Although the 1990s were hardly a time of exceptional architecture in New York City, the decade ended on a promising note with Bernard Tschumi's Lerner Hall at Columbia University. Tschumi was Dean at Columbia GSAPP, so the commission seemed like an inevitability, but his design was not quite what one would expect from such a choice. On the city side, facing Broadway, the building is contextual, almost a background building, but on the campus side it makes a contemporary statement in glass. I felt like the whole was too subdued and schizophrenic, and all these years later the same sentiments bubble to the fore, even though I'll admit the building has integrated itself well into the Morningside Heights campus.

This book, by Tschumi and structural engineer Hugh Dutton, describes the campus-side creations: the glass wall and ramps that, respectively, create a visual void akin to the McKim, Mead & White's courtyard-based master plan and span across the gap between the two masonry volumes of the building. Given the contextual nature of much of the project, it's no wonder these pieces are the focus of the AA book. Most illuminating to me, having learned Tschumi's planning rational here and there beforehand, is Dutton's description of the structure and a conversation between the engineer and architect that highlights their working process. ( )