Dubuffet as architect
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As the champion of "Art Brut," the artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) is remembered foremost as a painter. Yet his creative instinct extended far beyond the parameters of paint. Later in his life, in 1965, his interest in architecture was sparked by a commission for two large-scale paintings for the University of Nanterre in Paris. Although he ultimately abandoned that(...)
Dubuffet as architect
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As the champion of "Art Brut," the artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) is remembered foremost as a painter. Yet his creative instinct extended far beyond the parameters of paint. Later in his life, in 1965, his interest in architecture was sparked by a commission for two large-scale paintings for the University of Nanterre in Paris. Although he ultimately abandoned that project, he became intrigued by the idea of producing large works in a more enduring format, capable of withstanding the elements. He experimented with different media in search of a solution, producing works in ceramic, concrete, and eventually plastic resin. The large size and relief surface of his 1967 Mur Bleu (Blue Wall) catapulted his painting into the third dimension in a big way. Many commissions followed, and today Dubuffet's massive architectural forms grace several cities across the globe. The artist did not intend for these structures to be mere supports for his paintings; he meant for them to give his work architectural space. His efforts in this area earned him the medal of the American Institute of Architects in 1982. These stunningly inventive and playful works stand as a testament to Dubuffet's desire to expand his practice through new materials and techniques—and even into new dimensions. This publication is the first published account of this little-known aspect of this artist's work.
Architecture Monographs
La Fábrica, Ricardo Bofill
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La Fábrica is one of Ricardo Bofill’s most iconoclastic creations. A former cement factory on the outskirts of Barcelona, serendipitously discovered while driving, the building became the centre of the late Catalan architect’s life, serving both as his home and as the headquarters of his practice since 1973. Here, Ricardo created a world of his own, exposing the concrete(...)
La Fábrica, Ricardo Bofill
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La Fábrica is one of Ricardo Bofill’s most iconoclastic creations. A former cement factory on the outskirts of Barcelona, serendipitously discovered while driving, the building became the centre of the late Catalan architect’s life, serving both as his home and as the headquarters of his practice since 1973. Here, Ricardo created a world of his own, exposing the concrete forms from beneath years of dust and smoke, encouraging nature back onto the structure, and fine-tuning the balance between its monumental scale and a delicate, human sensibility, in one of the earliest examples of the reuse of an industrial building—and it’s still changing. This new edition expands on the book originally published in 2018, featuring exclusive archival imagery courtesy of RBTA and an expansive selection of photographs taken by Nacho Alegre on his visits to La Fábrica over the last decade. He returned in November 2022 to document the building in its current state, closing the book with 32 pages of otherwise unseen images—a portrait of Ricardo’s most cherished work at a moment of profound transformation. With an introduction by Pablo Bofill, the book also features an interview with Ricardo himself by Barcelona-based architects Arquitectura-G and Guillermo López, an extended version of the conversation originally published in issue #11 of Apartamento magazine.
Architecture Monographs
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With the concept of the ''Imperial mode of living,'' Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western mode of production and living. The logic of liberal markets since the nineteenth century, and especially since World War II, has been inscribed into everyday practices that(...)
The imperial mode of living: everyday life and the ecological crisis of capitalism
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With the concept of the ''Imperial mode of living,'' Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western mode of production and living. The logic of liberal markets since the nineteenth century, and especially since World War II, has been inscribed into everyday practices that are usually unconsciously reproduced. The authors show that they are a main driver of the ecological crisis and economic and political instability. ''The imperial mode of living'' implies that people’s everyday practices, including individual and societal orientations, as well as identities, rely heavily on the unlimited appropriation of resources; a disproportionate claim on global and local ecosystems and sinks; and cheap labour from elsewhere. This availability of commodities is largely organised through the world market, backed by military force and/or the asymmetric relations of forces as they have been inscribed in international institutions. Moreover, the ''Imperial mode of living'' implies asymmetrical social relations along class, gender and race within the respective countries. Here too, it is driven by the capitalist accumulation imperative, growth-oriented state policies and status consumption. The concrete production conditions of commodities are rendered invisible in the places where the commodities are consumed. The imperialist world order is normalised through the mode of production and living.
Critical Theory
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1 vol. (425 p.) : Ill. en noir et blanc, plans, coupes, photogr. ; 27 cm.
Antony : Editions du Moniteur, DL 2023.
La réhabilitation des structures des bâtiments anciens : Matériaux, calculs, diagnostic et réhabilitation / Alain Popinet.
