Search results for ""Park Books""

'Architectural Papers' is a series of books published by the Chair of Josep Lluis Mateo, department of architecture (D-ARCH) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). Established in 2005, the series covers a wide range of topics related to teaching architecture and architectural culture in general. It aims at expanding the theoretical boundaries of the discipline. Contributors include distinguished architects and thinkers of our time, while a strong focus remains set on the content produced as part of the educational curriculum at ETH Zurich. The series is being published by Park Books. 'The Middle East' describes this region from a contemporary architectural perspective. The Middle East has been at the heart of the Old World since the beginning of time. Recent history has widened our idea about this region from that of a petrified place where nothing changes to a site of immense opportunities where everything is possible. The future of the architectural profession and its exciting possibilities are being tested there now. This new book comprises essays reflecting visits to countries in the region and describing manifold aspects, interviews with distinguished personalities, along with a selection of paradigmatic projects. It aims to describe the manifold facets of the Middle East. Contributors are practicing architects, renowned academics, artists and experts from the region. All material in the book has been produced exclusively for this program and is published here for the first time.

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Bricks blocks of fired clay are known to be used for the construction of building since around 2800 BCE. Highly appreciated as ever throughout well over four millennia, this immensely versatile and sustainable building material continues to be used today for an almost unlimited range of applications in construction.Since 2004, Wienerberger, the world's largest manufacturer of bricks and other clay building materials, biannually presents the international Brick Award as a scene for outstanding achievements in brick architecture. In 2024, the eleventh edition of this global master class saw 743 submissions from 53 countries that were reviewed by an international jury of renowned experts. Brick 24 features the 50 nominees and the winning designs in five categories. They are presented through concise texts, atmospheric images, as well as site and floor plans, views, elevations and sections. Topical essays are contributed by distinguished practitioners

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This new book is the product of a unique research, teaching, and exhibition project at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Faculty and students of the university's Institute for Art and Architecture IKA dedicated a full year to investigate the highly controversial modernist architecture of the three decades between 1950 and 1980. Their goal was to assess the state and current use and to interpret the aesthetic, history, and public acceptance of four selected buildings from today's perspective. Eventually, the students created designs and proposals for moderate to radical changes for these structures. The surprising results of this undertaking offer a very differentiated picture of Vienna's General Hospital (AKH), the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation's studio complex (ORF-Zentrum), the Vienna University of Economics (WU), and the Alterlaa housing estate. Big! Bad? Modern: reflects this diversity: Arranged by keywords derived from the featured projects, it provides easy access to the rich and comprehensive collection of materials and manifold positions, and opens up new perspectives.Essays by renowned authors such as Hermann Czech, Francoise Fromont, Harry Gluck, Sabine Kraft and Michael Zinganel and a preface by Nasrine Seraji round out the book.

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Chandigarh Casablanca documents two different but complementary urban realities that have played a fundamental role in the imagination, the definition, and the redefinition of the 20th-century modern city. Modern urbanism has traditionally ascribed universal value to avant-garde ideas originating in Europe and North America, and developments in non-Western regions as derived from those original models. This study shifts perspective in search of a new understanding of the modern city, taking into consideration the complex history of diverse cultures and changing borders. Focusing on a range of issues from the symbolic use of architecture to construct stunning monuments, to the creation of public spaces, housing design and social facilities, it features many images by two non-western photographers, Yto Barrada (French Morocco) and Takashi Homma (Japan), to construct a relevant definition of the modern city in a global sense.

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Chandigarh Casablanca documents two different but complementary urban realities that have played a fundamental role in the imagination, the definition, and the redefinition of the 20th-century modern city. Modern urbanism has traditionally ascribed universal value to avant-garde ideas originating in Europe and North America, and developments in non-Western regions as derived from those original models. This study shifts perspective in search of a new understanding of the modern city, taking into consideration the complex history of diverse cultures and changing borders. Focusing on a range of issues from the symbolic use of architecture to construct stunning monuments, to the creation of public spaces, housing design and social facilities, it features many images by two non-western photographers, Yto Barrada (French Morocco) and Takashi Homma (Japan), to construct a relevant definition of the modern city in a global sense.

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Jeanne Gang, one of America's most distinguished contemporary architects, proposes using the ancient plant-cultivation technique of grafting in architecture and urban design as an effective way to address the pressing issue of climate change. Grafting is the biological process of connecting two separate living plants so they can grow and function as one. Motivated by both human need and desire, it is an ancient practice that continues to be performed today in search of more fruitful, palatable, and resilient varieties of plants.Grafting is also an incredibly useful and untapped paradigm for how architecture can begin to cope with climate change on a larger, more impactful scale, because it is predicated upon the building fabric that we already have. Grafting can become a term that informs architecture and its many scales, provoking the imagination while simultaneously lending know-how to tectonic, programmatic, formal, and regenerative adaptations.Text in French.

