TITLE: Nanotecture: Tiny Built Things
AUTHOR: Rebecca Roke
PUBLISHED: 2016
FORMAT: Hardcover
Nanotecture is supposed to be, according to the book’s own description, a book about architecture/small houses (including bird/dog/cathouses). I got it because I thought it would be a really interesting book about tiny houses, which I would never on any planet live in (where would you put books?!), but which I think are fascinating.
The book is small – slightly smaller than a traditional hardback – and each page features a full color photo and then a description and block info that includes who made it, where, when, why, etc… It’s arranged in five categories from smallest to largest, and features icons that tell what materials were used in the building project.
So, for starters, the book isn’t quite what it’s billed to be. A lot of the book (like half of the book) is sculpture and the like and not anything useful in any way, meaningful or not. “This sculpture was done for an art show and lasted forty-seven hours before we took it down!” (Okay, I’m exaggerating. But barely.) The reason I wanted the book was to see DWELLINGS – their word – and not just plain artwork. Nothing wrong with artwork, but that wasn’t what I was going for.
Also the photo was nicely in full color, but it was a single, exterior shot for each thing. When the outside of the space is a square and the inside is supposed to hold an entire house, the almost windowless square is the most boring camera area possible. I’m sure they were going for the small format to keep in theme (oh, a tiny book about tiny houses!), but it lost a lot of potential with only the one image. I know that not everything could have multiple photos – there was a bird house that could be installed as a roof tile, for instance – but a lot of them had designs that were *about* the inside of the piece.
The book was thorough, but it wasn’t what it said it was, and it lacked a few things that would have made it stellar. I’ll give it 3/5. Look at it for what it is – an art book – and not at all a book about tiny houses.
Book In The Bag 