Stanley Saitowitz (Hardcover)

In this book, the renowned architect Stanley Saitowitz, the Principal at Stanley Saitowitz | Natoma Architects Inc., presents a collection of lectures and writing expressing thoughts and ideas that he has developed over fifty years of teaching and practice. Several of the pieces originate with ideas he has shared with students to incite wonder and uncover the inherent awe of certain places and buildings, while others examine evolving interests in his work and the different paths he has taken on his architectural journey, or were written to explore the underlying meaning of ceremonies and gatherings. This accumulated material is grouped across six topics and illustrated with photographs that reveal the author's perspectives and ways of seeing. Recurring throughout is a continued interest in the relationship of buildings to their settings, and the sense that they are both inventions and extensions of found conditions. Photographs show images of places and buildings framed through the lens of the camera´s eye which become ideas for texts which in turn expand the images.

Stanley Saitowitz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and received his Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Witwatersrand in 1974 and his Master’s in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley in 1977. He is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. He has held several other prestigious academic positions, including the Elliot Noyes Professor at Harvard University GSD, the Bruce Goff Professor at University of Oklahoma, Norman, as well as teaching at UCLA, Rice, SCIARC, Cornell, Syracuse, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He has given more than 250 public lectures in the United States and abroad. His first house was built in 1975, and together with Stanley Saitowitz|Natoma Architects Inc., has completed many buildings and projects. He has designed houses, housing, master plans, offices, museums, libraries, wineries, synagogues, churches, commercial and residential interiors, memorials, urban landscapes and promenades. Amongst many awards, the Transvaal House was declared a National Monument by the Monuments Council in South Africa in 1997, the New England Holocaust Memorial received the Henry Bacon Medal in 1998, and in 2006 he was a finalist for the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award given by Laura Bush at the White House. Four previous books have been published on the work, and articles have appeared in national and international magazines and newspapers. His paintings, drawings and models have been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums.