Search results for ""Author Axel"
Edition Axel Menges Prussian Gardens
The Prussian gardens in Berlin, Potsdam and elsewhere in Brandenburg: for the first time, texts and photographs present an overall view of all the gardens and parks created under the Hohenzollerns over a period of more than three centuries. Only the cross-genre collaborative effort of garden designers, gardeners, architects, scenographers, sculptors, painters, and creative rulers, the most prominent of whom were Frederick II and Frederick William IV, made it possible "to turn the environs of Berlin and Potsdam step by step into a garden", as Frederick William IV put it in 1840. Figures such as David Garmatter, Friedrich Christian Glume, Siméon Godeau, Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, Peter Joseph Lenné, Antoine Pesne, Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, Georg Potente, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the Sello brothers, and Antoine Watteau -- picked from a whole cornucopia of names -- indicate the spectrum of artistic forces that created the Prussian garden realm. Impatient with his royal client, who had once again cut his funding, Lenné alluded to the high standard of princely landscape art: "Your Majesty still does not understand how ingenious my idea is". The present volume is an attempt to examine the "ingeniousness of the idea" specifically inherent in the gardens of the Hohenzollerns in Prussia.
£16.90
Edition Axel Menges Wilhelm Hauff, Three Fairy Tales
Text in English & German. "Poverty is the greatest plague, wealth is the highest good", Goethe wrote in his ballad "The Treasure Seeker". Over the course of the poem, however, it becomes apparent that this is a mistaken conclusion. The search for riches, fame and power often brings with it greed, inhumanity and violence, as Wilhelm Hauff shows us in this book of fairytales. The best known of these is The Cold Heart, in which the wish for a better life leads Peter Munk the charcoal-burner to seek the help of the spirits of the Black Forest. The first spirit he encounters is the kindly glass manikin, who makes him the owner of a glassworks, but, as he never wished for the necessary understanding, he cannot give the running of his glassworks the attention it deserves. He becomes idle, fails miserably and falls victim to Hollander Michael, the evil spirit, who demands Peter's heart in return for helping him and gives him a stone in return. With a heart of stone, Peter loses all his social competence, and is filled with avarice, which, however, does not prevent him from pursuing his new profession as a businessman and money-lender. Rather, it helps him to succeed. But when he kills his wife for showing kindness to a destitute man, he finally comes to his senses, with the assistance of the glass manikin, who helps him to recover his original heart. And so everything turns out for the best. Peter Munk becomes a charcoal-burner again, and lives humbly but happily with his mother and his wife, restored to life by the glass manikin, for the rest of his days. The Cave of Steenfoll has a less happy outcome. In this story, greed becomes an obsession and even a madness that finally leads to the death of William Falcon. Having found the long-sought treasure -- a little chest full of gold pieces -- he is still not satisfied, and he dives into the sea a second time, never to emerge again. The fairytale of Said's Adventures is the opposite of the other two. The hero, a man under the protection of a good fairy, embarks on a dangerous journey. The hero encounters greed and avarice everywhere during his adventures, but they have no place in his own character. He is a skilful fighter, but always guided by compassion. Finally, he is rewarded with wealth, good fortune and contentment.
£25.20
Edition Axel Menges Castles of the Weser Renaissance
Text in English & German. In the area along the Weser, there was a great deal of building activity between the Reformation and the Thirty Years War which was helped along by economic prosperity. Little affected later by war or modernisation, high quality Renaissance castles, aristocratic estates, town halls and civic architecture have survived here in exceptional density. This facet of Central European Renaissance architecture started to be appreciated in the early 20th century. This led to the concept of the Weser Renaissance, oriented above all towards formal and regional history, and still popular today, like a kind of brand. The present volume offers a representative selection of the region's castles and palaces for the first time, dealing with both princely residences and seats of the nobility. Architecture and court culture are placed in a European context that goes beyond older approaches based on the stylistic history and shows that forms demonstrating princely prestige have qualities in common well outside the region. Michael Bischoff's introductory text provides an overview of Renaissance architecture in the Weser area. Uwe Albrecht and Julian Jachmann explain the terminology and function of princely architecture. Heiner Borggrefe analyses early Renaissance architectural ornamentation, G Ulrich Großmann covers the topic after the mid-16th century. Thomas Fusenig writes on the arts and sciences at the courts. Rolf Schönlau discusses aspects of building materials in terms of economic history. Hillert Ibbeken deals with the sandstone that is most frequently used from a geological point of view. The descriptive catalogue is by Katja Schoene and Michael Bischoff.
£31.41
Edition Axel Menges Gypsy Architecture: Houses of the Roma in Eastern Europe
The fact that there is Gypsy architecture may surprise quite a few people, for Gypsies are regarded as nomads who roam through the world and settle now here, now there, never stay long in one place, and consider everything that normal citizens find important to be an unreasonable restriction of their freedom. Nevertheless, in southeastern Europe, there exists a remarkable architecture created by Gypsies. It seems to have been created from a dream: Unreal, abstruse, and colourful, it is a composition of all the architectural styles of this world. Uninfluenced by any deeper knowledge of architectural culture, each family head chose the style, size and finishings on the basis of his own personal tastes or memories of travels, houses and things seen in other countries. The result has been the creation of bizarre and fantastic jumbles of buildings that it is hard to classify in terms of western stylistic features. Very often the houses are the result of enormous jigsaw puzzles created from an assembly of images or photographs of various different buildings, and their execution precisely follows these crazy guidelines, perhaps because they are incomprehensible to those carrying out the project. Otherwise, how could one possibly explain Indian-style roofs crowning neoclassical buildings, mansard roofs on structures of improbable style, Frenchified Chinese pagodas, heterogeneous assemblies of diverse and contrasting elements. The structures, the villas gradually soften their bizarre and fantastic imagery the closer they are built to European countries. Undoubtedly, the cultural influence of neighbouring countries already immersed in the culture and lifestyle of Europe has helped to 'contaminate' the owners and bring their dwellings, the expression of their wishes, more into line with the ruling culture. What, however, remains staggering is the quality of the execution of the complex decorations, of the architectural elements and buildings that are very often contrasting, of widely differing façades surmounted by steepling roofs of no practical use whose only function is to represent, through their lack of proportion and absolute needlessness, the financial and social power of the family. Besides pieces of sculpture that are undoubtedly ritual and symbolic and originating from Indian culture, suns with spiny rays, various forms of pinnacle, geometrical moons, zoomorphic decorations, the tops of the roofs bear metalwork inscriptions giving the date of building and the name of the family or that of the wife, symbolising a desire for display and the proclamation of ownership.
£45.86
Edition Axel Menges Energy Designs for Tomorrow: Energy Design feur Morgen
Text in English & German. The challenges facing the 21st century are staggering: rapidly increasing population, mounting social instability due to global imbalances of wealth and welfare, resource scarcity and resulting conflicts related to their exploitation and distribution, and certainly the ongoing distress of the environment as a whole. Such severe conditions, including climate change, continue to become greater in number, complexity, and clarity, even though most of them had already been introduced as areas of concern in the 1970s and 1980s. Part I of the book describes potential strategies that will play an essential role in curbing carbon emissions, reducing -- or replacing -- fossil fuel usage. To better understand the current global energy industry, the book is unique in showing energy consumption data across the globe in comparable units, and it explains how fossil fuels could be replaced by renewable energy resources. Part II explains how the necessary significant reductions in energy consumption can be achieved by alternative means at reasonable cost for power generation to be maintained. A great number of projects are described in the book as case studies that fulfil the variety of international energy codes. Part III addresses the technological possibilities for energy savings and resource-sensitive solutions related to buildings. Here, the potential of building-integrated solar systems, wind-power generation, rain-water harvesting, and the use of geothermal energy, as well as their implementation in the architecture are presented in detail. On the one hand, the book presents the background for a broader understanding of the medium-range and long-range changes in our energy landscape, and on the other it provides the basis for avenues required to enable us to design strategies based on local conditions and individual geographical locations. Over the past 20 years, Klaus Daniels and the engineers of his engineering consultancy HL Technik have published four volumes of seminal work related to this subject, and their work is continuously being updated. In this series, the new book is an attempt to illustrate how modern architecture needs to be adaptive to energy conditions and how design and technology can be blended successfully.
£62.10
Edition Axel Menges Dear Diary / Liebes Tagebuch
Text in English and German. The narrowest building in Cologne is the office of the advertising agency rendel & spitz. Once a year, during the 'Passagen', the offsite- programme of the international furniture fair in Cologne, the office is turned into an exhibition space: It serves as a stage for an installation of a chosen designer. In 2005 there was no exhibition. The accompanying book to the exhibition that never took place contained only empty pages. Just as in previous years, the book was sent out to designers, architects, artists, journalists and friends. One of the recipients then asked rendel & spitz whether he was supposed to fill the empty pages and sent the book back. An idea was born: each recipient was asked to lend his (used) book for the 2006 exhibition 'Dear Diary / Liebes Tagebuch'. The result is a collection of private notes, sketches, photographs, collages, and objects. The accompanying book shows a synopsis of the contributions, which in some cases are very personal. In addition to the book, there is a CD-ROM with the complete contents of each book that was contributed.
£12.90
Edition Axel Menges Expanding the Gap / Das Weite Suchen
Text in English and German. As in 2001, during the 2002 Cologne International Furniture Fair three internationally known designers squeezed themselves into the town's best known building between buildings. There they presented their ideas on the subject of 'expanding the gap'. From Tokyo came the idea of expanding the exhibition space with an installation to make it snow. Designer Tokujin Yoshioka had 18 kilos of down whirled up by fans at the end of the room to create an everlasting blizzard, and the largest snowball of the year. -- In order to burst through the austere geometry of the exhibition building, projections from lava lamps from the London-based designer Ross Lovegrove covered the greater part of the interior. The coloured, gently moving bubbles created in these lamps by heat caused the sharp contours and hard black and white contrasts of the ceilings and walls to melt and flow. -- Greg Lynn from Los Angeles installed an over-dimensioned, organic sculpture on one of the side walls. It reached out well into the room, and so the visitors were obliged to squeeze past it and search on the other side for space.
£12.90
Edition Axel Menges Karl Friedrich Schinkel: The Architectural Work Today
This comprehensively illustrated book records and assembles material on over 150 buildings by Karl Schinkel, Germany's most important 19th century architect.
£61.20
Edition Axel Menges Ada Karmi-Melamede and Ram Karmi, Supreme Court of Israel, Jerusalem: Opus 71
Intent on realising her late husband's vision, Dorothy de Rothschild first offered to provide funding for a new building housing the Supreme Court of Israel in the 1960s. In 1983 the offer was seriously considered and accepted. Renowned architects from Israel and from all over the world entered into a two-stage competition in 1986. Ada Karmi-Melamede and Ram Karmi, siblings their own architecture practices, were asked to compete as a team. Their contribution stood out clearly against the other entries. Instead of proposing a formal and monumental scheme, the Karmis came up with a coherent site-specific building which roots itself into the land, continues the stone language of Jerusalem, and relates to its unique vibrant light. Pure geometrical volumes are arranged to form a balanced composition and complex whole. A careful equilibrium is created between the gravity of local stone-masonry walls and the immaterial play of light and shadow in the voids and volumes of the structure. The Supreme Court acts as part of a larger civic urban ensemble and forms a gateway to Government Hill offering a pedestrian walkway to the Knesset. While referred to as a single building, in reality the Supreme Court building is an ensemble applying urban principles to the interior, thus producing public spaces throughout. Half architecture, half landscape architecture, the building is deeply anchored in its site and reaches out further than its own walls. Four main functions are manifested in four distinct geometric volumes organised by two cardinal axes. These axes separate the four main program elements: the library, the judges' chambers, the courtrooms and the parking area. The allocation of the various volumes within the building allows for a sequence of in-between spaces which are used for circulation, for the penetration of natural light and for the transition between the public and private domains. Paul Goldberger stated in The New York Times in 1995 that "the sharpness of the Mediterranean architectural tradition and the dignity of law are here married with remarkable grace.
£26.10
Edition Axel Menges Johannes Peter Holzinger, Haus in Bad Nauheim: Opus 53
Text in English and German. In the summer 1978, the cover of the magazine Bauwelt showed a photograph of an unusual building. It was tersely introduced to readers as a 'private house with office in Bad Nauheim', but it was immediately obvious that this was a built manifesto. What appeared was a strictly symmetrically articulated, steeply rising façade, emanating dignity and composure. It also seemed able to manage without windows, which further enhanced its austere elegance. And then there were the strikingly slender, sharp-angled wall elements, which seemed captivatingly graceful, or even delicate and fragile -- as though folded from paper. The fact is that, long before Gilles Deleuze had cast his spell on a new generation of aesthetically ambitious architects, Johannes Peter Hölzinger was putting his folding skills into practice as a matter of course.
£21.60
Edition Axel Menges Klaus Kinold. Architectural Photographs: Photographs of Architecture
Text in English & German. The work of Klaus Kinold, born 1939 in Essen, is part of a tradition of photography, and particularly of architectural photography. Architecture was one of the most important themes even of early photography -- not least because it stood still. Initially this was an important characteristic, since exposure times were long. Thus began the affinity of photography with the documentary. Reality and representation were supposed to correspond. Quoting a statement by Roland Barthes, Kinold has referred to the still "mysterious bonus of confidence given to the documentary". At a time when digital photographic and processing techniques make all sorts of manipulation possible, the now rare quality of reliability is assigned to this attitude. It was self-evident for Kinold to explore the period whose very name included the term objectivity -- the New Objectivity (in German: Neue Sachlichkeit). The work of colleagues such as Werner Mantz, Hugo Schmölz, Arthur Köster and above all Albert Renger-Patzsch combined useful information and contemporary artistic expression. Walter Peterhans, photographer at the Bauhaus, called it the "magic of precision". At the same time, Kinold did not let himself be confused by the special effects indulged in by some modernist artists. His photographs indicate the structure of the surfaces of a building, the spatial depth and the details concealed in its shadowed sections, the proportions in which they present themselves to the user. The accuracy of observation, the precision in detail, the translation of three-dimensional objects into a convincingly construed image are among the virtues of the architectural photographer Klaus Kinold. What takes precedence in his work is not the moment at which a thing suddenly reveals its essence, a lucky coincidence, but rather the condition that is considered to be essential, set also by the right photographic standpoint. For Kinold, who owed a great deal to his teacher Egon Eiermann at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, including in his capacity as a photographer, logic, purity and clarity went without saying. Accordingly, predominant in his work, we find photographs of buildings by architects whom he could expect to have such qualities: classic Modernists like Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and contemporaries like Alvar Aalto, Hans Döllgast, Herman Hertzberger, Louis Kahn, Karljosef Schattner, Rudolf Schwarz, Alvaro Siza. Architectural historian Wolfgang Pehnt, born 1931, has often reaped the benefits of insights gained from Kinolds photographic art. Pehnt has published monographs about German architecture since 1900 and about Expressionist architecture, but he has also written about numerous individual uvres. He formerly taught at the Ruhruniversität Bochum.
