Hasta La Ideas

Competition: we’ve teamed up with architecture critic Alexandra Lange to give readers the chance to win one of five copies of her new book, Writing About Architecture: mastering the language of buildings and cities.

Published by Princeton Architectural Press, the 160-page paperback is a primer on reading and writing architectural criticism, based on Lange’s design-writing courses at New York University and the School of Visual Arts.

Each chapter opens with an essay by a renowned architecture critic, followed by close examination of the text and the writer’s strategies.

The architecture discussed includes works Marcel Breuer, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, SOM, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

To enter this competition email your name, age, gender, occupation, and delivery address and telephone number to competitions@dezeen.com with “Writing About Architecture” in the subject line. We won’t pass your information on to anyone else; we just want to know a little about our readers.

Read our privacy policy here.

Competition closes 3 April 2012. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeenmail newsletter and at the bottom of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

Subscribe to our newsletter, get our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter for details of future competitions.

Images are courtesy of Jeremy M. Lange.

Here’s soem more information from Princeton Architectural Press:

Writing About Architecture
Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities
Alexandra Lange

Extraordinary architecture addresses more than practical considerations. It inspires and provokes while creating a seamless experience of the physical world for its users. It is the rare writer that can frame the discussion of a building in a way that allows the reader to see it with new eyes.

Writing About Architecture is a handbook on writing effectively and critically about buildings and cities. Each chapter opens with a reprint of a significant essay written by a renowned architecture critic, followed by a close reading and discussion of the writer’s strategies. Lange offers her own analysis using contemporary examples as well as a checklist of questions at the end of each chapter to help guide the writer.

This important addition to the Architecture Briefs series is based on the author’s design writing courses at New York University and the School of Visual Arts. Lange also writes a popular online column for Design Observer and has written for Dwell, Metropolis, New York magazine, and the New York Times.

Writing About Architecture includes analysis of critical writings by Ada Louise Huxtable, Lewis Mumford, Herbert Muschamp, Michael Sorkin, Charles Moore, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Jane Jacobs. Architects covered include Marcel Breuer, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Field Operations, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Frederick Law Olmsted, SOM, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Alexandra Lange is an architecture and design critic, journalist, and historian. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

7.5 x 8″ / 19.1 x 20.3cm
160 PP / 20 B+W Illustrations
Paperback
978-1-61689-053-7
$24.95
Publication date: 1 March 2012