Nationwide Vision Center

T"he Plan of Nashville is a community-based vision of how the urban core of Nashville should look and work in the 21st century. The purpose is to help the central city hold its place in civic life. Since Nashville assumed a metropolitan form of government--merging city and county--there have been almost a hundred plans that dealt with some aspect of the center city. This plan is different. The Plan was conceived and orchestrated by the Nashville Civic Design Center, which is committed to the practice of urban design. This three-dimensional discipline integrates streets and buildings, land use and transportation--a new approach for Nashville. As a private not-for-profit, the center listens with independent ears and speaks with an independent voice. Previous plans by Metro government departments and their consultants were constrained by politics and patronage, by available funding or the need to solve specific problems. Another significant difference from previous plans is the area of study. The Plan of Nashville is not an island bound by the noose of the interstate loop. The Plan integrates downtown with the areas that frame it via the spoke roads that are the historic entries into downtown. Rather than taking a top-down approach, the design center organized the process of listening to the community. Over 400 citizens attended a series of workshops in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods to express their opinions and draw their dreams. The center's staff translated the results into a series of maps and illustrations, with explanatory text--that articulate a three-dimensional vision for the city that will serve as a litmus test for current and future development.

This stunning, lavishly illustrated book chronicles the entire planning and construction process of the Frank Gehry-designed Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT. Taking us from the historical background and architectural context at MIT through the interaction of the clients' needs and the architect's vision to the choice of building materials and construction methods, "Building Stata offers a uniquely detailed look at the evolution of a major work by a master architect.The purpose of the Stata Center is to bring the "intelligence sciences"--computer science, artificial intelligence, information and decision systems, linguistics, and philosophy--together into a space that emphasizes research-focused collaboration. Frank Gehry's design integrates flexible and interconnected workspaces and incorporates a series of steps from public to private space, with places for social and intellectual interaction on lower levels giving way to space for study and contemplation on the upper floors; thus a two-level warehouse-like space is topped by two towers. The Center is wrapped around a series of outdoor terraces visible from a central court in both towers. The characteristic Gehry curves are clad in metal, the more block-like elements in brick.The architectural drawings and photographs -- 300 of them in color -- in "Building Stata document the making of the Stata Center from concept to concrete reality. The photographs by Richard Sobol portray a work in progress, evoking the beauty of its architectural form and capturing the telling detail -- the building's sculptured shape against a clear blue sky, or construction workers perched on a massive curve of metal.