£35.91
Edition Axel Menges Figures: A Project in St. Petersburg 2010-2012
The architect is at all times also an artist. How otherwise would he be able to tame the three-dimensionality of space and subdue the urges of physics and structural mechanics with the creations of his fantasy? This creativity is however mostly restricted purely to its own field. Rob Krier is an exception. For years, he has seen his love of art as a vocation -- one which he nurtures parallel to his work in construction. Fine art should stand in dialogue with architecture and it is Krier's ambition to have iconographic themes brought into the latter, so that they might speak equally to both the occupants of a building and to bystanders, moving them to thoughtful reflection. In his contribution to the European Embankment project in St Petersburg, Krier recently demonstrated the power of architecture and fine art to cross-fertilise. The architects in charge of the urban development of this district are Sergei Tchoban and Evgeny Gerasimov. Krier designed the façade for a 132-metres long building on the Newa riverbank one that looks across the water onto the rear façade of the Hermitage. The vibrancy of the architecture is enhanced by its sculptural ornamentation based on the Balzac theme, 'The Human Comedy'. In this regard, Krier modelled over 50 figures in white clay, as well as around 65 linear metres of reliefs. The short poems that comment on the sculptures also centre on the theme of mankind and its interrelationships in society.
£53.10
Edition Axel Menges Second Look: Hitchcock: The Birds; Edwards: The Party; Scott: Blade Runner; Ruzowitzky: Anatomy; Scott: Gladiator
Text in English & German. Like literary texts, films often tell stories on multiple levels. Ridley Scott made an ironic reference to this when he called his legendary science-fiction film Blade Runner a "700-layer cake". These buried structures are created in two ways: by elements that resonate throughout the film itself and by references to other films, texts, myths, paintings, historical events etc. that are adapted in a specific way by the director, the scriptwriter and the production team. The heroine in Hitchcock's film The Birds, for instance, is a modern Aphrodite / Venus. Just as Venus, born from the sea foam, was carried to land on a seashell, Melanie is carried across Bodega Bay in a boat that is not much bigger than Venus' vessel in Botticelli's painting. Melanie's name is another reference to Aphrodite, who was also known as Melaina, "the black one". In the fist scene of the film, in which she enters the pet shop where she later gets to know Mitch and buys the love birds, Melanie is also dressed in black. The Venus-like Melanie is felt to be a threat by others within their world, and especially by more conventional women. One of them screams at her hysterically: "I think you're evil! Evil!". This creates a particular connection between love and horror in the film. The classical Aphrodite also had a dark side -- her union with Ares produced not only Harmonia, but also Deimos and Phobos: "dread" and "fear". Detecting hidden references is only the first step in creating an analysis; the next step is to elucidate the function of the reference within the film. For instance, what does it mean that Hitchcock's heroine is attacked by birds, whereas Venus was depicted accompanied by a dove? And why does Melanie, our "Venus", wear furs? Kirsch's investigations of this and other questions open up new perspectives on a number of films, with extensive illustrations allowing the reader to follow these in detail. The book invites us to take a second look at The Birds, Blake Edwards' The Party, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Gladiator and Stefan Ruzowitzky's Anatomy. Konrad Kirsch is a PhD in literature and an enthusiastic viewer of films. He has published texts on Georg Büchner, Elias Canetti, Robert Walser, Franz Kafka and William Shakespeare. Most recently, his article on Heinrich von Kleist was published in the Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie.
£40.41
Edition Axel Menges Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus, Stuttgart: Opus 68
In 1940, manufacturer Robert Bosch (1861-1942) opened the first hospital to bear his name. He was interested in promoting public welfare as well as his highly successful business activities. Since 1964, 92 per cent of Robert Bosch GmbH has belonged to the Robert Bosch Foundation, whose dividends benefit education, science, understanding among nations and health care. So in 1973 it became possible to open a new hospital complex in Stuttgart. There has been continual extension and improvement of the existing stock by Arcass Frei Architekten, and in recent years the geriatric rehabilitation clinic and the very stimulating chapel have been added, both by Günter Leonhardt, and also the entrance building by Joachim Schürmann & Partner.
£35.10
Edition Axel Menges Steidle + Partner, Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven: Alfred-Wegener-Institut Bremerhaven
Text in English and German. The building for the Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung is near the city centre by the commercial harbour. What is striking is the unusual façade: a pattern is made with glazed tiles in white, grey and black, seeming more regular than it actually is.
£22.41
Edition Axel Menges Reinhard Gieselmann: In Search of Style
Text in English and German. The extensive built work of the 1925 born Reinhard Gieselmann, focussing on housing and church architecture, is characterised by powerfully three-dimensional buildings, dramatic spatial effects, sophisticated handling of light and explicit material effects.
£44.10
Edition Axel Menges Die Tektonik der Hellenen: Kontext und Wirkung der Architekturtheorie von Karl Bötticher
TEXT IN GERMAN. Tectonics is back on the agenda for contemporary architectural discussion. Up to now tectonics tended to be associated with the language of neo-Classical architecture, which seemed to have faded out because of the triumph of Modernism, but now the dogmas of Modernism are being questioned, interest is reviving in architecture using tectonic design principles. So DIE TEKTONIK DER HELLENEN, Bötticher's main work published in 1844-52, does not just provide a theory of tectonic form that is still estimable today, it also contains a theory about the central problem of the 19th century, that of taking over the stylistic forms of past epochs.
£32.40
Edition Axel Menges Jean-Yves Barrier: Architect and Urbanist
Text in French & English. Even though his viaducts for the TGV Atlantic line and several innovative projects rapidly brought him national recognition, Jean-Yves Barrier, who set up his own practice in Tours in 1990, managed to avoid involvement in fashions and trends. Whether he is dealing with homes, public facilities, offices, industrial buildings or shop design, Barrier approaches each project with a fresh eye, and tries to come up with a powerful idea that is then expressed spontaneously in his sketches. His initial insight is developed in very precise studies, bringing an architectural approach to the technical details. The originality of his buildings is inevitably associated with the renewal of form, a great variety of subjects and blending materials in a way that exploits the value of each to optimise the construction as a whole. Even though he was one of the first to realise a solar building (1978), an automated house (1990) and a low-energy apartment block (2001), these technical innovations are not his chief concern. The essential feature for Barrier is the correctness of the response applied to the programme and to the context, with consistent respect for the users. He combines generosity in his human contacts with rigour in conception and realisation. In all his exchanges with contractors, engineers, workmen and users, his taste for dialogue promotes a climate of confidence that enables every project to find its own distinctive quality.
