If Walls Could Speak
My Life in Architecture
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If Walls Could Speak
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Narrated by:
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Trevor Thompson
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By:
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Moshe Safdie
About this listen
Over more than five decades, legendary architect Moshe Safdie has built some of the world's most influential and memorable structures—from the 1967 modular housing scheme in Montreal known as "Habitat" and the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel, to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas and the Marina Bay Sands development and extraordinary Jewel Changi airport interior garden and waterfall in Singapore. Safdie always refers to the "silent client" an architect must ultimately serve: the people who live in, work in, or experience a building.
If Walls Could Speak takes listeners behind the veil of an essential yet mysterious profession to explain through Safdie's own experiences how an architect thinks and works. Relating memorable stories about what has inspired him—from childhoods in Israel and Montreal to the projects and personalities worldwide that have captured his imagination—Safdie reveals the complex interplay that underpins every project and his vision for the role architecture can and should play in society at large. If Walls Could Speak ends with a chapter outlining seven projects Safdie would pursue around the world if resources and will were no issue and the choices were his to make.
A book like no other, If Walls Could Speak will forever change the way you look at and appreciate any built structure.
©2022 Moshe Safdie (P)2023 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Broken Glass
- Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight Over a Modernist Masterpiece
- By: Alex Beam
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
In 1945, Edith Farnsworth asked the German architect Mies van der Rohe, already renowned for his avant-garde buildings, to design a weekend home for her outside of Chicago. Edith was a woman ahead of her time—unmarried, she was a distinguished medical researcher, as well as an accomplished violinist, translator, and poet. The two quickly began spending weekends together, talking philosophy, Catholic mysticism, and, of course, architecture over wine-soaked picnic lunches.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Tedious and disappointing
- By Deborah McGarr Hutchins on 02-03-23
By: Alex Beam
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You Say to Brick
- The Life of Louis Kahn
- By: Wendy Lesser
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Born to a Jewish family in Estonia in 1901 and brought to America in 1906, the architect Louis Kahn grew up in poverty in Philadelphia; by the time of his death in 1974, he was widely recognized as one of the greatest architects of his era. Yet this enormous reputation was based on only a handful of masterpieces, all built during the last 15 years of his life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A book about architect needs pictures
- By Kristin Olson-garewal on 10-15-17
By: Wendy Lesser
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Paris Reborn
- Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City
- By: Stephane Kirkland
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
Traditionally known as a dirty, congested, and dangerous city, 19th Century Paris was transformed in an extraordinary period from 1848 to 1870, when the government launched a huge campaign to build streets, squares, parks, churches, and public buildings. The Louvre Palace was expanded, Notre-Dame Cathedral was restored and the French masterpiece of the Second Empire, the Opra Garnier, was built.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Why Paris looks the way it does today
- By Neil Chisholm on 11-28-13
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Golden Dreams
- California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963
- By: Kevin Starr
- Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
- Length: 29 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
Starr brilliantly illuminates the dominant economic, social, and cultural forces in California in these pivotal years. In a powerful blend of telling events, colorful personalities, and insightful analyses, Starr examines such issues as the overnight creation of the postwar California suburb, the rise of Los Angeles as Super City, the reluctant emergence of San Diego as one of the largest cities in the nation, and the decline of political centrism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Give us more Starr on California!!
- By Roger on 08-24-16
By: Kevin Starr
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In Putin's Footsteps
- Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia's Eleven Time Zones
- By: Nina Khrushcheva, Jeffrey Tayler
- Narrated by: Kathleen Gati
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
With exclusive insider status as Nikita Khrushchev’s great grand-daughter, and an ex-pat living and reporting on Russia and the Soviet Union since 1993, Nina Khrushcheva and Jeffrey Tayler offer a poignant exploration of the largest country on Earth through their recreation of Vladimir Putin’s fabled New Year’s Eve speech planned across all 11 time zones.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Up to date assessment of Russia in 2019
- By Joseph C. Wilson on 04-10-19
By: Nina Khrushcheva, and others
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Sun, Sin, Suburbia
- The History of Modern Las Vegas Revised and Expanded
- By: Geoff Schumacher
- Narrated by: Douglas R. Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
Las Vegas is gambling's mecca - Sin City the Entertainment Capital of the World with 40 million visitors a year. But that's just part of the story. This carefully documented history tracks the rise of Las Vegas from its vital role in World War II, of the Rat Pack era of the 50s, the explosive growth of the 90s, and it's colossal collapse in the post 2008 real-estate crash. It offers a history of the iconic Strip, but also profiles the neighborhoods where over 2 million people live.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good History of Vegas - old, modern and mundane
- By Amazon Customer on 06-13-14
By: Geoff Schumacher
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Archaeology from Space
- How the Future Shapes Our Past
- By: Sarah Parcak
- Narrated by: Sarah Parcak
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
In Archaeology from Space, Sarah Parcak shows the evolution, major discoveries, and future potential of the young field of satellite archaeology. From surprise advancements after the declassification of spy photography, to a new map of the mythical Egyptian city of Tanis, she shares her field's biggest discoveries, revealing why space archaeology is not only exciting, but urgently essential to the preservation of the world's ancient treasures.
