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A photographic survey of Soviet-era playgrounds found in former members of the USSR, such as Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Through five chapters containing more than 150 photographs, the book documents the mass-produced, yet diverse play equipment installed in the communal spaces of socialist-era housing(...)
Soviet playgrounds: Playful landscapes of the former USSR
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A photographic survey of Soviet-era playgrounds found in former members of the USSR, such as Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Through five chapters containing more than 150 photographs, the book documents the mass-produced, yet diverse play equipment installed in the communal spaces of socialist-era housing estates, such as rocket slides and earth-shaped climbers, spaceships and animal-themed ladders, cosmic roundabouts and bizarre objects that would probably raise safety concerns nowadays. From Riga to Dushanbe and all the way from Kyiv to Vladivostok, children dreamt of becoming cosmonauts, and enjoyed the many space-themed playscapes which had proliferated since the onset of the Cold War era. While some are still in use, others are slowly disappearing to make way for modern equipment, or, more recently, being destroyed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, becoming only a faint memory of a Soviet childhood. Includes a foreword by the Ukrainian urban planner Mykola Gorokhov and informative maps of the playgrounds featured in every chapter. Pictures were taken by Zupagrafika, with contributions by local photographers.
Modernism
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Hashima is a small island located off the extreme southwest coast of Japan, about ten miles from Nagasaki. Its darkwarship-like silhouette earned it the nickname of Gunkanjima (“battleship island”). During the wave of industrialisation in the nineteenth century, a coal seam was discovered on the island and the Mitsubishi corporation opened a mine there. Workers settled on(...)
Yves Marchand, Roman Meffre: Gunkanjima
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Hashima is a small island located off the extreme southwest coast of Japan, about ten miles from Nagasaki. Its darkwarship-like silhouette earned it the nickname of Gunkanjima (“battleship island”). During the wave of industrialisation in the nineteenth century, a coal seam was discovered on the island and the Mitsubishi corporation opened a mine there. Workers settled on the island and the population increased, the small mining town quickly becoming a modern and autonomous settlement. However, the mine closed in January 1974 and the last inhabitants deserted the island. Since then, Gunkanjima has become a ghost town.
Photography monographs
Urban living
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Big cities are becoming more and more attractive as places to live, both nationally and internationally. The modern city represents a platform for contacts and mobility, for challenges and change. As a result, many european metropolises are registering a renewed trend towards living in urban space. But many big cities still have a surplus of available office space, while(...)
Urban living
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Big cities are becoming more and more attractive as places to live, both nationally and internationally. The modern city represents a platform for contacts and mobility, for challenges and change. As a result, many european metropolises are registering a renewed trend towards living in urban space. But many big cities still have a surplus of available office space, while well-placed, attractive and reasonably priced apartments are lacking. This book not only presents model residential buildings by wellknown architects, but also innovative concepts that highlight future perspectives for redundant office buildings. Their conversion into attractive apartments represents a challenge to architects, investors and residents.
Urban Theory
Life is not useful
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Indigenous leader and activist Ailton Krenak reminds us that we must awaken from the comatose senselessness we have been immersed in since the beginning of the modern colonial project, where order, progress, development, consumerism, and capitalism have taken over our entire existence, leaving us only very partially alive, and, in fact, almost dead. To awaken from the(...)
Life is not useful
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Indigenous leader and activist Ailton Krenak reminds us that we must awaken from the comatose senselessness we have been immersed in since the beginning of the modern colonial project, where order, progress, development, consumerism, and capitalism have taken over our entire existence, leaving us only very partially alive, and, in fact, almost dead. To awaken from the coma of modernity is, for Krenak, to awaken to the possibility of becoming attuned to “the cosmic sense of life.” He points out that the COVID-19 pandemic affects all so-called “human” lives and that the time is ripe for us all to reflect on and undo the exclusivity and distinction that have characterized the concept of humanity throughout Western modernity.
books
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A sense of harmony and proportion has traditionally been achieved in architectural compositions by using the dimensions of the human body as the starting point. Modern technology now enables(...)
New wombs : electronic bodies and architectural disorders
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A sense of harmony and proportion has traditionally been achieved in architectural compositions by using the dimensions of the human body as the starting point. Modern technology now enables us to go beyond these physical dimensions into a virtual world, and this poses a challenge to architecture as we usually perceive it. Interactive, flexible and intelligent models are being called for. Whilst technology is taking us into the realms of virtual reality, architecture on the other hand, is becoming more corporeal. "Postorganic" is the term being used to express this merging of the body and architecture brought about by electronic media. A radical change in perspective is blurring the distinction between the organic and mechanic, and the artificial logic of the computer and the natural logic of man are fusing together.
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January 1900, Basel
small format
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In 2009, plans by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to transform part of Broadway including Times Square into a pedestrian area caused a sensation, not just in the city but internationally. Urban areas where pedestrians have right of way over vehicles are becoming increasingly important in the modern city and have enjoyed growing popularity since the 1950s. Not only do(...)