£44.10
Edition Axel Menges Built or Unbuilt: Architects Present Their Favorite Projects
Text in English and German. Personal favourite projects selected by architects of international distinction are presented in a book for the first time. Projects that were devised and realised, but also some that were never built. Speakers in the 'Architecture Today' lecture series that has taken place for the last twenty years at Tübingen University were asked to contribute. Invitations went to 'established' master builders, provocative young developers of new forms and technologies or significant representatives of regional architecture: a promenade architectural ranges from coolly functional to free artistic design, from architecture that feels committed to the Bauhaus aesthetic to deconstructive design. The idea for this book came from the 20th anniversary of the lecture series. The result is an exciting catalogue of very different projects from the last three decades, like museums, buildings related to science and education and to music and theatre, offices and homes, government and religious buildings, right down to the architects' own houses. The scale ranges from mega-projects for whole cities in Asia to a subtle design for a lift in Salzburg or two thoughtful architectural visions expressed in a 'Tower of Dreams' or just in an exhibition. These are all projects that attach considerable significance to their inventors. A clear majority of the choice of architects lit upon realised projects originating in competitions, direct contracts or a problem the architects set themselves. The choice of projects that stayed on paper arouses even more curiosity -- buildings that did not win first prize in a competition, but still have a great deal to tell about the wealth of ideas, context and philosophy in contemporary architecture, presented in this publication because their designers definitely wanted to make their mark. A variety of answers were heard to the question of why a certain project was chosen. The fact is that ultimately favourite projects are the ones that represent philosophy and design ideals, as well a the knowledge and skill of the architects and teams in a particular way. But above all they were projects that moved the architects.
£35.91
Edition Axel Menges Androgynos--The Male-Female in Art and Architecture: The Male-female in Art and Architecture
This book deals with elemental basic architectural questions: the age-old subject of antithesis and thesis, unity and duality, contrast and harmony.
£41.40
Edition Axel Menges Alfredo Arribas. Seat-Pavilion, Wolfsburg: Opus 44 Series
Text in English and Spanish. In 2000 the Autostadt, a show park for the Volkswagen group and its subsidiaries from Seat via Audi to Bentley and Lamborghini, opened in Wolfsburg. Alfredo Arribas designed the Seat Pavilion, and has brought off the brilliant trick of making an essentially reticent building into the focal point of the Autostadt. The structure is like a snail shell, forbidding and closed with the exception of a band of windows that seems to rise directly out of the surface of the lake on the Autostadt site. The irregular curve of the ground plan is reminiscent of a leaf or other forms borrowed from nature. Access is via two elegant ramps floating over the water and the site and thrusting straight into the centre of the pavilion: a homage to the old master, Le Corbusier. And then inside we are confronted with a surprise-packed exhibition landscape: a dazzling synthesis of acoustic and visual impressions that cast their spell over visitors as they walk round. Alfredo Arribas was a provocative newcomer on the architectural scene in Barcelona in the late eighties and is now an international success. He was probably predestined for this job like no other architect. He showed a highly personal flair for presenting spaces and goods from the outset, attracting early attention with his designs for discotheques and bars like the enormous Louie Vega (1988) discotheque, or the Torres de Avila (1990). The expressive tower for the Marugame Hirai Museum (1993) is also part of this creative phase, where forms did not necessarily have to be justified by functional logic. But Arribas' architecture changed into its business suit for the very next commissions. For example, even bankers in their pin-stripe suits feel perfectly at home in the cafeteria he designed for Norman Foster's Commerzbank headquarters in Frankfurt. Arribas is working on two large projects at present: a family entertainment centre in Bari and the Cite des Musiques Vivantes in Montlucon.
£21.60
Edition Axel Menges Heinz Tesar, Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuberg, Austria: Opus 38
Text in English and German. Heinz Tesar's buildings occupy a very particular place on the Austrian architectural scene, which is anyway populated by a lot of individualists. There is a great deal of creative imagination at work here, which always operates outside the scope of modern routine. The town of Klosterneuburg, north of Vienna, has become something like an artistic home for Tesar. The Schomerhaus, an office building whose huge oval central hall leaves convention far behind, and the Protestant church, which has a rounded floor plan like a tear-drop, were now followed by the impressive museum he has built here to house 4000 objects from the private Essl collection, which includes the most important collection of Austrian art after 1945. The floor plan is based on a triangle. Above a storage floor that runs the whole length of the building three individually shaped architectural entities are grouped around a green courtyard. The elaborately orchestrated section of the building on the short leg of the triangle accommodates the entrance foyer, staircase, library, offices and a flat.The long side of the triangle contains the hall for temporary exhibitions extending over two storeys; on the lower floor it is glazed on the courtyard side, and in the upper storey it is lit partly from the side and partly from the skylights in the slightly undulating roof. The hypotenuse is made up of a sequence of parallel galleries; they are topped by lanterns, which admit a great deal of daylight. Finally, Tesar gives the cubic building an organic touch with a curved flourish at the tip of the triangle. Following Gehry and Zumthor, who have recently made important contributions to the theme of art museums, Tesar is now offering a variant that responds very physically to its surroundings, creating individual spaces with a variety of light.
£21.60
Edition Axel Menges Stefan Heiliger Design: A Retro-perspective
Text in German and English. Stefan Heiliger is one of the most prominent product designers in Europe, known for his -- often mechanically assisted -- recliners, easy chairs and couches. He has designed strategic ergonomic, social and comfort transitions between 'sitting-lying' and 'lying-sitting' more than almost any other designer. In his work diverse influences come together: first, familial heritage, his father Bernhard Heiliger's sculptural sensibilities; second, experiences gained during his studies at the famous Ulm School of Design, and during his time with Wilhelm Wagenfeld; and, last but not least, professional experience as a designer for Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart. The formal vocabularies that Heiliger uses in his recliners, easy chairs and couches have an inner relationship with his sports-car and coupé designs. The saucy radii, parables, hyperbolas and circular segments, the rhomboids, tetrahedrons and bevelled ovals witness a trust in the emotional, even erotic power of curvatures that may stem from automobile design. Also, the metaphors of frozen speed, which invariably characterise Heiliger's functional chairs, justify the term 'boldismo'. It seems evident that Heiliger is as much an emotional functionalist as he is a sculpturally thinking pragmatist. Heiliger, who has also passed down his talent and experience to students as a design professor for almost three decades, has compiled a decidedly contemporary vocabulary with new forms of spectacular body shells for the subject area 'comfort seating'. Today, he provides interior design products for the biomorphic 'blob architecture' in a congenial way without any fixation on axial orientations or rectangularities. The present publication document and interprets Stefan Heiliger's uvre and places it into a historical design context.