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1 vol. (425 p.) : Ill. en noir et blanc, plans, coupes, photogr. ; 27 cm.
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Antony : Editions du Moniteur, DL 2023.
Manifestos
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"Manifestos" brings together for the first time in English the manifestos written by Édouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau between 2000 and 2009. Composed in part in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s election in 2008, the texts resonate with the current context of divided identities and criticisms of multiculturalism. The individual texts grapple with concrete historical(...)
Environment and environmental theory
September 2022
Manifestos
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"Manifestos" brings together for the first time in English the manifestos written by Édouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau between 2000 and 2009. Composed in part in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s election in 2008, the texts resonate with the current context of divided identities and criticisms of multiculturalism. The individual texts grapple with concrete historical and political moments in France, the Caribbean, and North America. Across the manifestos, as well as two collectively signed op-eds, the authors engage with socio-political aspects of climate catastrophe, resource extraction, toxicity, and neocolonialism. Throughout the collection, Glissant and Chamoiseau engage with key themes articulated through their poetic vocabulary, including Relation, globalization, globality (mondialité), anti-universalism, métissage, the tout-monde ("whole-world") and the tout-vivant ("all-living," including the relationship of humans to each other and "nature"), créolité and the creolization of the world, and the liberation from community assignations in response to individualism and neoliberal societies. Translated as the first volume in the Planetarities series with Goldsmiths Press, the themes of "Manifestos" resonate with the planetary as they work in response to contemporary forms of (economic) globalization, western capitalism, identity politics, and urban, digital and cosmic ecosystems, as well as the role of the poet-writer. A distinguishing feature of this publication is its interventional aspect, which prioritizes engaged scholarship and practice while demonstrating the relevance of the poetic in response to the urgencies of planetary crisis.
Environment and environmental theory
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Curious about how Alsop Architects managed to construct that flying, translucent rectangle at the Ontario College of Art and Design? Wonder about the sustainability of the Genzyme Building? The saying "the truth is in the details" reveals an essential quality of architectural design. How a staircase curves, a roof seemingly floats, or a concrete wall illuminates are(...)
December 2006, New York
Details in contemporary architecture
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Curious about how Alsop Architects managed to construct that flying, translucent rectangle at the Ontario College of Art and Design? Wonder about the sustainability of the Genzyme Building? The saying "the truth is in the details" reveals an essential quality of architectural design. How a staircase curves, a roof seemingly floats, or a concrete wall illuminates are critical questions for architects looking at or creating new work. You might forgive designers for closely guarding their signature techniques. Fortunately, editors Christine Killory and René Davids culled an amazing collection of the best trade secrets in "Details in contemporary architecture". By looking at the best work of the past two years, the book demonstrates how complicated design problems have been handled by architects to achieve beautiful, functional, innovative, sustainable, and, where necessary, economical results. Including work by David Chipperfield, Herzog and de Meuron, Morphosis, ShoP, and many other well-known firms, "Details in contemporary architecture" extensively explores the common as well as more exotic architectural detailing (screens and walls, doors and windows, roofs, bridges, and stairs) that so often gets lost in the pages and photographs of the design media. "Details in contemporary architecture" is the first volume of a new series entitled "AsBuilt". AsBuilt features details from a representative range of building types and materials of recent built work in America. The series seeks to ground both practice and theory more deeply while fostering a better understanding of the relationships between architectural form and technology.
books
December 2006, New York
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This book chronicles the planning and construction process of the Frank Gehry-designed Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT. Taking us from the historical background and architectural context at MIT through the interaction of the clients' needs and the architect's vision to the choice of building materials and construction methods, "Building Stata" offers a detailed look at(...)
Architecture Monographs
May 2004, Cambridge, Mass.
Building Stata : the design and construction of Frank O. Gehry's Stata Center at MIT
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This book chronicles the planning and construction process of the Frank Gehry-designed Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT. Taking us from the historical background and architectural context at MIT through the interaction of the clients' needs and the architect's vision to the choice of building materials and construction methods, "Building Stata" offers a detailed look at the evolution of a major work by a master architect. The purpose of the Stata Center is to bring the "intelligence sciences" - computer science, artificial intelligence, information and decision systems, linguistics, and philosophy - together into a space that emphasizes research-focused collaboration. Frank Gehry's design integrates flexible and interconnected workspaces and incorporates a series of steps from public to private space, with places for social and intellectual interaction on lower levels giving way to space for study and contemplation on the upper floors; thus a two-level warehouse-like space is topped by two towers. The Center is wrapped around a series of outdoor terraces visible from a central court in both towers. The characteristic Gehry curves are clad in metal, the more block-like elements in brick. The architectural drawings and photographs in "Building Stata" document the making of the Stata Center from concept to concrete reality. The photographs by Richard Sobol portray a work in progress, evoking the beauty of its architectural form and capturing the telling detail - the building's sculptured shape against a clear blue sky, or construction workers perched on a massive curve of metal.