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Conquering the extremes: LIQUIFER Systems Group, a design and research firm based in Vienna and Bremen, has been addressing the issue of human life on planet Earth and elsewhere in the universe for two decades. Their work demonstrates how considerate technology-based design solutions and careful use of available resources can enable us to live in space. Their concepts, feasibility studies, and technological developments all deal with the key issue of scarcity that defines life everywhere: on Mars, on the Moon, in orbit as well as on Earth. LIQUIFER Systems Group’s projects range from a simulated Mars mission in Spain’s Rio Tinto region and the interior design for the habitation module of the planned Gateway space station, to the EDEN ISS mobile greenhouse in Antarctica and biogenerative studies in which microbes are integrated into buildings to generate energy and recycle materials. LIQUIFER. Living Beyond Earth is the first book to present the practice’s groundbreaking work. It features spectacular images and visualisations, detailed plans, and drawings that are supplemented with essays by renowned American space architects Brent Sherwood and Christina Ciardullo. It enables the reader to delve into the visionary world of Europe’s leading space design firms.

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The new permanent display of Architekturzentrum Wien’s (Az W) collection, opened in February 2022, is a milestone in the presentation of architecture and its social dimensions. Now this most comprehensive collection on Austrian architecture of the 20th and 21st centuries, featuring colour images of all exhibits, concise texts, and thematic essays, also becomes available in book format. Hot Questions—Cold Storage takes a fresh look at the country’s architectural culture of the last 150 years, situating it in its cultural, social, political, economic, and technical contexts. Each of the seven chapters is prefaced by one of seven questions of our present, asking for example about the impact of financial capitalism on our cities and villages, about how do we want to live, or about the contribution architecture can make to our survival on planet earth. These Hot Questions bring to life the Cold Storage, the silent repository of the collection's holdings. The book offers a multi-perspective narrative that makes visible Austria's building history with all the developments, ideologies, institutions, objects, places, personalities it comprises. The book also illustrates what the collection of a museum of architecture can achieve. It is far more than mere flotsam and jetsam of history. The social relevance of objects and documents is revealed through questioning and visualisation, in connecting research and the museum’s mission to collect.

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Understanding and managing urban change in our global era demands a high degree of specialised and interdisciplinary knowledge. At the same time, city planners, architects, researchers, policymakers, and activists are deeply immersed in the chaotic and often contradictory urban realities that they are asked to address. What is Critical Urbanism? offers an innovative toolkit for engaging these present realities across disciplinary specialisations and geographic purviews. Central to the book is the research and pedagogy of the Critical Urbanisms MA program at the University of Basel, established in collaboration with the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town. The program’s renowned and emerging urbanists demonstrate the power of working with care and reciprocity across different contexts and institutions, driven by engagement with varied communities of practice. They show how alternative urban futures can be imagined by addressing the historical injustices and global entanglements that shape the urban present. The book is tailored to students, graduates and teachers of urban studies and related disciplines including architecture, urban design, human geography, architectural history, and urban anthropology.

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The new education centre of Advan FC on the island of Madagascar is a prime example of a bottom-up development-aid project based on pragmatism and with the goal of self-empowerment. When Viktor Bänziger, who runs a bar in the heart of Zurich, visited Madagascar as a tourist in 2015, he was struck by the severe poverty and difficult living conditions of the local population and decided to act. In close collaboration with Zurich-based architect Nele Dechmann and the president of Advan FC, Titus Solohery Andriamananjara, the project for a new football ground and surrounding buildings was developed. The complex, which is soundly based on local building knowledge and construction methods, gives local children the opportunity to develop their football skills and, more importantly, to receive minimal reading and writing lessons after football training and to have meals together. The remote location in Madagascar’s mountains and the tight budget suggested a simple typology that conveys a common architectural language despite the different uses of individual buildings. A key part of the entire concept is a simple manual for the actual construction that leaves many decisions and responsibilities to the local community. This book tells the story of an extraordinary participative undertaking, which very likely will never be completed entirely, of people originating from deeply differing cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. It introduces a model of potentially universal usage anywhere in the world. And it documents the architecture of Advan FC’s education center and its construction process in rich detail through photographs and plans.