£35.10
Edition Axel Menges Regenbogen-Blitze / Rainbow Lightnings
Text in English & German. Since beyond time, rainbow lightning has been exploring space, leaping from star to star and forming light beings and crystals of light on our planet, just as they do there. They bubble, flame, flare, flash, weave a web of light, attract, condense, become space that inspires and into which one can enter. Become figurines, cubes, gurgling sky discs, flying labyrinths -- cathedrals of light! Vibrating, stretching time, laughing, refreshing, exploding like dreams in buds of light, timeless and passing away. The rainbow flashes are particularly attracted to cities. There they magically sparkle pink-red, jasmine-yellow-gold, flower-blue and breathe new life into them. Beauty is their goal. If their light were sound, what sweet melody! What overflowing happiness rained down! What sound of light-worlds! The journey of the rainbow lightning travels to Mongolia, Belize, Rome, Kathmandu, Guilin, Norway, Dubai and Japan. Frozen for a moment, the bubbling lightning and light crystals suggest their vibrations as they travel around the earth and into space.
£28.80
Edition Axel Menges Jean-Yves Barrier: Architect, Designer, Artist / Architecte, Designer, Artiste
After the first volume was published in 2009 under the title Jean-Yves Barrier. Architect and Urbanist / Architecte et Urbaniste, which documented 25 years of his architectural practice, this second volume is dedicated to architectural and artistic projects since the mid- 2000s. While the first volume focused on architectural and urbanistic projects, this second volume presents not only 25 new architectural projects of Barrier, but also a completely different facet of his work: the relationship between architecture and art. In this context, 'folding' becomes a fundamental concept that can be applied from design objects to art installations in public spaces and architecture. This new volume also shows once again the astonishing variety of architectural typologies that Barrier deals with in his current oeuvre. Whether it concerns residential buildings, collective housing, public facilities, urban design or functional buildings (such as supermarkets, an employment office or an engineering structure), Barrier never adopts a repetitive or doctrinaire attitude, but develops new solutions for each project, which can be found in his ideal 'lexicon of constants'. This is particularly true for the permanent search for urban coherence for the most varied interventions: in city centres, in derelict industrial zones or in diffuse peri-urban spaces. Contemporary garden cities, condensed and compact assemblies, collages or the interweaving with what exists represent possibilities for Barrier to requalify and redevelop forgotten or abandoned urban situations with contemporary architecture. This is accompanied by the search to create urban signs and new networks in urban space, with the attempt to perpetuate the existing layers of the city. But it is not only the city that serves him as an architectural projection screen, but also and in particular the manifold interplay between art, design and architecture, which is expressed in a specific method, an edifice of thoughts, which allows him to achieve a creative coherence on these various levels of scale and thus simultaneously connects different disciplines with each other.
£53.91
Edition Axel Menges Klaus R Uhlig
Text in English & German. Klaus R Uhlig, born in 1932 in Altenburg near Leipzig, is at first and foremost a painter of people. His upright figures, with a strong vertical emphasis and often depicted in groups, represent the emerging XXL generation. With his "Structurels", Uhlig created a painting style that combines classical realistic with modern abstract painting. Linking and overlapping numerous individual pictures to form a composite creates configurations that can be interpreted in many ways. Gil E Stein shows other aspects of his output in this publication. This includes works such as Das letzte Blatt der Welt or 9-11, which was actual-ly painted in 2001, and the group of pictures called "Arborel". The most striking feature of Uhlig's pictures is the positive impact they make. One contributing factor here is that a clear working philosophy lies behind their creation. Uhlig's work is intended to show "that our life and our social associations are wonderful because the things that connect us are wonderful and mysterious". He uses very many graphic and painting techniques to achieve this, including decalomania. The colour range of his work is defined by the Bauhaus colour theory. Uhlig's colourism and structurelism emerged on the basis of a classical training in art and architecture, moving through the stages of stonemason, Dipl.-Ing., Master of Arts, government building officer and Dr.-Ing. His professors in Weimar included Otto Herbig, who was close to Die Brücke, in Berlin the architect Hans Scharoun and the sculptor Erich F Reuter, and at Harvard University Le Corbusier when present at seminars. Here Uhlig also met Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. After teaching at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, Uhlig worked as a town planner in various German cities. He devised zoning maps for Göttingen, Heidelberg and finally for Cologne, where he worked as Stadtbaudirektor for many years. Uhlig lives in Cologne as a free-lance artist. Solo exhibitions have been devoted to his work in Europe and China, in cities including Berlin, Bologna, Brussels, Dresden, Hangshou, Leipzig, Cologne, Paris and Weimar. His work is to be found in state museum, public buildings and in institutional and private collections.
£44.10
Edition Axel Menges Plusminus 20/40 Latitude: Sustainable Building Design in Tropical and Subtropical Regions
Important examples of realised objects show the interplay of use of nature resources, and the building technology that is added on. Natural ventilation, passive and active use of solar energy, use of rainwater and the energy potential of the soil are key issues. The use of photothermic and photoelectric solar technologies is presented in detail, along with use of the potential for drawing energy from the soil.
£41.85
Edition Axel Menges Hilmer & Sattler: Buildings and Projects
Architects who believe that designs should be based on past architecture.
£46.80
Edition Axel Menges LOG ID BGW, Dresden
Air pollution resulting from high energy consumption is a major factor threatening our environment. Heating buildings accounts for about 40 per cent of germany's total energy consumption. Current heat insulation regulations for buildings aimed at reducing energy consumption have become considerably more stringent. However, grweater heat insulation and energy saving necessarily restrict the exchange of air between outside and inside the building deteriorates and CO2 and other pollutant contents increase. For this reason, when planning the district headquarters for the Berufsgenossenschaft Gesundheitsdienst und Wohlfahrtspflege (Proffesional Association for Health and Welfare) in Dresden the aim was to produce an economical, environment-friendly building with a high proportion of solar heating and workplaces designed ergonomically and with an eye to health requirements.
£27.00
Axel and Ash My Bucketlist
£22.99
Edition Axel Menges Francesco di Giorgio Martini's Fortress Complexes
Text in English & German. Francesco di Giorgio Martini's fortress complexes, created at the end of the Quattrocento, continue to look experimental and highly speculative half a millennium later by their semiotic character. They represent an extreme of European architectural history, occupying a position where architecture and sculpture cannot be sharply distinguished any longer. The alien-looking creations represented in this book have their origins in a particular historic situation: the emergence of firearms in the 14th century and their spread in the 15th century had shifted the balance of warfare in favour of the attacking side, against which the defensive structure had not yet found a remedy. Enter Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439 to 1502) at this point, a native of Siena and one of the Quattrocento's highly versatile artists. He worked mainly in Federico da Montefeltro's Urbino, and left behind a body of work that included painting -- the three famous prospects of ideal cities in Berlin, Baltimore and Urbino are attributed to him -- sculpture -- primarily his imposing reliefs -- and architecture -- here he was definitely the outstanding figure between Alberti and Bramante. His achievements as an engineer are equally impressive, and his elaborate designs for machines strongly influenced those of Leonardo da Vinci. He was a true Renaissance uomo universale, though, despite of his voluminous and influential theoretical work, less in the sense of a humanist homme de lettres than as an all-round artist. Francesco's sacred and secular structures are classicist and austere in nature, yet his fortress structures look as if, moving beyond all functional concerns, he is exploiting the newness of the task, the lack of any tried and tested technical solutions and the removal of all typological boundaries to give his architectonic fantasies free rein, resulting in an apotheosis of the new, the unfamiliar and the alien. This book is an attempt to understand the strangely grandiose semiotic character of these structures. In doing so, it poses the question of what strategies can be used when seeking a shape for buildings for which there is no precedent.
