Water and Architecture

The interplay of water and architecture--in waterfront skylines, ports, houses, fountains, canals, plazas, natural and artificial lakes and pools--is the theme of this exquisite album. Skimming from ocean-straddling temples in Bali and Rome's grandiose Trevi Fountain to cities like Paris and San Antonio that are inextricably linked to their rivers, architect Moore's limpid essay is at once a loving celebration of water as source and symbol of life, and a searching inquiry into how architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn manipulate water's physical characteristics and associations. Lidz's intuitive photographic vision seems perfectly attuned to this subject, and no one who ponders this globe-straddling photo-essay will look at water in quite the same way again. Architects' and Designers' Book Service main selection. (May)