Architecture Monographs
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There are an estimated 600,000,000 passenger cars in the world, and that number is increasing every day. So too is Earth’s supply of parking spaces. In some cities, parking lots cover more than one-third of the metropolitan footprint. It’s official:we have paved paradise and put up a parking lot. In this publication,author Eran Ben-Joseph shares a different vision for(...)
Rethinking a lot : the design and culture of parking
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There are an estimated 600,000,000 passenger cars in the world, and that number is increasing every day. So too is Earth’s supply of parking spaces. In some cities, parking lots cover more than one-third of the metropolitan footprint. It’s official:we have paved paradise and put up a parking lot. In this publication,author Eran Ben-Joseph shares a different vision for parking’s future. Parking lots, he writes, are ripe for transformation. After all, as he points out, their design and function has not been rethought since the 1950s. With this book, Ben-Joseph pushes the parking lot into the twenty-first century. Can’t parking lots be aesthetically pleasing, environmentally and architecturally responsible? Used for something other than car storage? Ben-Joseph shows us that they can. He provides a visual history of this often ignored urban space, introducing us to some of the many alternative and nonparking purposes that parking lots have served - from RV campgrounds to stages for “Shakespeare in the Parking Lot.” He shows us parking lots that are not concrete wastelands but lushly planted with trees and flowers and beautifully integrated with the rest of the built environment. With purposeful design, Ben-Joseph argues, parking lots could be significant public places, contributing as much to their communities as great boulevards, parks, or plazas. For all the acreage they cover, parking lots have received scant attention. It’s time to change that; it’s time to rethink the lot.
Transportation, Tourism, Migration
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In 1975, when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat Phai Rong Wua, a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom, he felt he had wandered into a demented Disneyland. One of the world's most bizarre tourist attractions, Wat Phai Rong Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues depict violent and(...)
The fate of rural hell : ascetism and desire in buddhist Thailand
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In 1975, when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat Phai Rong Wua, a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom, he felt he had wandered into a demented Disneyland. One of the world's most bizarre tourist attractions, Wat Phai Rong Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues depict violent and torturous scenes that showcase what hell may be like. Over the next few decades, Anderson found himself transfixed by this unusual amalgamation of objects, returning several times to see attractions like the largest metal-cast Buddha figure in the world and the Palace of a Hundred Spires. The concrete statuaries and perverse art in Luang Phor Khom's personal museum of hell included, 'side by side, an upright human skeleton in a glass cabinet and a life-size replica of Michelangelo's gigantic nude David, wearing fashionable red underpants from the top of which poked part of a swollen, un-Florentine penis,' alongside dozens of statues of evildoers being ferociously punished in their afterlife. In The Fate of Rural Hell, Anderson unravels the intrigue of this strange setting, trying to discover what compels so many Thai visitors to travel to this popular spectacle and what order, if any, inspired its creation. At the same time, he notes the unexpected effects of the gradual advance of capitalism into the far reaches of rural Asia.
Art Theory
Le projet local
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La presse italienne de tous bords politiques a été unanime à saluer la parution de "Il progetto locale," dont le premier tirage, épuisé en quelques mois, a été suivi de deux réimpressions. Sur fond de mondialisation et à rebours des idées reçues, le lecteur est initié aux concepts de patrimoine territorial et d'autodéveloppement local durable, il découvre l'épaisseur(...)
Le projet local
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La presse italienne de tous bords politiques a été unanime à saluer la parution de "Il progetto locale," dont le premier tirage, épuisé en quelques mois, a été suivi de deux réimpressions. Sur fond de mondialisation et à rebours des idées reçues, le lecteur est initié aux concepts de patrimoine territorial et d'autodéveloppement local durable, il découvre l'épaisseur sémantique de l'aménagement du territoire à travers ses dimensions politique, anthropologique, écologique... en même temps qu'une vision concrète de l'utopie. A l'heure où la question locale et le développement durable sont enfin à l'ordre du jour en France, c'est dire le précieux outil de réflexion et de travail offert aux élus, aux praticiens et aux citoyens par cet ouvrage qui associe étroitement la théorie et l'expérience concrète.
Urban Theory