In 2000, a group of architects founded their office in Geneva. Since then – partly with changing personnel – they have continuously produced buildings in the Geneva-Lausanne region, often with experimental qualities. They include the 2018 GA building for the EPF Lausanne, and the CI residential tower in Meyrin, with an integrated private clinic.

Text in English and French.

Olaf Hunger, Nicolas Monnerat and Franck Petitpierre are the protagonists of the Lausanne office MPH. The architects have produced a significant oeuvre since 1997, mainly consisting of large housing developments, individual homes and renovation projects on historical buildings that impress through their structural clarity, coherent material choices and pronounced tectonics. Text in English and French.

In recent years, there has been a real revival and appraisal of the works of the mid-century modern movement among architects and interior designers: the furniture, lighting and objects designed by Alvar Aalto, Charles & Ray Eames, Eileen Gray, Poul Henningsen, Arne Jacobsen, Pierre Jeanneret, Finn Juhl, Vladimir Kagan, Poul Kjaerholm, Florence Knoll, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Børge Mogensen, Serge Mouille, George Nakashima, George Nelson, Verner Panton, Ico Parisi, Charlotte Perriand, Gio Ponti, Jean Prouvé, Sergio Rodrigues, Jean Royère, Eero Saarinen, Arne Vodder, Jules Wabbes, Ole Wanscher, Hans J. Wegner, Jorge Zalszupin and many others is integrated in their most exclusive projects and their best pieces are sold at record prices at Christies, Philipps, Sotheby’s…

In the U.S., the mid-century modern movement in interiors, product and graphic design and architecture was a reflection of the International and Bauhaus movements including the works of Gropius, Florence Knoll, Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Brazilian and Scandinavian architects were very influential, with a style characterized by clean simplicity and integration with nature.

In Europe, the influence of Le Corbusier and the CIAM resulted in an architectural orthodoxy manifest across most parts of post-war Europe that was ultimately challenged by the radical agendas of the architectural wings of the avant-garde. A critical but sympathetic reappraisal of the internationalist oeuvre, inspired by the Scandinavian Moderns and the late work of Le Corbusier himself, was reinterpreted by groups such as Team X, including structuralist architects and the movement known as New Brutalism. 

This chic, over-sized coffee table book is an essential object for all mid-century design aficionados, interior designers with a passion for the modernist 1950s and for refined readers seeking inspiration for their own interiors.

In 20 reports, interior designers and passionate collectors of mid-century furniture, lighting, objects and artworks show how carefully selected touches of high-end mid-century modernism can contribute to a unique living environment.

2019 marks 50 years of innovation for CP Kukreja Architects (CPKA), one of India’s most prestigious architectural practices. CPKA has helmed some of India’s most iconic structures, including Jawaharlal Nehru University and the National Archives of India. This book is a celebration of these projects and more, exploring CPKA’s personalized architectural philosophies for each. What emerges is a commitment to modernity, community and sustainability. It is with this driving spirit that the firm has built an impeachable legacy for themselves.

CPKA was selected by World Architecture, U.K., as one of the top 100 architecture firms in the world. Its illustrious list of clients has included the governments of India, Canada, and the United States, as well as the Honda Group, Japan.

Tectonism is the most advanced and most sophisticated contemporary architectural style. There are, to date, only relatively a few fully satisfactory built examples, and most of them are still of a relatively modest scale. It is the thesis of this book that tectonism, as defined and illustrated here, represents the future of 21st century architecture. This thesis is optimistic with respect to the long-term rationality of the discipline of architecture, i.e. with respect to its capacity to discern and ascertain, via its internal discourse, the superiority of tectonism, and to spread its influence and impact as global best practice accordingly. This optimism also extends to the rationality of the wider society, as represented through private clients, public clients, and through end-user acceptance, to be susceptible to the guidance it will receive from its architectural expert discourse. This optimism is based on a critical analysis and appraisal of architectural history. The avant-garde intuitions of the early modernists in the 1920s, backed up by sound theoretical arguments, did win over the discipline in the 1930s and 1940s, and spread its real impact on the global built environment throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The current avant-garde intuitions within the movement of tectonism, although very different from modernism, are equally well thought through as the arguments in this book will attempt to demonstrate. — From the Introduction, by Patrik Schumacher

Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective. In the 21st century, Asia has been developed fast in the wave of globalization, and the living and urban environment are changing rapidly along with the economic development. In this process, many Asian cities are carrying out large-scale urban infrastructure construction in the process of rapid urbanization, and building a large number of iconic buildings that represent the characteristics of the country or city. This issue focuses on Living in the 21st Century, through three perspectives: the transformation of spatial functions, the contradiction between urban development and individual dwelling, and architecture in the age of self-media.

