Not Interesting: On the Limits of Criticism in Architecture
Andrew Atwood
ar+d (Applied Research + Design), October 2018

Paperback | 7 x 9 inches | 230 pages | 100 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-1940743530 | $29.95

Publisher's Description:
Not Interesting proposes another set of terms and structures to talk about architecture, without requiring that it be interesting. This book explores a set of alternatives to the interesting and imagines how architecture might be positioned more broadly in the world using other terms: boring, confusing, and comforting. Along with interesting, these three terms make up the four chapters of the book. Each chapter introduces its topic through an analysis of a different image, which serves to unpack the specific character of each term and its relationship to architecture. In addition to text, the book contains over 50 case studies using 100 drawings and images. These are presented in parallel to the text and show what architecture may look like through the lens of these other terms.dDAB Commentary: It's hard not to say it, but Andrew Atwood's Not Interesting is very interesting. The professor at UC Berkeley and designer at First Office, frustrated with the overuse of the term "interesting" in architectural crits, wrote a book that explores other domains of architecture: the boring, the confusing, and the comforting. I'll admit that reading the introduction to Not Interesting made me realize just how often I've succumbe...