in modern Japanese architecture. The Dōjunkai Apartments
(1924-1934), the Foundation's best-known work, introduced apartment
living to Japan in response to crucial historical and social challenges
such as urban reconstruction after the devastating earthquake of 1923
and the emergence of new working and middle classes. The book's texts,
by prominent scholars and architects, as well as a series of original
drawings and photographs from the period, bring the work of the Dōjunkai
Foundation back to life 100 years after its founding. While the
Dōjunkai Apartments have unfortunately been lost in the rapid changes
and greedy redevelopment typical of Japanese metropolises, this book
seeks to contribute to the preservation of their memory and their
significance.
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53 min
August 09 Stefan Al, "Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home" (Norton, 2026)
A sweeping history of humanity’s most fundamental creation―the home―and its effects on the land, cities, and people themselves.
Americans
spend, on average, 90 percent of their lives indoors, with two-thirds
of that time spent in their homes. Globally, the construction and
maintenance of residential buildings account for a staggering portion of carbon emissions. In this timely
and fascinating work, architect and urban-planning scholar Stefan Al
deftly weaves together archaeology, engineering, social history, and
environmental science to explain how our homes have developed through
the ages and in turn shaped civilization and the planet itself.
From
tiny pit-houses in the Levant and Mesoamerica thousands of years ago to
soaring skyscrapers in Dubai, New York, and Shanghai today, Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home (W. W. Norton & Company, 2026) takes
readers on a swift and absorbing tour of the evolution of human
habitation. Whisking readers from ancient Pompeii to contemporary Hong
Kong, industrial-age Liverpool to postwar Levittown, Al shows how our
choices in housing have both reflected and affected ideas about gender
roles, privacy, and comfort. Discover how seemingly mundane
elements―like door-knockers
and corridors―have altered everyday interactions, and how material
choices have remade the planet’s surface. He also confronts the darker
side of domesticity, exposing the unintended consequences of our
architectural choices across millennia, including smoke-filled Neolithic
dwellings, deadly fires in crowded Roman apartment buildings, and
worsening social isolation in car-dependent suburbs. Finally, he
examines the myths and reality of future housing, including 3D-printed
homes and space architecture built by robots.
Drawing from personal experiences
across global cities and professional insights, Al illuminates how our
choices in housing continue to influence everything from social
relationships to climate change, ultimately arguing
that understanding this rich history is crucial for building a more
sustainable future. With billions more people needing housing in the
coming decades, Dwelling on Earth reveals how we might transform humanity’s defining challenge into our greatest opportunity.
HOST BIO: Alex Hallbom is an urban planner and writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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30 min
August 03 Elizabeth Darling, "Palace of the Ether: Broadcasting House and the Architecture of the BBC, 1922–32" (Lund Humphries, 2026)
Palace of the Ether: Broadcasting House and the Architecture of the BBC, 1922–1932
(Lund Humphries, 2026) by Dr. Elizabeth Darling is about the
architecture and design of broadcasting in the 1920s and 1930s,
examining the buildings which the BBC occupied in its founding decades,
with a particular focus on Broadcasting House in London. It argues that
these environments were as constitutive of the Corporation’s identity as
the programmes and people that they housed. Borrowing from the
architectural writer Christopher Hussey’s characterisation of
Broadcasting House as a ‘palace of the ether’ Dr. Darling asks how the
immaterial medium of the broadcast was given material and spatial form
by the BBC, and the engineers, architects and designers whom they commissioned.
The
book traces the development of the BBC both technologically and
organisationally, and the changing demands it had of the spaces which
accommodated it. It shows how associational networks and personal
affiliations affected who was commissioned to work on what became
Broadcasting House and offers a detailed account of the work of Val
Myer, who designed the exterior and shell of the new building, and the
team of architects who designed the studio interiors (Serge Chermayeff,
Wells Coates, Edward Maufe, Raymond McGrath and Dorothy Warren). In
documenting the design of Broadcasting House, and the responses to it, Palace of the Ether offers new insights into British architectural culture at a pivotal moment in the profession’s history.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/architecture

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54 min
August 03 Brent Elliott and Roger Bowdler, "The British Cemetery: Architecture, Landscape, Sculpture" (Historic England, 2026)
Roger Bowdler and Brent Elliott’s The British Cemetery: Architecture, Landscape, Sculpture, published by Historic England (2026), traces the history of the cemetery from the 17th century to the present day. The cemetery emerged as a new landscape form in the 19th
century in Britain but had deep roots in earlier churchyard practices
and in fashionable garden landscape design. Cemeteries very quickly
became a locus for the monumental expression of loss, family identity
and social standing. The book offers a clear chronological narrative,
with alternate chapters attending to landscape and monuments. The
authors present unfamiliar primary data and introduce some welcome new
themes including reference to the monumental mason industry and cemetery
infrastructure. The authors draw examples from England, Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland and in doing so underline the very particular
nature of Scottish funerary heritage. The book’s principal strength is
its collection of illustrations that include historic and contemporary
photographs, landscape design maps and postcards. The text brings the
narrative completely up to date, with reference to the natural burial
movement and landscapes designed to meet Muslim burial need. This text
is now very probably the best introduction to the material culture of
the British cemetery, written by experts with over 70 years’ experience
in cemetery research and conservation. This interview, conducted by
Julie Rugg of the University of York’s Cemetery Research Group, is a
meeting of enthusiasts for a landscape form that is moving and
thought-provoking in equal measure.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/architecture

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37 min
August 01 Vaneesa Cook, "Empire and Liberty: The Tied Histories of Two American Landmarks" (Beacon Press, 2026)
In Empire and Liberty: The Tied Histories of Two American Landmarks (Beacon Press, 2026), historian Dr. Vaneesa Cook examines the history of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty in order to consider, more broadly, the United States' relationship with liberty and empire. Empire and liberty have been part of the American story since the founding, but they are often at odds, sometimes irreconcilably so. Cook examines their changing relationship and meaning using these two iconic buildings as anchors. She also examines the symbolism and importance of the landmarks themselves. She considers how individuals and groups who have had more
limited access to liberty have tried to shape the meaning of the symbols and their own rights at the same time. In telling this sweeping history, Cook touches in themes of American identity and ideals.
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43 min

About New Books in Architecture

From the publisher's feed

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.