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This forward-thinking survey considers the challenges of making buildings that withstand the vagaries of climate, economy, and limited resources in the tropics. Illustrated throughout

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Library Journal Review

The folly of forcing a "universal" modernist architecture onto tropical latitudes was demonstrated to a wide audience by Alexander Tzonis in Tropical Architecture: Critical Regionalism in the Age of Globalization. Not allowing for equatorial climates and lifestyles, the resulting structures typically become uninhabitable, unaffordable, and abandoned. Lauber (architecture, Univ. of Stuttgart, Germany) implicitly assumes the "critical regionalist" stance in this survey of indigenous building types and the architectural successes and failures of the colonial/postcolonial era. Less theoretical and more pragmatic than Tzonis, he decries the extravagance of air-conditioned glass boxes and the hubris of privately policed, gated enclaves, insisting that a sustainable, humane tropical architecture must be based on the lessons of native building. Copious data on tropical biomes, building materials, and techniques supplement a generous selection of photos, drawings, and plans illustrating both desirable and disastrous building practices. The translation from German is needlessly stilted and the bibliography anemic, but the message is timely, especially considering global concerns over the fossil fuel supply. Academic libraries owning Tzonis's book will want Lauber's as well.-David Solt?sz, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

This fascinating book addresses architectural design in the tropics--both native vernacular preindustrial building and modern industrialized works. In fact, the book is premised on the hinge between the two: primarily, how the latter can be improved by the former, especially with regard to ecology. What is fascinating here is how great and noble traditional architecture looks and acts in response to climate, geography, function, ritual, and materials and, conversely, how ignominious and awful modern architecture looks in the same perspective. The book thereby applies critical theory to modern architecture in the tropics through the focusing lens of ecology. Lauber (Univ. of Applied Sciences, Constance; Univ. of Stuttgart) and colleagues are all practicing architects and teachers of architecture in Germany and Switzerland, and they have herewith written a devastating critique of modern architecture in an area predicted to receive the most urban development and population growth in the world over the next half century. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels. P. Kaufman Boston Architectural Center