This last post of 2017 looks back as some highlights from this year: books I read and reviewed, exhibitions I saw, buildings I visited, and news I covered. I've tried to limit the list in each category a few of each, and in some cases I've included one item from this year that I've yet to blog about but am looking forward to next year. It was a busy year for me ? among other things, two books I wrote (100 Years, 100 Landscape Designs and How to Build a Skyscraper) came out ? and therefore one with fewer posts than usual. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of good things to look back upon.

Books //

Easily the most unexpected and engrossing book I reviewed in 2017 is Keith Krumwiede's Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction, published by Park Books. He combines architectural theory, old paintings, and, of all things, builder plans by the likes of the Toll Brothers into a poetic critique of the American way of living on the land. // One book I return to again and again (in part due to walking tours that encompass Columbia's new campus) is Columbia in Manhattanville, edited by Caitlin Blanchfield and published by Columbia Books on Architecture and the City. Its combination of history, criticism, photography, and voices of the architects and planners involved capture the myriad aspects of the contested project at the onset of its long realization. // Jesse LeCavalier's The Rule of Logistics: Walmart and the Architecture of Fulfillment took a fa...