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Wood is an ideal building material for sustainable architecture. It grows back and absorbs large quantities of CO2. But where does it actually come from in each case, and how will we make forestry and wood processing fit for the future? In what ways are conventional notions of professions and qualifications in architecture, engineering, and construction tested by using wood as building material? French journalist Michèle Leloup together with architect François Leclercq—a pioneer of timber construction in France—have for a long time explored the ecological, economic, industrial, and technical challenges of using timber for major structures and urban architecture. This book summarises their findings using examples from the French forestry and construction industry. It also takes a look at Austria and the innovative work by Hermann Kaufmann, an internationally revered leader in the further development of traditional timber architecture. In addition, the book features five projects by Leclercq Associés. Richly and attractively illustrated with new images by French architecture photographer Cyrille Weiner, The Wood That Makes Our Cities offers a concise survey of topical questions and findings in contemporary timber construction. Text in French.

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The new MEETT Toulouse exhibition and convention centre in the French city of Toulouse once again demonstrates how a seemingly dull, functional task results in striking and refined architecture if the Rotterdam-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture OMA and its mastermind Rem Koolhaas take care of it. The vast structure, covering ca 618 by 246 yards of ground, makes for a spectacular spatial experience in its main exhibition hall that offers 484,376 square feet of column-free floor space. OMA also took an unusual path with regard to the configuration and transport connection of the entire complex. Rather than sealing even more ground with tarmac for endless car parks, it concentrated them into a compact multi-storey parking garage at the heart of the complex that also serves as a general traffic hub for MEETT Toulouse. The book offers impressions of MEETT Toulouse’s enormous dimensions and the vast spaces it provides through images taken by French photographer Marco Cappelletti. The volume is rounded out with selected plans and concise texts on the particulars of the project.

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Josep Lluís Mateo is one of Spain’s leading architects and one of Europe’s most influential intellectuals. He runs a firm called mateoarquitectura in Barcelona, which has designed buildings in many countries such as Spain, Portugal, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Alongside his work as guest lecturer, Mateo was Professor of Design at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich from 2002 to 2014. Mateo’s standing as a pacesetter in the international intellectual discourse about the future of architecture is closely tied to the journal Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme, which has appeared in Catalan, Spanish and English since 1985 and of which he was editor-in-chief between 2002 and 2014. Under Matteo, it developed into the leading platform for discussions on architectural issues, urban design, and aesthetic concepts. Footprints: Writings 2005–2020 collects his most important texts from the last fifteen years - short and longer essays and vignettes, along with interviews touching on questions about the elements, environmental and urban contexts, as well as on Matteo’s own designs. The texts are illustrated and arranged thematically, to allow the juxtaposition to inspire new connections. Text in Spanish.

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In 2011, Zurich-based architect Fawad Kazi, together with the KSSG-OKS planning consortium, won the competition for the rebuilding and extension of St Gallen’s cantonal hospital (KSSG) and the new regional children’s hospital for eastern Switzerland (OKS). By 2028, this huge undertaking will have transformed the whole area they are built in. This building monograph, laid out in five elegant volumes, documents in much detail the ambitious project, which is a significant trailblazer in the area of hospital design and urban development. This second volume is devoted to KSSG’s Haus 10, situated at the northern end of the site. Connected to the hospital’s main building by means of an ingenious passage, it serves to treat walk-in patients. Its flexible structure allows adaptions to suit also future needs of KSSG. The interior design is based on materials and features intended also for the other new buildings still to come. Text in English and German.

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The Studio for Immediate Spaces (SIS) is a two-year MA programme at Amsterdam's renowned Sandberg Instituut. It aims to explore and shape spatial practices on the genesis and production of contemporary spatial configurations. Through extensive field investigations, SIS works as a laboratory, testing ideas relevant to how we live today and how we could live tomorrow. Rural flatlands, suburbia and gritty city settings; Mediterranean shorelines and Alpine mountainscapes; open-pit mines and industrial legacies; abandoned buildings and unfinished infrastructures; harbours, airports and refugee camps: Such places were the sites of SIS's research and production between 2016 and 2019. Directed by Swiss architect Leopold Banchini, it embraced a truly global approach that crossed, and deliberately ignored, borders. This book offers a glimpse into this unique journey around the world. Illustrated with some 790 colour and black-and-white photographs, it features work produced collectively by participants in simultaneous roles of geographer, researcher, architect, urban planner and designer. Brief texts on each project and essays by Leopold Banchini and other SIS faculty, studio participants as well as by curator and writer Lukas Feireiss round out this exceptional documentation of forward-thinking higher education in spatial design.