£44.74
Edition Axel Menges Rathaus Bremen: Opus 69
Test in English & German. The town hall in Bremen with its associated Roland statue in the market square in front of the building make up a UNESCO World Heritage site and thus count as outstanding examples of architectural and cultural history. The Bremen town hall is an ideal image of this building type that is so important for European and Western history. It is almost a textbook example of the medieval and early modern town hall. The building dates from 1405 to 1410 and has not been fundamentally altered since. The only exception is that it was carefully continued between 1595 and 1614, when it acquired an extended figurative façade decoration based on the forms of the Weser Renaissance that were current at the time. This underlined the Hanseatic city's claims to immediacy as a free imperial city. The figurative decoration is almost encyclopaedic in its scope, showing the period's striving for humanistic education in the form of iconography with a wide-ranging political and religious spectrum of allegorical themes. The old town hall has remained almost untouched to the present day. In the late 19th century, when the city administration had acquired greater responsibilities, and thus needed more space, an extension was finally added at the back of the building, which Munich architect Gabriel von Seidl sensitively subordinated to the existing structure. The particular importance of the town hall in Bremen is based on the fact that it is extremely ambitious in architectural terms, and at the same time symbolises the republican and municipal structures of European cities. The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is the oldest European city republic, and has retained its independence until today as a Land in its own right in the German Federal Republic. This self-confidence is expressed through the resources of architecture and the pictorial programme. As the best-preserved example for this particular building type in Germany the town hall in Bremen has also a unique significance as a historical monument.
£26.91
Edition Axel Menges Venezia oscura
Text in English and German. Ullmann has explored Venice photographically for more than twenty years. This book shows the famous city from a very individual point of view, not emphasising the tourist highlights, but investigating the 'essence' of Venice in a number of impressive photographs.
£34.20
Edition Axel Menges Ivano Gianola, LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, Lugano: Opus 78
Text in English & Italian. Ivano Gianola is one of the founding members of the so-called Ticino School. Like the other significant figures of this legendary school he is primarily concerned with urban-development and architectonic quality of building in the Canton of Ticino. The extensive uvre that has sprung from this concern has produced a plethora of intuitively designed, distinctive buildings. After more than ten years of planning and building, Gianola's most extensive project and at the same time the largest project of the Canton of Ticino to date is now open to the public. The new Cultural and Art Centre of Lugano is located directly on the shore of Lake Lugano. The spacious and spatially differentiated new building is an architectonic hybrid that combines a museum for contemporary art, a convention centre, various restaurants and cafés as well as a theatre under one roofscape. The theatre is not only equipped as an optimal venue for operas and theatrical performances, but can also be used as a concert hall or convention auditorium. Moreover the urban configuration of the new complex functions as a most convincing contemporary gateway to the largest city in Ticino. This Opus volume tries to decipher not only the obvious and hidden urban-planning aspects of this major project but also its multilayered formal esthetic and haptic connotations. Thereby the book pays tribute to a high point of contemporary Ticino architecture and to Ivano Gianola's late masterpiece.
£28.80
Edition Axel Menges Steidle + Partner, Wacker-Haus, Munchen (Opus 31): Steidle and Partner Wacker-Haus, Munich
Text in English and German. Otto Steidle acquired international recognition for his extraordinary early residential buildings in Munich and for exemplary solutions for school and office buildings. His office and residential complex for Wacker-Chemie in Munich is a lively accent on a particularly conspicuous site in architecturally conservative Munich. Individually balanced buildings are arranged along the block perimeter in Prinzregentenstrasse, the most important east-west axis in the inner city, diagonally opposite the Haus der Kunst, and in Bruderstrasse, which leads to Lehel, a traditional residential area. Steidle has not packed the different functions in layers one above the other, as is usual in commercial projects of this kind, but has separated them clearly from each other. The office building on the noisy carriageway of Prinzregentenstrasse takes the curve to the narrow side street in an elegant sweep, with the glass skin suspended in front of the corner giving the building an almost Mendelsohn-like verve. The series of residential buildings in Bruderstrasse is given a different quality by Berlin painter Erich Wiesner's strong colours and the projecting and recessed facades. And as here too the normal Munich scale is considerably exceeded -- the three residential towers placed diagonally to the courtyard rise eight storeys high -- there is a surprising amount of room for publicly accessible gardens inside the block, designed by landscape architects Latz + Partner, and also scope for revealing the torrential Stadtmuhlbach in a spectacular fashion, which used to be covered, but now shoots directly past one of the windows of the sunken cafeteria and then under the entrance hall of the office building, before playing at waterfalls as it gushes into the Englischer Garten at the other side of the road. Thus Prinzregentenstrasse, as a mile of museum and government buildings, and the Lehel residential area have acquired an architectural attraction of elemental impact in the shape of the Wacker building.
£21.60
Edition Axel Menges Paul Bohm: Buildings and Projects
Text in English & German. The central Mosque of the Turkish-Islamic Union in Köln-Ehrenfeld has given us one of the most vigorously discussed German building projects of the past 10 years. With this spectacular domed structure, Paul Böhm, the youngest son of Pritzker Prize-winner Gottfried Böhm and grandchild of Dominikus Böhm, has successfully introduced the Osman mosque typus into the modern age. The dome and minaret provide the Turkish / Islamic community with visual identification points. At the same time, this shell-construction structure is broken up into individual segments in a manner that opens it up to both the neighbourhood and the world. Containing conference halls, rooms for community use, a bazaar, a library and a museum, the complex is intended to convey to the surrounding area a message of retained ties to the historical country of origin coupled with acceptance and integration into the new homeland, and a willingness to engage in dialogue. Up to now the mosque represents the high point of the architectural career of Paul Böhm, who was born in 1959 and who is teaching at the Fachhochschule Köln. His work encompasses a multitude of exciting projects and realised buildings, including cultural buildings, university buildings, administration buildings and residential buildings. It is, perhaps, unsurprising that an architect who comes from a family of church builders should have added an impressive religious structure to uvre. St. Theodor in Köln-Vingst is a central-plan building that possesses a coherent atmosphere suited to contemplation whilst, at the same time, opening itself to a part of the city that suffers from social problems. Figures who have played a significant role in Paul Böhm's professional development include Tadao Ando, the master of velvet-smooth concrete, Oswald Mathias Ungers, the great lover of geometry, and Peter Zumthor, the essentialist of his generation. Like these three figures, the architects who Böhm worked with prior to founding his own firm in 2001, all espoused very different philosophies of architecture: Otto Steidle, Anton Schweighofer, Richard Meier . Paul Böhm does, of course, also owe a debt to the traditions of the family of architects that he comes from -- a tradition that he continues in his own individual way.
