Modern giants and a towering playwright

“Americans today seem to feel that a sense of community is exactly what needs to be revived in this country, and many apparently want exactly that for themselves and their families,” Vincent Scully has written.

No, not Vin Scully.

This Vincent Scully is an emeritus professor of architectural history at Yale and author of books on architecture and human environments.

Thanks in large part to a donation of books by the family of local architect Robert M. Seitz, the Newport Beach Public Library has a pretty good collection of books on architecture. As funds have permitted, the collection has grown over the years and does include books by Vincent Scully.

Many of the books on architecture are designated “coffee-table” books, as though artistic photographs of beautiful buildings were somehow inferior to other books. But we all love to look at them. And for many, architecture, if not a profession, is a hobby.

Even without consciously knowing it, we all engage in the hobby. Who travels to London and doesn’t take a look at Westminster Abbey or Buckingham Palace? Would a trip to New York make sense without seeing the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building?

For the avid hobbyist, there is more to architecture than oohing and aahing over spectacular photos. It includes reading the history and theory of buildings and how humans have put them to use.

Vincent Scully’s “Modern Architecture and Other Essays,” edited by Neil Levine, is a case in point. It’s a collection of 20 hard-to-find essays by the great architectural critic. With clarity and precision, he touches on many of his favorite topics, including a building’s relationship with its environment and with the street.

Equally famous in the field is architect, historian and former UCLA professor Charles Jencks. His “The New Paradigm in Architecture: The Language of Postmodernism” is much more readable than it sounds in explaining and describing architecture since the 1960s.

For a concise and well-illustrated survey of architecture throughout history, its forms and function, Eleanor Gawne’s “Exploring Architecture: Buildings, Meaning, and Making” is a great place to start for those just beginning to show an interest in the topic. Speaking of architecture and buildings, Newport Beach just opened its own architectural gem, the new Donna and John Crean Mariners Library. It’s neither baroque nor, strictly speaking, postmodern, but it is a wonderful building. Open and airy, with high ceilings and lots of windows in the main reading room, it has wonderful views of the park and a delightful children’s room.

And what kind of building could bring more of a sense of community than a library that is directly linked to an elementary school? The library, at 1300 Irvine Ave., will serve children at Mariners Elementary School as well as the public.

Even if you do not live in the immediate area, drop in soon and look over the newest public building in the city and give it your own critique.

Regular library service at Donna and John Crean Mariners Branch Library began Friday. Library hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.