Botond Bognar

In 2012 Berlin’s DOM Publishers put out a two-volume guide (half firsthand account, half government propaganda) to Pyongyang, North Korea, an odd locale given that few people can or will ever visit the city. But this year DOM released an excellent guide to a place where architecture buffs rightfully flock: Japan. While a single guide for a country like the United States does not make sense, Japan is only 9/10 the size of California but home to three times as many people. This guide reinforces the amazing quantity of great 20th- and 21st-century architecture in the country, and Japan expert Botond Bognar’s descriptions give just the right amount of background on the 700 buildings; his introductory essay on the “course of contemporary architecture” is valuable in its own right. This is also a print guide for the digital age, with QVR codes that enable mapping of each entry on a smartphone.

(The above review was written for Designers & Books and was originally published on their website.)… (mere)