Filed under: books, nostalgia | Tags: a place of my own, architecture, michael pollan
A very interesting book recording the travails of an amateur builder out to create build a writing house for himself. I thought the most interesting part of it was reading about a layman’s (for lack of a better term.. civilian? hahaha) view of the building process and about architecture.
It’s been a while since the book was first published in 1997 and IMO the field of architecture has shifted away a little from what he describes. Not so much of the abstraction and (sometimes empty) theories and words anymore. So it was interesting to read about his views on (what is now considered architectural history?) that too.
Pollan has described in detail his perspective through the entire process of making the building from conception to finishing, which I rarely find documented, and therefore found very interesting.
In a way, this reminded me of working on the Istana pavilion. What looks simple on paper is infinitely more complicated once it comes to 3 dimensions and taking into account things like the limits of your own strength and skill level.
All in all, a nice diversion from report writing 