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The Palais de Tokyo, built for the 1937 International Exhibition of Arts and Technology, is an icon of French Art Deco architecture. Located prominently on the northern bank of the Seine near the Eiffel Tower, the vast complex today is a hotspot of modern and contemporary art in the French capital. Opened as part of the 1937 International Exhibition, the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (MAM) has always had its home in the eastern wing of Palais de Tokyo. After a major refurbishment directed by Paris-based h2o architectes, it was re-inaugurated in October 2019. This book documents the creation of the new MAM. Alongside brief essays and a conversation with h2o architectes founding partners Jean-Jacques Hubert and Antoine Santiard, it features plans and visualisations as well as historic photographs. The construction process is illustrated through a photo essay by artist Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann and reportages by photographer Myr Muratet and architect-photographer Stéphane Chalmeau. Text in English and French.

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Ever since the firm's establishment in 1989, Frankfurt-based Stefan Forster Architekten (SFA) had a special focus on housing. A starting point for this was the urgent necessity of refurbishment and modernisation of the vast housing developments constructed of prefabricated concrete slabs as part of the urban rebuilding programmes in the newly founded federal states of eastern Germany following the country's re-unification in 1990. From the initial 'Haus 07' in Leinefelde, Thuringia, SFA have moved on, creating a remarkable body of work in metropolitan housing. Their designs comprise large-scale public multi-unit blocs and single-family town houses on small plots, as well as the transformation of former office and public administration structures. This first monograph on SFA highlights how the firm has constantly worked on raising the standards in residential architecture, years before the current shortage of housing in urban areas has made such improvements so urgent. The book features 30 designs that exemplify SFA's approach and philosophy. Text in English and German.

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Founded in 2007, G8A Architects gained rapid renown for its projects in Switzerland. Drawn to new opportunities in Southeast Asia, founding partners Manuel Der Hagopian and Grégoire Du Pasquier soon expanded the firm's operations to include an office in Vietnam's capital city, Hanoi, where they now attract a range of commissions in a completely new environment. In 2010, upon winning the commission for a major public housing development in Singapore that set them amongst a new generation of designers for residential projects in the region, they also opened a branch in the booming city-state. The first book to document G8A Architects' achievements to date, Contrast and Cohesion reflects the firm's work in these starkly contrasting parts of the world. Featuring twenty-seven of the firm's projects through drawings, photographs, plans, and descriptive texts, the book also brings together essays that expand on the different concerns and challenges that accompany the creation of architecture in Central Europe and Southeast Asia. Climatically, culturally, and economically, the rapidly growing cities of Southeast Asia are a world away, but Der Hagopian and Du Pasquier pursue a strategy of cohesion, which seeks to resolve the contrasts between East and West with resulting benefits for both.

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Interspaces and free spaces have gained much public attention recently. This current discourse is reflected in the work of Austrian architects Henke Schreieck Architects, LAAC, and Sagmeister & Walsh. They interpret free space as both a spatial and a spiritual construct, as a complex dynamic system and versatile realm shaped by coexistence. Thoughts Form Matter features spatial installations these three firms have created for this year's 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennial. They partly merge into each other, materialise and visualise concepts such as Deviation, Atmosphere, and Beauty. The book documents the projects with rich illustrative material and interviews with the architects exploring the underlying ideas and notions. Rounded out by an introductory essay by Verna Konrad, Thoughts Form Matter is a plea for the power of architecture as intellectual investigation and for the freedom to create spaces which are uninhibited by functional and economic constraints. Text in English and German.

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On 29 September 1979, 250,000 filled the seats of Chile's National Stadium in Santiago. The event that was meant to transform the attendants from mere dwellers into proprietors. Prior to it, a booklet circulated that featured a plan of the stadium showing the space of its stands subdivided into boroughs and shanty towns. The peopled summoned were mostly beneficiaries from a national self-help housing programme responding to a severe housing crisis by offering people a plot of land within the city. Stadium: A Building that Renders the Image of a City tells a double story of that 1979 event in Santiago de Chile: that of a building, with its dissimilar and even contradictory past uses, and that of a city, with its atomised housing underpinning an unequal development. Both parts are overlaid here, where the stadium's floorplan, rather than delineating the stands, visualises another city marginalised from its centre and arresting different scales in a spatial and temporal panorama. Arranged in four chapters, the book features short essays as well as rich visual material. Text in English and Spanish.

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Crafting the Façade presents the results of this productive co-operative study, which cut across disciplines to look at historical developments in the design and building of façades, the theoretical underpinnings that can explain these developments, the common materials and their main characteristics, and the techniques used in assembly. The project also prompted a great deal of innovative design work, including detailed drawings at a scale of 1:10 and the design and construction of life-size prototypes in stone, brick, and wood - all of which are reproduced here among the book's two hundred illustrations. Through their leadership roles with the project, editors Urs Meister, Carmen Rist-Stadelmann, and Machiel Spaan also reflect in Crafting the Façade on the learning processes that emerged from the project and offer guidance and resources for others looking to delve into this topic in depth.

