Terror and Wonder ─ Architecture in a Tumultuous Age

"Too often, architecture criticism is locked into a private world of its own making, indifferent to the concerns of daily life. Blair Kamin's writing is different: he became an architecture critic, I suspect, to explain the connections between buildings and the political, economic, cultural, and social realities of our time. In Terror and Wonder, he reminds us with eloquence and conviction what architecture canuand cannotumean at the beginning of the twenty-first century."-Paul Goldberger, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and architecture critic for the New Yorker

"In Terror and Wonder, Blair Kamin once again displays the sharp eye, unflinching opinions, and compelling eloquence that have made him one of the premier architectural critics of our time. His thoughtful musings on a wide range of topicsuincluding 9/11's impact on the urban landscape, the challenge of designing a McDonald's for the twenty-first century, and the nexus between historic preservation and green architectureushould inspire us all to pay closer attention to the forces that shape our built environment, and to recognize the myriad ways in which that environment shapes our lives."-Richard Moe, former president, National Trust for Historic Preservation

"Citizen of Chicago and citizen of the world, Blair Kamin brings an unsurpassed combination of design aesthetics, follow-the-money reporting, social idealism, and sheer good writing to projects ranging from Millennium Park to the Burj Khalifa, from neighborhoods to infrastructure, from the devastation of New Orleans to the green roof at Chicago's City Hall. Here is architecture today in all its confusion, failings, and glory."-Robert Fishman, professor of architecture and urban planning at the University of Michigan and author of Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia

"Blair Kamin's keen observations about how architecture and urban environments have evolved since 9/11 are both compelling and thought-provoking. Terror and Wonder should spark intelligent debates about this tumultuous era for decades to come."-Kristen Richards, editor in chief of ArchNewsNow.com and Oculus

For nearly twenty years, Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune has explored how architecture captures our imagination and engages our deepest emotions. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and writer of the widely read Cityscapes blog, Kamin treats his subjects not only as works of artufit for praise or censureubut also as symbols of the cultural and political forces that inspire them. Terror and Wonder gathers the best of Kamin's writings from the past decade along with new reflections on an era framed by the destruction of the World Trade Center and the opening of the world's tallest skyscraper in the Persian Gulf playground of Dubai.

Assessing ordinary commercial structures as well as head-turning designs by some of the world's most prominent architects, from Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind to Santiago Calatrava and Renzo Piano, Kamin separates the era's masterpieces from its mediocrities with his punchy but eloquent style of critique. And he tells a broader story, constructing a bold conceptual framework that reveals a tumultuous age torn between the conflicting mandates of architectural spectacle and environmental sustainability.

For Kamin, the tale of our built environment over the past ten years is, in tangible ways, the story of the decade itself. Terror and Wonder considers how architecture has been central to the main events and crosscurrents in American life since 2001: the devastating and debilitating consequences of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina; the real estate boom and bust; the use of over the-top designs as engines of civic renewal; new challenges in saving old buildings; the unlikely rise of green architecture; and growing concern over our nation's crumbling infrastructure.

The decade, Kamin writes, was "a Dickensian construction zone" in which the nation veered precariously between artistic triumph and urban disaster, teeming public spaces and repressive security measures, frugal energy-saving architecture and giddy design excess, luxury-laced McMansions and impoverished public works, great expectations for rebuilding and painfully unrealized hopes. Here is an eye-opening look at the astounding and extraordinary ways that architecture mirrors our valuesuand shapes our everyday lives.

One of the nation's leading voices on architecture and urban planning, Blair Kamin has been the architecture critic at the Chicago Tribune since 1992 and is a winner of journalism's highest honors, among them the Pulitzer Prize. He also serves as a contributing editor for Architectural Record and has received the Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement and the Presidential Citation from the American Institute of Architects. Kamin is the author of the critically acclaimed Why Architecture: Matters: Lessons from Chicago. He lives in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette with his wife, Chicago Tribune writer Barbara Mahany, and their sons, Will and Teddy.