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4 out of 5 stars
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So excited
- By Michael G Bell on 05-15-21
By: Sarah Parcak
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The LEGO Story
- How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination
- By: Jens Andersen
- Narrated by: Peter Cross
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
It’s estimated that each year between eighty and ninety million children around the globe are given a box of LEGO, while up to ten million adults buy sets for themselves. Yet LEGO is much more than a dizzying number of plastic bricks that can be put together and combined in countless ways. LEGO is also a vision of the significance of what play can mean for humanity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book! Don't miss this
- By hgpilot - MM on 04-27-23
By: Jens Andersen
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From Bauhaus to Our House
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Dennis McKee
- Length: 3 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 276
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 191
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Story4 out of 5 stars 192
In Tom Wolfe's hands, the strange saga of American architecture in the 20th century makes for both high comedy and intellectual excitement. This is his sequel to The Painted Word, the book that caused such a furor in the art world five years before. Once again Wolfe shows how social and intellectual fashions have determined aesthetic form in our time and how willingly the creators have abandoned personal vision and originality in order to work a la mode.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So snarky I kept having to back up and repeat
- By Ellen on 04-08-09
By: Tom Wolfe
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City
- A Guidebook for the Urban Age
- By: P. D. Smith
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4 out of 5 stars 65
For the first time in the history of our planet, more than half the population - 3.3 billion people - is now living in cities. City is the ultimate guidebook to our urban centers - the signature unit of human civilization. With erudite prose, this unique work of metatourism explores what cities are and how they work. It covers history, customs and language, districts, transport, money, work, shops and markets, and tourist sites, creating a fantastically detailed portrait of the city through history and into the future.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Commuters companion
- By Anna on 05-19-13
By: P. D. Smith
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Ballpark
- Baseball in the American City
- By: Paul Goldberger
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was a "saloon in the open air"), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati's Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums we fill today, Paul Goldberger makes clear the inextricable bond between the American city and America's favorite pastime. In the changing locations and architecture of our ballparks, Goldberger reveals the manifestations of a changing society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic book!
- By S. O. on 12-27-19
By: Paul Goldberger
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A Fool's Errand
- Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump
- By: Lonnie G. Bunch III
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story5 out of 5 stars 38
In its first four months of operation, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture surpassed one million visits and quickly became a cherished, vital monument to the African American experience. And yet this accomplishment was never assured. In A Fool's Errand, founding director Lonnie Bunch tells his story of bringing his clear vision and leadership to realize this shared dream of many generations of Americans.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding and moving A journey to be remembered!
- By Eula on 08-08-21
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City of the Century
- The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 24 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
Here, witness Chicago's growth from a desolate fur-trading post in the 1830s to one of the world's most explosively alive cities by 1900. Donald Miller's powerful narrative embraces it all: Chicago's wild beginnings, its reckless growth, its natural calamities (especially the Great Fire of 1871), its raucous politics, its empire-building businessmen, its world-transforming architecture, its rich mix of cultures, its community of young writers and journalists, and its staggering engineering projects.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A STORY THAT TRIES TOO HARD....AND FAILS
- By The Louligan on 02-01-15
By: Donald L. Miller
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Disney's Land
- Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World
- By: Richard Snow
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 250
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 249
This is a spectacular story of error and innovation, a wild ride from a vision to the realization of an iconic cultural landscape. It reflects the park’s uniqueness, but just as strongly that of the man who built it with a watchmaker’s precision, an artist’s conviction, and the desperate, high-hearted recklessness of a riverboat gambler.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Okay, but better books on the subject
- By J.D. on 12-07-19
By: Richard Snow
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Americans Against the City
- Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century
- By: Steven Conn
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
An aversion to urban density and all that it contributes to urban life, and a perception that the city was the place where "big government" first took root in America fostered what historian Steven Conn terms the "anti-urban impulse." In this provocative and sweeping audiobook, Conn explores the anti-urban impulse across the 20th century, examining how the ideas born of it have shaped both the places in which Americans live and work, and the anti-government politics so strong today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book
- By M. M. Conroy on 09-19-20
By: Steven Conn
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What listeners say about If Walls Could Speak
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Bill C.
- 03-29-24
Well organized material told that kept me wanting to learn more. Tempo of reader worked well.
I liked everything about this book. I was challenged to want to hear and understand new concepts and world visions of living outside of my small space.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Meira Bet-El
- 09-05-23
An interesting book, poor narrator
I found the book very interesting mostly. Safdie's perspective of things, with all his experience and background, sets light and gives the reader the opportunity to hear the history of his lifetime from a unique position.
The end is a little long and could be edited.
I found the narrator poor as he tends to "swallow" the last syllable in many words and sentences.
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1 person found this helpful