£53.91
Edition Axel Menges Open Space: Transparency - Freedom - Dematerialisation
The aim of the study is to analyse and describe in detail one of the most important trends in architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries: the evolution leading from the closed, hermetic spaces of the early cultures and the Middle Ages to the "open space" and transparency of the 19th and 20th/21st centuries. Historically, the focus is on the "diaphanous" space of the Gothic cathedral, the opening of the late-Baroque dome towards the sky, the transparency of exhibition halls and hothouses in the 19th century, and the glass dreams of the early 20th century. The steel-and-glass technology of the past one hundred years has permitted even more transparency, openness, and dematerialisation on a scale never seen before. It is notable -- to quote just one aspect of the study -- that many modern glass buildings have been compared to a "crystal". This is the material with which we associate concepts such as purity, transparency, and order. We have thus also found a symbol for clarity and translucency in architecture. One key objective of the study is to demonstrate that this trend has been driven by no means only by a functionalist, pragmatic, or physical motivation but that, as in past epochs, the "opening up" of architecture reflects elementary desires of humankind: these are, first of all, psychological, aesthetic and artistic desires, the wish to overcome gravity as far as possible and, last but not least, the liberation of architecture and the attempt to resolve the heteronomy of "indoors" and "outdoors". Many statements have suggested that this touches even on the borders of the irrational and the metaphysical. The study should therefore also contribute to a fresh debate on the boundaries of architecture and, most importantly, should serve as a plea to allow architecture to remain open, free, light, and transparent even in the future.
£44.91
Edition Axel Menges The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place: A Holistic-Phenomenological Approach to Architecture
NOMINATED FOR THE RIBA INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2007. In this book Nili Portugali, presents her particular interpretation of the holistic-phenomenological worldview in theory and in practice, a worldview which stands in recent years at the forefront of the scientific discourse, and is tightly related to Buddhist philosophy. The purpose of architecture is first and foremost to create a human environment for human beings. The real challenge of current architectural practice is to make the best use of the potential inherent in our modern technological age. Yet, modern society has lost the value of man and thus created a feeling of alienation between man and the environment. Contemporary architecture sought to dissociate itself from the world of emotions and connect the design process to the world of ideas, thus creating a rational relation between building and man, devoid of any emotion. Portugali argues that in order to change the feeling of the environment and create places and buildings we really feel at home' and want to live in, what is needed is not a change of style or fashion, but a transformation of the mechanistic worldview underlying current thought and approaches. Based on Christopher Alexander's basic assumption that behind human architecture there are universal and eternal codes common to us all as human beings, and that there is absolute truth underlying beauty and comfort, Portugali demonstrates how this approach, as well as her unique planning process stemming from it (based on the way things actually exist already on site) generates that common spiritual experience people undergo in buildings endowed with soul, no matter where or from what culture they come from. That she demonstrates through a variety of her buildings and projects (with over 600 color illustrations and drawings), in relation to the physical, cultural and social reality of the place they were planned and built on, an Israeli reality which reflects a unique interface between the orient and the west, a cultural interface she personally represents. The book is valuable to architects, artists, scientists, philosophers and anyone who cares about the quality and beauty of the environment we live in.
£35.91
Edition Axel Menges Otto Ernst Schweizer, Stadium in Vienna: Stadion Wien
Text in German & English. When the stadium for a "Workers Olympiad" -- one of the most beautiful complexes in Europe, as the daily press put it -- was opened in 1931 on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Republic of Austria on the Prater site in Vienna, Otto Ernst Schweizer, the architect, was suddenly catapulted into the ranks of internationally acclaimed architects. The stadium, which can seat 60,000, was built as an amphitheatre on the model of its ancient predecessors, in particular the Colosseum in Rome, which Schweizer had studied intensively; the Viennese stadium seen as a reinterpretation of the enormous Roman structure on the basis of the constancy of things that were valid, which was one of the basic premises of his architecture. Otto Ernst Schweizer, born in 1890, and thus of the same generation as Le Corbusier, Hans Scharoun, Erich Mendelsohn and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, had attracted attention even as a young architect with some outstanding competition entries, and was acclaimed for his planetarium on the periphery of the old town in Nuremberg and for the stands and the two cafés of the stadium complex there. He had left municipal service as an Oberbaurat to dedicate himself to planning and realizing the Milchhof in Nuremberg and also the stadium in Vienna. For thirty years he worked as one of the great teachers and researchers in the architecture faculty of the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe. He built -- after a long break forced upon him by National Socialist culture policy -- the II. Kollegiengebäude for Freiburg University. This was his last building, and once again Schweizer's approach to form and function was concentrated in it, almost as the quintessence of a rich creative life. And what remains of the stadium, this most beautiful complex in Europe, as has been said? The landscape around it has been wrecked and allowed to fray into randomness and Schweizer's reflecting lake in front of the arena has been filled in. The arena itself has been enlarged by almost double its appropriate cubature and its height increased, so generally it has changed to such an extent that the original is unrecognisable; hence this book.
£22.41
Edition Axel Menges Grimms Marchen
TEXT IN GERMAN. The fairy-tales by the Brothers Grimm presented in this book were selected and illustrated by the artist Dorothee Menzel, who lives with the German scholar Carl Wege in a little village near Bremen. The artist's pictures seem to restore the unity of man and nature. The charm of the numerous colour illustrations makes it possible for both children and adults to relate to the world of folk poetry in a new way.
£19.80
Edition Axel Menges Living in a Small Space/Wohnen Auf Kleinem Raum
Text in English and German. Architects in Europe, the Far East, the U.S., and Australia illustrate that a positive sense of space is more dependent on light and sun, air and warmth than on a defined minimum number of square feet.
£34.20
Edition Axel Menges Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Ein Sohn Der Spataufklarung
Text in German. Specialist literature on Schinkel has grown enormously since the 200th anniversary of his birth in 1981. But so far questions about the basis of his education and training remain unanswered. No one seems to have seen that Schinkel -- who is often called a classical or a Romantic architect -- was actually a son of the late Enlightenment. This is supported by his teachers' lesson notes (presented here for the first time), the educational periodicals of his period, private letters, exhibition catalogues and also treatises by avant-garde architectural theorists, who also have their say. It was a time of great elation, Kant's cry of 'sapere aude', have the courage to use your own reason, was the motto of this crucial epoch in the history of ideas. Schinkel's father, an unorthodox cleric, fought for the principles of the Enlightenment, and so did the teachers at the two progressive 'model schools' that Schinkel attended. For the first time, these schools brought children from all walks of life together under the same roof -- unheard of in those days. Friedrich Gedike, a leading Enlightenment teacher and the headmaster of Schinkel's grammar school Zum Grauen Kloster, not only tried to impart universal modern knowledge to his pupils, but also to educate them as citizens and servants of the state, with strong characters, and who could cope with life. The state was not just increasingly concerned with schooling, which had been dominated by the Church until that time, but also with education as a whole. The art academy, exhibitions and art as practised were to promote general enlightenment. To a certain extent this also applied to architecture. Friedrich Gilly, Schinkel's fervently revered master, even spoke of an architectural renaissance. The brightest minds of this period -- Schinkel met several of them -- were utterly convinced that the influence of science, culture and the fine arts was powerful enough to refine human nature and to sow peace and concord among nations. And so it is not surprising that the young Schinkel came to Fichte's philosophy at an early stage. Fichte defined the concept of virtue as the good will, which prevailed without exception, to "promote the purposes of humankind to the utmost of one's strength, and to promote them especially in the state, as it instructs". This became Schinkel's life's work.
