Published by Birkhäuser | $75 | ISBN 978-3-0356-2438-0
456 pages | 8.5 x 11 in. | Cloth-covered hardback
— 2022 GRAY Awards Winner in Product Design —
Daniel Kaven’s Architecture of Normal explores the dissonance between the overwhelming American landscape and the underwhelming architecture of its strip malls, fast food chains, motels and tract housing. Part travelogue, art book and architectural survey, the book charts the patterns created by reigning modes of transportation and examines how we came to accept the bland, branded boxes lining America’s streets and freeways. Beginning with a portrait of ambulatory Native American societies and the introduction of horses by the Spanish, Kaven discusses the built environment as it has been shaped by trains, cars, planes and rockets, and looks toward a future architecture defined by autonomous cars and air taxis. This highly visual narrative includes extensive historical photography and Kaven’s own art.
"Part Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and part Learning from Las Vegas, this honest portrayal of the connection between urbanization and colonization from Portland-based artist Daniel Kaven is a cornucopia of visual imagery."
—Sean Ruthen, Spacing Magazine
"Kaven has assembled an enticing visual narrative that includes extensive historical photography, architecture commentary, personal anecdote and original art. It serves as a critical travelogue of what the world accepts as the American landscape, but leaves the door open for further debate over whether it is a dream-scape or nightmare."
—Steven Heller, The Daily Heller / PRINT Magazine
“Daniel Kaven has deployed memory and mobility, archives and architecture, to take us on a tour into modernity and then to retrieve from it concrete examples of its specificity.”
—Peter Sebastian Chesney, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
“Architecture of Normal: The Colonization of the American Landscape reads like an enthralling textbook—a breezy history teeming with photography, original artwork, and timelines—even as its author offers a more cautionary take on what we have wrought.”
—Brian Libby, Metropolis
"We shelve this in Architecture, but this was my favorite History book of the year. Through images, narrative, and a detailed timeline, Kaven shows how the American Southwest went from a pristine landscape populated by people who were one with the land to a giant homogenized strip-mall."
—Brad L., Bookseller at Harvard Book Store
"Kaven has crafted a thoroughly researched and well-reasoned treatise in which he argues that historical eras’ dominant modes of transportation — walking on foot, riding horses, trains, cars, and airplanes — have inexorably influenced our public and private spaces."
—Richard Speer, The Democracy Chain
"An instructive and aesthetically stunning collage."
—Kai Spanke, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"There is a clear chronological progression to the chapters, one that traces the physical history of the United States from Native American building complexes in the Southwest around 1500 years ago to the present, and billionaires building rockets that take off from spaceports in the same part of the country.”
—John Hill, Archidose
"The bland sameness that characterizes much of the American built environment is fertile ground for architectural criticism. Daniel Kaven, architect and artist, offers a new entry in this genre describing the impact on the United States of successive eras of transportation technologies in Architecture of Normal: the Colonization of the American Landscape."
—Amy Trendler, Art Libraries Society of North America
PRESS:
Metropolis
"On the Road or in the Air, Daniel Kaven Sees the Journey as Destination" by Brian Libby
The Daily Heller / PRINT Magazine
"The Reality and Mythology of American Transport" by Steven Heller
Spacing Magazine
Book Review: Architecture of Normal: The Colonization of the American Landscape by Sean Ruthen
ICON Magazine
"How did transport shape the American landscape?" by Francesca Perry
In the Design Lounge
Interview with Daniel Kaven: "Has the Evolution of Transportation Made the Experience of Travel Irrelevant?" with host Brandon Gaston
The Democracy Chain
"Daniel Kaven, Architecture of Normal: The Colonization of the American Landscape" by Richard Speer
Gray Magazine
"Architect Daniel Kaven Releases New Book: Portland-based Kaven looks at the evolution of the built environment in the United States" by Rachel Gallaher
Archidose
Review of Architecture of Normal by John Hill
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Zum Shoppen in die desolate Komfortzone" by Kai Spanke
Art Libraries Society of North America
Review: Architecture of Normal: The Colonization of the American Landscape by Amy Trendler