“Laura Mary Todd’s new book delivers surprises. Her perspective is architectural and international.” — Old House Journal
Wallcoverings have moved far beyond the classic floral wallpaper. New designs and new techniques are opening up a whole range of inspiring possibilities for inventive wall treatments. This book brings together the best ideas from an international roster of architects. Included here are wallcoverings with reliefs, textures, and fabrics, along with advice on how best to incorporate repetitive patterns, neutral touches, and artwork: everything is possible. The book contains practical information and how-tos to help you get started and personal insights from interior designers who are eager to use wallcoverings and share their tips.

Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum, not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.

This issue focuses on how cultural identity and social responsibility can be embodied within architecture and space design, and features three essays and eleven projects that elaborate on this topic. Each essay discusses the social situation in Australia, Malaysia, and India, respectively, as the eleven projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, highlight architectural works that include a community center, nursery, hostel block, and cultural museum, among others, to reveal how through these buildings cultural identity is strengthened, or social responsibility is extended.

Zhu Pei’s Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum recalls a time of glory of the once “Millenium Porcelain Capital” city, Jingdezhen, and extends these memories to the present. Inspired by the perception of Jingdezhen’s specific regional culture (porcelain) and the survival wisdom of the locals, the museum is a symbol of the past and future. The contemporary architecture magnificently resonates the ages: the building form is reminiscent of ancient traditional brick kilns, and its landscape — with mirror pools, bamboo groves, kiln ruins, and courtyards — recreates an impression of Jingdezhen’s vibrant porcelain past. As an “Architecture of Nature,” that evokes both contemporaneity and ancient vibes, the museum subverts typical perceptions of modern-day museums. Colored photos, drawings, essays, and interviews provide detailed insights on the conception of the museum — from design concept to environmental strategies, to construction techniques and construction materials — as well as the architect’s personal perspectives on the overall concept and intention of the museum. The pages also feature commentaries on the museum by well-known architects, including Fan Di’an, Kenneth Frampton, Steven Holl, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, Thomas Krens, Mohsen Mostafavi, Wang Mingxian.

Swiss architects discuss the design process in a total of eight interviews. The interviews focus on the importance of architecture for the designers, how a task is approached, the value of the image, how building laws are addressed and how the challenges of climate change are handled. The texts provide fascinating insights into the work of the architects. The interviews were conducted with Barbara Buser (Baubüro Insitu), Andreas Bründler (Buchner Bründler Architekten), Christian Kerez, Roger Boltshauser, Oliver Lütjens and Thomas Padmanabhan, Annette Gigon (Gigon Guyer), Steffen Hägele and Tina Küng (DU Studio) and Stefan Wülser. The different and sometimes contradictory attitudes of the architects reveal what architecture can be and how many different approaches there are. The eight interviews are supplemented by illustrations and plans that playfully refer to the architecture discussed.

Text in German.

Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.
This issue reveals the development of Thailand contemporary architecture, and features five essays and twelve projects that elaborate this perspective. The five essays elaborate the contemporary architecture of Thailand in Southeast Asia, and how Thailand architecture was influenced by western architectural theories and finally found a good balance between modernization and localization. The twelve projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, concentrate on the exploration of modernity, regionalism and futurism in Thai architecture from 1940 to 1980, and highlight architectural works that reflect on practical industrial buildings, demonstrate the exploration of Thai contemporary architecture from form, space and architecture to the complex disciplines of ecology, humanities, society and industry.

Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum, not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.
This issue focuses on the topic of Architecture Writing and Literature, and features five essays and ten projects that elaborate on this topic. The five essays, separately, introduce Writing Architectural Pedagogies, Indian Architectural Literature in UKs Academe, Architecture of Writing and Criticism, How to Believe in Architecture becoming Author of History and Writing Habitation and Inhabiting Writing. The ten projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, highlight various types of architectural works from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, showing how architects show their projects through words, depending on the types of architectural work.

