101 Cool Buildings: the best of New York City architecture 1999-2009

I very recently went back east for a graduation, and took a side-trip to NYC for a day just to introduce my son to its majesty and splendor. For efficiency's sake, we got on the Circle Line boat tour; it was a gorgeous, sunny May afternoon, and the city was at its most impressive. I had not been there for 25 years, sad to say, and one of the things that most knocked me out was the more recent architecture!! It was just rhapsodic and inspiring. When I got back home, I wanted to read up on the subject and see some photos. I have to admit, I bought this book a little too impulsively, going mostly on the title and cover. For my purposes, it was a big disappointment. The book is rather small in size, and the pictures are tiny, B & W shots that are all taken from the same angle, i.e., from the sidewalk across the street and aiming up. Most don't even include the entire building and look as though they were taken with an old pocket Kodak. Very blah and unsatisfying. Many of the buildings chosen are apartments and condos, not even the larger, more spectacular buildings. The paper is cheap, dark, and thin. The book seems like it is maybe put out by a private vanity press. The descriptions were pithy. Now, if what you want is a kind of pocket guide for walking around town, this might be much better for you. It seems well layed-out, gives you subway directions, and the pictures are adequate-enough so that you would know you are at the right address, at least. It's a little big to put in your pocket, but would fit easily in a shoulder bag, and wouldn't be a burden to carry around in any event. Maybe the emphasis on condos and apartments might be cool if you were living there or in town a lot, or had a strong personal or professional interest in smaller-scale work.Then, it might be a 4 or 5 star book for you and worth the money. What I was looking for was more of a big, coffee table book with large, color photos that would give me a little more of the WOW! factor I got when I was there in the flesh, and certainly a little more information about the various sites than was delivered here. I ordered a book called Manhattan Skyscrapers 3rd Edition that I am hoping will be more to my liking and needs. I'll keep this other little book handy for the time when I go back to NYC and have some time to walk around and look first hand.

For students of architecture, for those who want to get to know your city better while seeing some 'cool' buildings, for those who just need something to do and for the traveler interested in the architecture of another country, this book has the pictures to whet the appetite, a brief description and travel instructions."101 Cool Buildings: the best of New York City architecture 1999-2009" is worth buying if you go no further than just flipping through to get a taste of architecture in NYC and its boroughs.

This is an interesting book. It is nicely organized for someone even somewhat familiar with NYC and wanting to see some things off the beaten path.The pictures add information to the text.

As an architect on the opposite coast, I was looking for a convenient way to track down new building trends in New York City. Recently, I spent 3 days in Manhattan visiting 43 of the buildings in this book. I appreciate that in the back of the book there is a (very basic) map showing the relative location of each building, making it easier to chart an efficient path between projects. I found the author's critques insightful, causing me to observe design features that might have gone unnoticed. My only criticism of the book is the black and white format. A few of the projects, that from the photos didn't seem to be anything special, turned out to be truly spectacular in-person and in full-color. I hope I'll find a similar gem when I book my trip to Chicago.

Nice selection of notable modern NYC architecture. Makes it easy to troll for modern gems by neighborhood.