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Architecture is the quintessential generalist pursuit, requiring practical knowledge of geometry, technology, politics, history, culture, and economics, as well as an understanding how these disparate pieces fit together within the context of architectural practice. In short, an architect's expertise lies in big picture constructs, or totalization. The latest in the Rice Architecture series, Totalization shows the Rice School of Architecture's Totalization Studios at the forefront of teaching students to leverage the breadth of architectural practice toward in-depth speculative design work. Can a building's exterior be made of plastic? What is the twenty-first-century equivalent of the nineteenth-century steel frame? Can taking parts from a building for use elsewhere extend the building's useful life? Exploring these and other questions in cooperation with four studios - three in Houston, one in Paris - the work collected here challenges conventions around structures; facades; materials; and the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing aspects of building design and construction. The ultimate aim of the Totalization Studios is to eliminate the distinction between speculation and practice in students' final projects. The Totalization Studios represent one of the most innovative and robust architectural programs - a source of inspiration for many other programs worldwide - and this book offers welcome insights into its teaching methods through featured projects. With essays by Troy Schaum, Nat Oppenheimer, Mark Malekshahi, Doug Oliver and Will Cannady, Andrew Colopy, Mark Wamble, Oualalou + Choi and John Casabarian; a discussion with Nat Oppenheimer, interviews with Troy Schaum and Robert Heintges, and a conversation with Linna Choi and Tarik Oualalou. Afterword by Sarah Whiting.

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Over the past years, Dhaka-based architect Kashef Chowdhury has become renowned for a body of work that responds with great sensitivity to places, local circumstances, and the demands of a building's users. At the 2016 International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, Chowdhury presented four recent projects his firm URBANA has realised in Bangladesh in a fascinating exhibition which he has designed with equal sensitivity and care. The labyrinth is an age-old space of intrigue, discovery and accident, which has fascinated architects throughout history. For his installation in Venice, Chowdhury challenged spatial perceptions by a simple turn: the labyrinth - which hides and blocks - is suddenly made transparent. Notwithstanding the obvious reference to Venetian glass, the labyrinth retains, or even accentuates, a sense of spatial disorientation. The installation was conceived not merely as a hyper-maze but rather as an expression of the anxiety that the artist experiences in his work due to a myriad of uncertainties. From design to construction, funding to maintenance, the part of the world where URBANA chiefly works presents itself with challenges at every turn, and it is in this milieu that an architect must operate with firm resolve. Chowdhury's Glass Labyrinth in Venice seems to explicate the notion that, although an architect has a clear vision of what he wants to do, the path to achieving that in the environment in which he operates, is laden with perplexing barriers. This new book explores and documents Kashef Chowdhury's intriguing installation in Venice with beautiful photographs by Eric Chenal and an illuminating text by Robert McCarter.

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In 2011, Zurich-based architect Fawad Kazi submitted the winning proposal for the rebuilding and extension of a hospital complex in the Swiss city of St Gallen. Over a period of ten years, a number of existing structures will undergo vast rebuilding and new ones will be added, transforming a park with individual buildings into a single continuous complex. This new, eventually five-part monograph, documents this project in full detail. It highlights the significance of St Gallen's urban design as well as the specific demands on architectural design and construction and on the hospital's operations. Volume I features the project's genesis and the initial new building, a pavilion structure housing a restaurant and, in the basement, an electrical substation. Text in English and German.

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This is the first-ever monograph on Verona-born architect Armando Ronca (1901-70), a significant protagonist of Italy's post-war Modernism. Following his studies in engineering in Genoa, Torino, and Padova he started working as an architect in Trento before he established his own studio in Bolzano in 1935. Ronca soon became a leading proponent of Modernism in architecture in Northern Italy. In 1944, he opened a second studio in Milano, where the 1948 expansion of the San Siro football stadium in collaboration with the structural engineer Feruccio Calzolari was the largest single project of his entire career. This new book documents Ronca's life and work, featuring in detail some forty of his designs mainly in the Trentino-Alto Adige and Lombardy regions, richly illustrated with original plans and drawings by Ronca and period photographs. Newly commissioned images by Austrian architecture photographer Werner Feiersinger present all of Ronca's preserved buildings in their current state. Essays by Andreas Kofler, Massimo Martignoni, Giorgio Mezzalira, Magdalene Schmidt, Luigi Scolari, and Jorg Stabenow, and a complete catalogue of Ronca's built and unrealised projects and interior designs round out the book. Text in Italian and German.