This book investigates a particular kind of architecture that thrived in the 1950s in Cadaqués, a small Spanish fishing village on the Costa Brava. It explores a number of holiday houses built between the mid-1950s and 1960s by a group of architects who shared bonds of friendship and architectural affinities, as well as connections with the international Modern movement (including José Antonio Coderch, Lluís Clotet, Federico Correa, Alfonso Milá, Oscar Tusquets, Manuel Valls). Observations on the common threads that link eight case studies are enriched by a photographic essay by David Grandorge and by detailed architectural drawings on a number of significant projects of the time. An interview with the authors Stephen Bates (Sergison Bates architects, London) and Fernando Villavecchia (Liebman Villavecchia Arquitectos, Barcelona) provides a background to their shared fascination with Cadaqués. A timeline contextualizes the projects against the backdrop of historical events and the milestone in the lives of the clients and architects who made the village a unique locus in the history of architecture.

Text in English and Spanish (Spanish in an inserted booklet).

Focusing on the leading architectural designs with regional characteristics, Architecture China is a journal whose mission is to disseminate the creative works of contemporary Chinese architecture and deepen an appreciation of Chinese architectural traditions and trends. In this issue, Architecture China Award, the focus is on outstanding Chinese architecture and architects with the concept of “Building with Nature,” exploring the unique value of contemporary Chinese architecture and its future development direction. The content of this issue includes two articles, as well as the laureates and shortlists of four award categories: Architecture China Award in Practice, Exploration Award in Technology, Exploration Award for Young Architects, and Special Project Award.

Tectonism is the most advanced and most sophisticated contemporary architectural style. There are, to date, only relatively a few fully satisfactory built examples, and most of them are still of a relatively modest scale. It is the thesis of this book that tectonism, as defined and illustrated here, represents the future of 21st century architecture. This thesis is optimistic with respect to the long-term rationality of the discipline of architecture, i.e. with respect to its capacity to discern and ascertain, via its internal discourse, the superiority of tectonism, and to spread its influence and impact as global best practice accordingly. This optimism also extends to the rationality of the wider society, as represented through private clients, public clients, and through end-user acceptance, to be susceptible to the guidance it will receive from its architectural expert discourse. This optimism is based on a critical analysis and appraisal of architectural history. The avant-garde intuitions of the early modernists in the 1920s, backed up by sound theoretical arguments, did win over the discipline in the 1930s and 1940s, and spread its real impact on the global built environment throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The current avant-garde intuitions within the movement of tectonism, although very different from modernism, are equally well thought through as the arguments in this book will attempt to demonstrate. — From the Introduction, by Patrik Schumacher

This beautifully illustrated monograph showcases gorgeous examples of landscape architectural design—terrain + open space—by award-winning studio TROP. Established in 2007, TROP has worked on various projects throughout Asia, including Thailand, Singapore, and China.

Led by Pok Kobkongsanti, its philosophy is to create a unique design for each project that TROP works on. TROP believes that the design process is as important as the design itself, and strives to work very closely with each of its clients. TROP works include hospitality, residential, and commercial.

Packed with insights into the challenges and thought behind the creation of harmonious compositions, the narrative also provides a space for reflection by the studio on its many award-winning designs. TROP’s thoughtful designs succeed in creating a balance between nature, taking into consideration rainwater runoff in tropical areas, and the need to preserve greenery in large cities for the wildlife and beneficial cooling for city residents, resulting in true sustainable design.

Andrew Holmes is renowned for his hyper-real colored pencil drawings. His subject matter is the fixed and mobile service infrastructure that sustains the city of Los Angeles. The gleaming trucks, automobiles, and motorcycles that traverse the highways, and the industrial armature of storage tanks, service stations and truck stops to be found beyond the city’s edge are, for Holmes, the greatest artifacts of a society based on oil. Over the past 50 years, he has captured scenes from this uniquely American landscape in painstaking detail. Together they evoke a lost civilization. Gas Tank City presents 100 of Holmes’s Los Angeles drawings, along with commentaries by art historian, Thomas E Crow, architects Mark Fisher and Cedric Price, and Holmes himself.

Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.

This issue reveals the development of contemporary Chinese architecture and features five essays and eleven projects that elaborate this perspective. The five essays elaborate the impact of architecture on Chinese life, the Local and the multiplicity of Chinese architecture, and the trend in contemporary Chinese architecture, etc. The 11 projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, concentrate on how the contemporary Chinese architectures integrate into and change people’s lives, combine with environmental protection concept, highlight the traditional Chinese culture, and modernize old buildings.

The Classicist is an annual journal dedicated to the classical tradition in architecture and the allied arts. Focused on Northern California, the Classicist No. 21 explores the region’s rich architectural history; contemporary examples of classical design through professional and student portfolios; and academic articles authored by leaders within the field. Contributing authors include Daniel Gregory, architectural historian and editor; Laura Ackley, author of San Francisco’s Jewel City: The Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915; Lucia Howard, Partner at Ace Architects and Piraneseum; Therese Poletti, author of Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger and journalist at MarketWatch; and Andrew Shanken, Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design.

Archigram comprised Warren Chalk (1927-88), Peter Cook (1936-), Dennis Crompton (1935-), David Greene (1937-), Ron Herron (1930-94), and Michael Webb (1937-). Together they envisioned the future of architecture in ways that enthralled a generation. In an era defined by the space race, they developed a ‘high-tech’, lightweight, infra-structural approach that stretched far beyond known technologies or contemporary realities. They devised autonomous dwellings and focused on survival technology; they experimented with megastructures and modular construction systems; they explored mobility through the environment, and the use of portable living capsules: all through the medium of an incredible series of drawings and models. Archigram’s influence has been profound and enduring. They gave the high-tech movement its impetus; they inspired architects such as Renzo Piano and Norman Foster; and they laid the ground for the design of buildings such as the Pompidou Centre. Edited and designed by Archigram member Dennis Crompton, this book catalogues Archigram’s activities over fourteen years, together with commentaries by the architects and critics writing then and now.

Stories of Home is an exploration of the idea of living and how Hacin—the award-winning architecture, interiors, and visual identity firm based in Boston—creates spaces that foster a true sense of belonging and connection.

This expressive and evocative publication presents a curated selection of Hacin’s projects and explores the emotional and conceptual threads of each residence, highlighting what’s most important to the people who live there. Together, these homes tell a larger story of life, and reveal how every aspect of a design, down to the finest detail, can embody memory and meaning. Interwoven throughout are narratives that reflect on Hacin’s commitment to concept-driven design, skilled craftsmanship, community, and the historic character of Boston’s neighborhoods—the setting of much of Hacin’s work.

Richly illustrated and beautifully presented, Stories of Home reflects on Hacin’s decades-long private residential practice and the firm’s narrative approach to design and place-making for contemporary residences in Boston and across the United States.

At their core, both architecture and ikebana are exercises in looking, selecting and leaving out. With a minimum of elements, architects and ikebana artists shape space and give meaning to emptiness.

Ikebana meets Architecture brings these two worlds into dialog. Inspired by five visionary architects – Frank Gehry, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando and Santiago Calatrava – ikebana artists from around the world explore how architectural ideas can be translated into natural materials and spatial compositions.

Each creation is a personal interpretation of architectural principles, rather than an imitation of iconic architecture. Architecture is thus reinvented in every arrangement – transformed into a temporary, living form. Gehry’s fluid forms, Hundertwasser’s organic irregularity, Hadid’s sense of movement, Ando’s serene use of space and light, and Calatrava’s expressive structures are translated into natural materials, line, balance, rhythm and void. Together, they form an inspiring collection of ephemeral ‘architectures’, carefully captured in photography.

“Neural networks do not understand what optical illusions are.” – Technologyreview.com

“Some pictures tell a thousand lies.” – hplyrikz.com

An optical illusion confuses the eye by pretending to be something it isn’t. It both misleads and deceives the brain, which is trying to make sense of the information the eye is sending. This book presents a selection of brain-bending optical illusions featuring graphic art and photography by 60 artists, and includes an overview of the history of optical illusions in art.