£17.91
Edition Axel Menges The Film Minister: Goebbels and the Cinema in the Third Reich
Goebbels' film programme, his propaganda strategies, the planning of perfidious anti-Semitic feature films and suggestive war newsreels are reflected in these pages, and so is Hitler's influence and the way in which famous film stars coo-operated with the Nazi leadership.
£32.40
Edition Axel Menges Peter Kulka, Opus 55: Bosch-Haus Heidehof, Stuttgart
Text in English and German. Early in the 20th century, Robert Bosch, the founder of the Stuttgart electrical business, built a large villa on the hills east of the city. It was half Palladian, half in the reform style of the period before the First World War. The building was to meet the head of the company's need for prestige, and to provide a private refuge thanks to the pleasant qualities of its large park and open position. The foundation of the same name is now housed in the Villa Bosch, but the space available has not been adequate for some time. As the company also needed rooms for seminars and other events, a decision was taken to build new accommodation next to the villa. Seven well-known teams took part in a restricted competition, including Tadao Ando, Richard Meier and Richard Rogers. The commission went to Peter Kulka, based in Cologne and Dresden. He found a convincing solution to the problem of leaving the dominance of the old building untouched and at the same time making the foundation's new accommodation attractive in its own right. He came up with a second 'villa' slightly below the first one, precise in its volume and minimalist in its resources. The building responds impressively to the challenges of the topography, the landscape around it and its neighbouring building. Kulka's work combines transparency with physical presence, structural austerity with poetry. This villa suburbana represents a milestone in his career. Kulka, born in 1937, was a pupil of Selman Selmanagic and worked with Hermann Henselmann, Hans Scharoun and in various partnerships before setting up his own practice in 1979. He has been seen as a member of the German architectural avant-garde since his Dresden parliament building (1991-94).
£21.60
Edition Axel Menges Kisho Kurokawa, Oita Stadium, Oita, Japan: Opus 46
Known as the 'Big Eye' the Oita Stadium is one of the chosen venues for the next World Cup in 2002. It will be reused for the second stage of the Japan Inter-Prefectural Athletic Competition in 2008 after the World Cup, continuing to grow in the future to become a large-scale all-purpose sports park for Oita. The whole site covers an area of 225 ha and has several facilities outside the main football stadium. These include general fitness, training and lodging centres, a botanical pool, two multipurpose athletic fields, two rugby and soccer practise pitches, a softball field, tennis courts and other game areas. The main stadium features an open track for athletic events as well as the football pitch. It can also be used year-round for public events aided by its retractable roof. For soccer matches, spectator seats are placed right up to the edge of the pitch to bring them close to the action. To change over for track events a retractable seating system was developed. The stadium sits elegantly on its site, enhanced by the gentle curves of its spherical design. The choice of the sphere, Kurokawa says, is 'an expression of abstract symbolism'. This spherical shape also enables the retractable portion to move along its curved surface. The use of Teflon membrane panels with 25 percent light permeability obviates the need for artificial lighting during daylight hours. In order for the pitch to get proper exposure to sunlight the elliptical roof opening runs along the north-south axis. A main arch with perpendicular horizontal sub-members follows the elliptical shape of the roof opening. Between the roof and the spectator seating below the surrounding mountains can be seen from a slender ventilation clearstorey set just below the roof line. This slit of space is designed to create a feeling of openness inside the stadium. Since the original design, an idea emerged for a moving camera to be located on the main beam to deliver special dynamic images for television audiences around the world.
£19.80
Edition Axel Menges Peichl/Achatz/Schumer. Munchner Kammerspiele, Neues Haus: Opus 43 Series
Text in English and German. The Neues Haus, the new building for the Munchner Kammerspiele, is not a big building in any sense. The plot of land not far from Maximilian-strasse, whose greatest advantage is its proximity to Richard Riemerschmied's Schauspielhaus, is only about 1000 m2 in area. The most important quality of the design is in fact that it accepts the modesty of its role. The new building subordinates itself to the main Kammerspiele building, and manages without lavish foyers and extensive prestigious areas. The Neues Haus is a servant building, a place where work is done. A hasty passer-by would see the building simply as a white cube, reticent and introverted. Given the serene mastery of the brief and the architectural resources, one is almost inclined to call it a work of Peichl's old age, combining his love of clear volumes with a sovereign grasp of technical requirements. Like the silvery-sparkling ORF studios, the ground radio station in Styria and the liner-like phosphate elimination plant in Berlin before it, the Neues Haus is also crammed full of technology. It contains three stages, and two of them can be used at the same time. The largest playing area is elaborately equipped with gallery and under-stage; it is therefore intended as the main rehearsal area in future. The two large auditoriums are stacked one above the other like shoe-boxes and form a massive hollow core surrounded by all the service functions. The interior is dominated by a plainness that oscillates between poverty and asceticism. The corridors and foyers are narrow, the stairs simple, the interval areas positively sparse. The only opulent feature is the splendid technical equipment. Peichl's handwriting can be seen in the treatment of the details and his ingenious practice of self-quotation. Many of the motifs are reminiscent of earlier projects, and of course the typical portholes, spiral staircases and railings made of steel hawsers crop up again, all Peichl's usual maritime metaphors. In this way he has produced a building whose cool elegance reveals scarcely anything of its inner values.
£25.20
Edition Axel Menges Otto Ernst Schweizer: Bauten und Projekte: Bauten und Projekte
An architect, philosopher, and teacher who had a crucial effect on modern architecture.
£10.90
Edition Axel Menges Wanderndes Licht Duft der Zeit Wandering Light Fragrance of Time
Text in English & German. An ode to light sings the way of the wandering light, which comes from the universe and is born from the union of night and light. Wandering, it lingers for a short time in each place it visits, wandering around it, going from door to door and leaving its gift of light behind. It overcomes boundaries, falls in love, is angry, shows the future and laughs. It visits places of humiliation, powerlessness and hopelessness, and gives them a home, courage and protection. The wandering light tries to understand each place it visits and shows itself to them in different guises: as a shimmering cube, a folded labyrinth of light, as a pulsating vibration in rainbow colours, as a diamond light floating above the horizon, gently humming the music of the night. It dissolves boundaries, unites continents in the air, transforms what is fear, is here and there at the same time, lifts up the reality of time. At the end of its wanderings around the earth, it moves on into space, but not before leaving behind its scent, like the scent of time and its omnipresence. Beijing, Agra, Barcelona, New York, Gerona, Ankara and Zaatari are the places it encounters on its journey. The movements, frozen for a moment, allow us to sense its vibrations and its pulse on its way around the earth.
£21.60