Pedestrian zones: car free urban spaces
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In 2009, plans by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to transform part of Broadway including Times Square into a pedestrian area caused a sensation, not just in the city but internationally. Urban areas where pedestrians have right of way over vehicles are becoming increasingly important in the modern city and have enjoyed growing popularity since the 1950s. Not only do they increase the quality of life of the residents, they also become an increasingly important locational factor. In general there are two types of pedestrian zones: the first serves primarily as an alternative transit route without cars, while the second is dedicated to shopping and entertainment in the form of traffic-free shopping streets and open pedestrian areas within shopping malls. Based on a careful selection of projects this volume presents the functional and design variety of these popular urban spaces.
Urban Theory
books
Concrete architecture
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Concrete is now chic, becoming ubiquitous in shops, restaurants, and even homes. The reasons are many, as concrete is a remarkable material that can be used in a huge range of techniques and situations. Its colour and texture vary, it can be very affordable and mass produced, or meticulously crafted and manipulated. New developments and increased understanding of the(...)
Concrete architecture
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Concrete is now chic, becoming ubiquitous in shops, restaurants, and even homes. The reasons are many, as concrete is a remarkable material that can be used in a huge range of techniques and situations. Its colour and texture vary, it can be very affordable and mass produced, or meticulously crafted and manipulated. New developments and increased understanding of the possibilities of concrete architecture are inspiring contemporary architects and designers across the globe. Concrete Architecture looks at recent architectural projects that use concrete for a huge range of projects, and celebrates the intrinsic qualities of concrete in the places where we live, work, and play. This book is an invitation to re-evaluate concrete as a modern material and generator of construction techniques. Includes examples from the United States, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, France, New Zealand, Japan, Argentina, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and more.
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September 2004, Salt Lake City
sale books
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In the early 1950s, many in the architectural profession turned their gaze towards India, where an ideal modern city seemed to be becoming a reality. When Le Corbusier and his team started work in February 1951 in Chandigarh, American planner Albert Mayer and his young principal architect Matthew Nowicki had already completed a land development plan for the site. The(...)
Chandigarh: Living with Le Corbusier
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In the early 1950s, many in the architectural profession turned their gaze towards India, where an ideal modern city seemed to be becoming a reality. When Le Corbusier and his team started work in February 1951 in Chandigarh, American planner Albert Mayer and his young principal architect Matthew Nowicki had already completed a land development plan for the site. The challenge Le Corbusier then faced was to demonstrate how a city designed from the drawing board could feel humane, functional and viable once built. Once the home of public officials, Chandigarh has become a vibrant garden city and a magnet for the booming Indian software industry. Attracted to the idea of a possible dialogue and contradiction between European architecture and Indian lifestyle, German ethnographer Bärbel Högner began photographing the city. Chandigarh: Living with Le Corbusier surveys Le Courbusier's contribution to India's first planned city, while simultaneously revealing Högner's passionate interest and impeccable eye for architectural detail.
Architecture Monographs
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The German-American architect Dirk Lohan began to record his conversations with his grandfather Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the summer of 1969. The tapes, recorded during the final weeks of Mies's life, captured some of the architect's very last words. They were sent to the Museum of Modern Art in New York after his death, though they went missing under unknown(...)
The lost, last words of Mies van der Rohe: the Lohan tapes from 1969
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The German-American architect Dirk Lohan began to record his conversations with his grandfather Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the summer of 1969. The tapes, recorded during the final weeks of Mies's life, captured some of the architect's very last words. They were sent to the Museum of Modern Art in New York after his death, though they went missing under unknown circumstances. Only an incomplete typescript remains as a testimony to the conversations. ''The lost, last words of Mies van der Rohe'' presents this text in its entirety for the very first time. The conversations relayed in the typescript reveal the famously reticent Mies speaking about his own life with a level of detail, precision, and candour found nowhere else. They shed new light on Mies's character – not only as a serious, philosophical man but also as a human being alive to the humorous aspects of life. This book features a foreword by Dirk Lohan and an introductory essay by Fritz Neumeyer, the world's foremost scholar on Mies. Neumeyer's commentary and analysis provide keen insights into how Mies developed his architectural thinking during his early career, on his way to becoming the most important modern architects of the twentieth century.
Architecture Monographs
A new nature
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A New Nature is a book about architecture as the organization of material. It unfolds an idea of working with architecture and urbanity as conditions rather than form. By experiencing cities and cultural landscapes as states of change, the author investigates their degree of organization between order and chaos: “When we design and build buildings, naturally, we need to(...)
A new nature
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A New Nature is a book about architecture as the organization of material. It unfolds an idea of working with architecture and urbanity as conditions rather than form. By experiencing cities and cultural landscapes as states of change, the author investigates their degree of organization between order and chaos: “When we design and build buildings, naturally, we need to enter into an already existing context. Even so, many houses simply stand alone side by side, rather than identifying themselves with and becoming a part of the urbanity that connects and creates cohesion in the culturally created – the new nature.” The first part of the book develops an architectural language that connects material and meaning through nine states between liquid and solid, in order to achieve a qualified and sustainable approach to understanding the modern city in its continuous transformation. The book’s second part documents a number of project proposals and realized works that illustrate the usage of this architectural idiom. Including precise drawings and models, A New Nature introduces a new kind of spatial investigation.
Architecture Monographs