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CARTHA magazine is a non-commercial magazine dedicated to architectural theory. It is a curated platform for sharing different forms of critical thinking regarding architecture and society. Through opinions, experiences, and works it aims to map the contemporary architectural landscape and to bridge gaps between academic discourse and practical work. This new special edition in the series of books edited by the CARTHA magazine derives from the platform's collaboration with the German pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennial in 2016. The German contribution, titled 'Making Heimat: Germany, Arrival Country', looked at requirements, challenges, and opportunities in architecture and urban design posed by the huge influx of refugees the country saw in 2015. CARTHA - On Making Heimat also reflects on migration movements, their consequences and their potential. A carefully selected multidisciplinary group of people was asked to share views and opinions on the questions raised by the 2016 exhibition at Germany's pavilion in Venice. The book also features interviews with eminent figures, such as Iverna McGowan, Amnesty International's Head of European Institutions Office and Advocacy Director; David Harvey, Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Center of City University of New York; Saskia Sassen, Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and visiting Professor at London School of Economics; and Giovanna Borasi, architect and the Canadian Center for Architecture's curator for contemporary architecture. Essays are contributed, among others, by German architect Arno Brandlhuber, international design studio Urban ThinkTank, and by architectural researcher and critic Marina Otero Verzier.

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Revised, updated, and expanded by nearly 100 projects, this new edition of the catalog for the "a_show," Architekturzentrum Wien's (Az W) permanent exhibition on Austrian architecture of the 20th and 21st century, has become a stand-alone reference book. Its scope extends beyond the themes of the exhibition. Apart from condensing the current discourse on Austrian architecture of the last 150 years, it also documents relevance and singularity of the Az W collection. Featuring more than 2,300 images and plans, accompanied by explanatory texts structured chronologically as well as thematically the book points out both historical connections and contemporary tendencies. Paired with a timeline, and also offering an overview of all relevant media since 1836, brief biographies, and an index, this is the authoritative survey of modern and contemporary Austrian architecture.

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Between 2008 and 2014, ETH Studio Basel, under the guidance of Roger Diener and Marcel Meili, has been investigating theprocess of urbanisation taking place outside cities. Territory - in the context of this investigation denotes both: the surroundings that a city subsumes into its own structure and the core city itself, which is the centre of this process of urbanisation, or "confiscation". Investigated were six regions on six continents: The Nile Valley with the dense corset of natural landscape surrounding a linear city; Rome-Adria, where territorial cells have formed within the territory, spawning an urban type of tremendous dynamism; Florida, presenting highly complex patterns of territorial organisation; Vietnam's Red River Delta, where recent reform exposed traditional settlement and cultivation of the delta to freer forces; Oman, where urbanisation of a territory essentially means reclaiming the desert with the immediate necessity to develop a system for water distribution; and Belo Horizonte, where natural conditions likewise play a major role in organising the territory as surface mining entails huge transformations of the natural terrain.The new book features two introductory essays on ETH Studio Basel's research approach and on terminology, concise illustrated reports on the six regions, and four concluding topical essays.

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Jan Turnovsky (1942-95), born and educated in Prague, emigrated to Austria in 1966 and worked for various architectural firms in Vienna. In 1975 he was appointed as a research and teaching assistant at Technische Universitat Wien's Institute for Architecture and Design. During his tenure, and as temporary head of the institute's department of residential architecture in 1995, he proved to be an equally dedicated and unorthodox assistant and lecturer. His thinking and intellectual legacy has been influential for an entire generation of younger Austrian architects. This new book presents for the first time Turnovsky previously unpublished The Weltanschauung as an Ersatz Gestalt as a facsimile-reprint of his illustrated and highly original typo-script. Penned as a thesis to obtain his Master's degree at the AA in London, the text focuses on a philosophy of open systems , which Turnovsky applies to the architectural design process. He relates the psychological term "gestalt" to the philosophical weltanschauung: A collective, contemporary, etc. "weltanschauung" always affects our perception of a "gestalt", in this case a work of architecture.Turnovsky questions conventional thinking both critically and constructively and presents his strategy of reading architecture and its elements in new contexts.

