We’re always looking and working ahead; seasons, years ahead. With all of the great books on the Spring list, not to mention those we’ll soon see in the Fall, much less two seasons ahead (Fall 08 will be one of the best in years, I think), I’m particularly excited about a book coming in 2009.

Apparently many others are as well. It all started when friend and author Erik Davis, in his own intrepid efforts to promote his book The Visionary State, pointed me to a blog not previously on my radar, BLDGBLOG. His description was a little confusing. It was about architecture…in the broadest senses. Not where one goes to preview the newest competition winner by your favorite starchitect, but where one reads entertaining, speculative posts on the intersections of landscape, urbanism, and architecture, as written in a cheery voice with a nod to science fiction.

I was hooked. I find it difficult to keep up with straight-up architectural press, and keep thinking that I have so much more to learn. And no matter how interesting the projects and profiles, it’s all so…conventional. BLDGBLOG and other good blogs are much more my speed: inclusive if not voracious, with pointers to past and current context that curious and open-minded readers can explore if they don’t already know what’s being referenced. Oh, and did I mention entertaining.

I contacted the guy behind BLDGBLOG, Geoff Manaugh, and met him at a cool symposium he held in Los Angeles at the Center for Land Use Interpretation. This was the model for something Geoff and I put together a few months later in San Francisco, which included a talk by Geoff, the aforementioned Erik Davis, John and Matt of the prankish design collective REBAR, architects Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott, and the great sound and film editor, Walter Murch. And what did Walter talk about? Oh, you know: his independent research into how the geometry of the Pantheon seems to accurately point to a heliocentric understanding of the cosmos, and how some simplified math supports an archaic theory called Bode’s Law, which correlates planetary orbits to harmonic intervals. It was an eclectic, thoroughly entertaining afternoon. It was thoroughly BLDGBLOG.

It wasn’t long before we started talking about a book. There aren’t really many models for adapting a blog to a book (yet), and I’m sure there will be pitfalls to avoid. But we are already tossing around a lot of remarkable notions, and the aim is to make the book as diverse and fascinating as the site. I think we’re going to get a lot of support in this; when Geoff enthusiastically announced the book, people took notice. Lots of comments on his site, and then news traveled fast on the internet.

This could be interesting. I think we may have a groundswell here, and as this is meant to be an innovative book, this may be a good opportunity for some radical transparency as the book progresses. Well, we’ll see how radical, but watch this space for more on this book and others in process. Book publishing is an obscure industry to those outside it, and things are changing fast. Let’s shine a little light on it all.

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