Hector Abarca
reading architecture 1
by stephanie white
53
The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles downtown.
Writing on and about architecture presumes publication, and until very recently that meant magazines, journals and books. And where does one find these? Unsold magazines on the newsstand are sent to the recycling bin after a month, books last on the bookstore shelves a while before being remaindered, however libraries subscribe to journals, they buy books and in theory they maintain their collections forever. Since it started, On Site review has sent two copies of each issue to Canada’s National Library and Archives; all the university libraries that subscribe to On Site review have them in bound volumes, as they do Trace and Canadian Architect ; Hector Abarca reports that he found his copy of AD , April 1970 in the Vancouver Public Library in a pile of uncatalogued magazines: gold dust! Print is indelible, the print object difficult to throw away. Even if a library de-accessions a volume, it enters the world of the second- hand bookseller. I bought George Baird and Charles Jencks’ 1970 Meaning in Architecture (ranked 3,016,782 by Amazon) online. The bookplate inside is from Brunel University Library and was borrowed seven times between 1974 and 1995. Unread, unloved, but not totally discarded.
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