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Louis I. Kahn is unarguably one of the most eminent and influential figures of 20th-century architecture. He is known as the poet and philosopher among the great modern architects. On 12 February 1969, Kahn gave a lecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), entitled 'Silence and Light'. This fundamental text reveals Kahn's spiritual understanding of architecture and his creative thinking. Kahn's idea of architecture goes far beyond the mere building. He understands architecture as a concept comprising the entire environment of mankind. With this he anticipated more than forty years ago what is branded 'sustainability in architecture' today. 'Louis I. Kahn - Silence and Light' makes this text available again in its original version, for the first time ever also in Kahn's own voice on audio-CD. The book includes a full-length transcript of the Zurich lecture in original English and translations into French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Kahn's sketches drawn while speaking and number of previously unpublished images of the architect lecturing complement the text. Text in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

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Yona Friedman is recognised as one of the most eminent proponents of 1960s avant-garde urbanism. His best-known work is the concept for a Spatial City ("La Ville Spatiale", 1956), in which he aimed to provide maximum flexibility through "megastructures" over existing cities and other locations. Inhabitants were meant to design their dwellings within these structures. Friedman sought to provide people in every part of the world with the knowledge and fundamental structures to determine their own environment for living and to enhance their independence and self-reliance. This new book offers a unique collection of brief texts and annotations as well as an abundance of images, sketches, drawings, watercolours etc. by Friedman himself. It also features a vast range of documents related to his work. In part II, Manuel Orazi gives an analysis of Friedman's oeuvre, based on extensive research. He follows the architect's progress through disciplinary and geographic areas apparently remote from one another, in which Friedman has been moving erratically and incessantly. Orazi also expands on historical, social and political contexts.A documentation of Friedman's intellectual relationships and other resources, an interview with Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi about Friedman, and a comprehensive bibliography round out the book.

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The name Montessori is widely and inextricably associated with an entirely child-centered and careful pedagogy and education of children. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was an Italian physician, reform educator, and philosopher whose ideas and work have remained influential throughout the world ever since the 1910s. Her educational concept covers entire development from infancy to young adulthood. It is based on the image of the child as a “builder of his or her self” and therefore uses for the first time the form of open teaching and free work in a prepared learning environment. Montessori schools became trend-setting educational institutions early on, and their concept strongly reflects in their architecture and equipment. Montessori Architecture is the first book that comprehensively addresses architectural design, construction, the use of materials in and the furnishing of educational spaces according to Montessori’s ideas. The book’s first part explores spatial and design principles that make up good kindergarten and school buildings. In the second part, nine case studies are featured in detail through photographs, plans, and concise texts. These examples are located in Europe (Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain) as well as in tropical countries (Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Sir Lanka). Thus, this highly illustrative volume offers practical advice and a wealth of information that is of utmost importance for the design of school buildings in general.

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Institutions — the state, the church, the army, the judiciary, the university, the bank, etc.— organise social relations. As social structures, they regulate societies according to various practices, rites and rules of conduct, and guide our actions by delimiting what is possible and thinkable. Institutions’ individual scope depends on how the society as a whole understands them. They are in perpetual mutation and thus form complex entities. Architecture plays an essential role in the establishment, identification and perpetuation of this social structure as it formalises value systems in space and represents ideologies in permanent physical structures. Architecture establishes and reveals the way an institution functions through different strategies. Institutions and the City investigates this role of architecture, taking the Tracé Royal (King’s Street) in Brussels as an example. Running from the Place Royale in the heart of the city to the Église Royale Sainte-Marie in the Schaerbeek district north of it, it is the place where several of Belgium’s national political, legal, religious, financial, and cultural institutions are located. The book explores the stratagems put in place over time by the various institutions to inscribe themselves durably on the country’s social order, and reveals similar spatial responses and surprisingly common mutation processes. And it highlights the importance of architecture when it comes to inventing new relationships with institutional spaces in order to live together better in a time when social, political and cultural reference points are being blurred. Text in English, French and Dutch.

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Dick van Gameren, a partner with the renowned Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, has been engaging in housing design for the past 25 years as part of his work as designing architect as well as his research and teaching at TU Delft's Global Housing Study Center. In this book, he presents some 40 of his own projects in this field through concise texts and photographs with explanatory captions as well as through plans and drawings. They’re grouped to illustrate seven specific aspects of housing design: Streets and Squares, Courtyards and Patios, Gardens, Halls, the Fireplace, Walls, and Roofs. Together they constitute a multi-faceted catalogue of housing typologies. In four supplementing essays, van Gameren explores evolutions in residential architecture in the Netherlands. He places his own concepts in context of these developments and expands on what he considers the key factors of good housing design. A particular focus he puts on affordable housing, a pressing issue in so many countries and metropolitan areas around the world. Dutch Dwellings is an inspiring read for anyone involved in housing design today.

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Symbol of Islam, monument of superlatives, and the heart of an entirely new metropolitan district: the Djamaa al-Djazair is an edifice with many different facets. In 2008, KSP Engel’s design won the international competition for Algiers’ new Grand Mosque, which was completed in 2019 after more than a decade of planning and construction work. The vast structure runs along the Bay of Algiers’ shoreline well over 600 yards. A giant 148 feet-high dome covers the main prayer hall, the 870 feet-high minaret constitutes Africa’s tallest building to date. Surrounded by extensive gardens, the entire complex houses a range of functions, including a museum, a Quran school, a library, a convention centre, and a cinematèque. It forms a unique religious, cultural, and economic centre that is a magnet for the entire region. And it unites as an intercultural undertaking genuine Algerian craftsmanship with superb Chinese efficiency, and meticulous German planning and engineering skills. This book tells the full story of how Algiers’ Djamaa al-Djazair, the world’s third-largest mosque after those of Mecca and Medina, was created and constructed and documents this singular structure in rich detail and lavishly illustrated. A historical and typological classification of the building in the long history of mosque construction rounds out this stunning volume.

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Paris-based firm ChartierDalix, founded in 2008 by Frédéric Chartier and Pascale Dalix, can look back on a successful first 12 years of design practice. They have garnered attention at various international competitions and were awarded several prizes, such as the Europe 40 under 40 Award. In 2019, their first book ChartierDalix. Hosting Life explored their unique approach to link ecosystem and architecture and their research and practical implementation of this connection. In this new series of books, ChartierDalix present their entire body of work, beginning with two volumes covering the years 2008 to 2022. It showcases 28 designs the firm has realized in Paris and the surrounding area, all described in detail with texts, photographs and plans. This is supplemented by a complete illustrated catalogue of ChartierDalix's projects since 2008.

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First published in 2017 in conjunction with an exhibition at the Pavillon de l'Arsenal in Paris, this widely praised and much sought-after book becomes available again in a new edition. It offers an analytical review from today's perspective of the French capital's profound transformation during the late 19th century under the direction Georges Eugène Haussmann. Paris Haussmann: A Model's Relevance explores and analyses the characteristics of Paris's homogenous yet polymorphous cityscape, the result of a lengthy process of changes and evolutions, even in recent times. Research was conducted at all levels to classify and compare roadways, identify public spaces, and organize the blocks and buildings according to their current geometry. For the first time, the qualities of the Haussmann model have been set forth to show how they grapple with the challenges that contemporary cities face. Topical essays feature alongside rich illustrative material, comprising photographs by celebrated photographer Cyrille Weiner, site plans and maps, floor plans and sections, axonometric projections, and various graphics. Text in English and French.

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Since its founding in 1971, Paris-based SCAU architecture has grown to be one of the premier architectural firms in the world, with landmark projects like the Stade de France, Paris; the Quai des Savoirs, Toulouse; and the Pierre Zobda-Quitman teaching hospital, Fort-de-France, Martinique. The firm is known for innovative design across a wide variety of buildings and structures, from museums and office complexes to hospitals, housing developments, stores, and universities. SCAU has also been at the forefront of developments in the fields of infrastructure and urban planning. Creatures of the City provides a stunning look back over four decades of the prestigious firm's vast portfolio of work. For the book, award-winning French photographer Cyrille Weiner has created a 224-page photo essay that focuses on fourteen of SCAU architecture's key projects, showing them within the context of their surrounding urban setting and their reception by visitors, inhabitants, and passers-by. Together, the photographs form a striking testament to the firm's diverse, interdisciplinary approach that emphasises the riches of the places where it intervenes and eschews any preconceived notion about the outcome or overall image. Weiner's extensive imagery is complemented by a text by French novelist Aurélien Bellanger. Text in English and French.

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Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and formerly part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, is a city built on and with oil. In fact, oil and urbanism in Baku have been completely intertwined, economically, politically, and physically in the spaces of the city. Its first oil boom in the late 19th century was driven by the Russian branch of the Nobel family modernising the exploitation of oil fields around Baku, and local oil barons pouring their new wealth into building a cosmopolitan city centre. During the Soviet period, Baku became the site of an urban experiment: the shaping an oil city of socialist man. This project included Neft Dashlari, a city built on trestles in the Caspian Sea, housing thousands of workers, schools, shops, gardens, clinics, cinemas and more. This first off-shore rig in the world became the emblem of Baku's second oil boom. Today, Baku is experiencing its third oil boom. For Baku's city planners and business elites, that future is based on a careful reading of Baku as a project in which urbanism and oil are inextricably linked. This new book investigates how oil stimulated urban development in Baku, and explores in detail the more complex and important question of how the disparate spatial logics, knowledge bases, and practices of oil production and urban production intersected, impacted and transformed one another. Based on a vast research project and drawing on rich and previously unpublished material, Baku - Oil and Urbanism is organised into three broadly conceived historical periods defined by the political, economic, technological conditions in which the interwoven evolution of oil and urban production unfolded. The book also features a new photo essay by celebrated photographer Iwan Baan.

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