Books: Strike a Pose

Strike a Pose documents a new extroverted architectural language. The iconographically charged scenes and futuristic spaces featured are playful and experimental and range from private residences to schools and operas, museums and interior design. Manifested in spectacular structures, eccentric forms and vivid colours, this expressive approach goes way beyond conventional stylistic and geographic boundaries.

Strike a Pose, Eccentric Architecture and Spectacular Spaces,
Edited by R. Klanten, L. Feireiss. Buy it here: Amazon

Books: 3deluxe Design Collective

Expansive projects accomplished by the interdisciplinary design collective 3deluxe over the last five years. Their skillful interplay graphics, interiors and architecture to create powerful spatial situations and graphics that combines a sensitive intellectual and sensual balance. The multi-media theme world Cyberhelvetia, the interior and corporate design for the CocoonClub in Frankfurt, events and exhibitions for the 2006 FIFA World Cup as well as the corporate architecture for Leonardo are only but a few of the multitude of projects featured in this luxurious volume.

3deluxe, Transdisciplinary approaches to design, by Frame Publishers.
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Books: Walter Gropius

Born and educated in Germany, Walter Gropius (1883-1969) belongs to the select group of architects that massively influenced the international development of modern architecture. As the founding director of the Bauhaus, Gropius made inestimable contributions to his field, to the point that knowing his work is crucial to understanding Modernism. His early buildings, such Fagus Boot-Last Factory and the Bauhaus Building in Dessau, with their use of glass and industrial features, are still indispensable points of reference. After his emigration to the United States, he influenced the education of architects there and became, along with Mies van der Rohe, a leading proponent of the International Style.

Walter Gropius, 1883-1969: The Promoter of a New Form, Edited by Peter Gössel.
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Books: Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture

Known for their in-depth research and innovative, inventive, and meticulously constructed architecture, KieranTimberlake Associates put its ideas about streamlining the making of architecture to the test. The results took the form of a fully modular and award-winning house, featuring an active and adjustable double-skin facade so advanced that no client would consider it.
Situated on idyllic Taylors Island, off the coast of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, Loblolly House inaugurates a truly new, more efficient way of building. Unlike most houses, even those built with sustainability in mind, Loblolly disassembles as easily as it assembles, making it an ecologically sound structure with a manageable environmental footprint. Focusing on a single built project and illustrated with extensive photographic documentation and numerous detailed drawings, Loblolly House is the manual for componentized prefab. The book includes a DVD of the film “A House in the Trees“, a real-time documentary of the design, fabrication, and assembly of Loblolly House.

Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture + DVD, KieranTimberlake Associates
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Books: Marcel Breuer: 1902-1981

Time magazine called Marcel Breuer one of the “form-givers of the 20th century“: with his invention of steel-tube furniture. In 1943, he conceived the “binuclear” house concept—the splitting of living and sleeping areas into separate wings—which he first applied to the Geller House I (1944-1946), and which would attain great popularity. After designing the UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1953-1958), reinforced concrete, with its formal plasticity und structural elasticity, continued to give monumental character to buildings such as the Abbey and Campus of St. John’s University in Minnesota (1953-1961), the IBM Research Center in France (1960-1962), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1963-1966) in New York City. With his keen sense of proportion, shape, and material, Breuer is one of the most important Modernists and is still very much central in the discussion of contemporary architecture.

Marcel Breuer: 1902-1981: Form Giver of the Twentieth Century, Edited by Peter Gössel, Dr. Arnt Cobbers.
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Monograph: Jean Nouvel by Jean Nouvel

Jean Nouvel, France’s premier architect designs his own monograph. Limited to 1,000 signed and numbered copies packaged in a translucent plexiglass slipcase reminiscent of the translucent facades often seen in Jean Nouvel designs. Five years in the making, a book that will finally give the full measure of the architect’s talent. Two 400-page hardcover volumes give the most complete overview to date of Jean Nouvel’s career, including works in progress such as the new Louvre in Abu Dhabi, the Philharmonie de Paris, and the extension of the MoMA in New York.

Jean Nouvel by Jean Nouvel. Complete Works 1970-2008 Edited by Philip Jodidio
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Books: Le Corbusier Le Grand

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The self-named Le Corbusier was not only the creator of some of the most important and impressive buildings of the last century—Villa Savoye at Poissy, the Chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp, the capitol complex in Chandigarh, India—he was also an accomplished painter, sculptor, furniture designer, urbanist, and author. His work and social theories continue to be a dominant force in the world of architecture and design, while his elegant bearing, bow tie, and round black eyeglasses are still today a signature look for architects around the world. Le Corbusier Le Grand’s oversized format and luxurious binding reflect the legendary status of this “giant” of twentieth-century architecture and design.

Le Corbusier Le Grand, A spectacular visual biography of one of the greatest architects of the 20th century.
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Books: Arts & Architecture, The Complete Reprint

The seminal architecture journal re-printed as it appeared in its original form

The first part (1945-1954) of the facsimile edition of John Entenza’s groundbreaking magazine, which launched the Case Study House Program; in ten boxes, each containing one year’s worth of magazines

From the end of World War II until the mid-1960s, exciting things were happening in American architecture: emerging talents were focusing on innovative projects that infused low-cost materials and modern design. This trend was most notably incarnated in the famous Case Study House Program, which was championed by the era’s leading American journal, Arts & Architecture. Focusing not only on architecture but also design, art, music, politics, and social issues, A&A was an ambitious and groundbreaking publication, largely thanks to the inspiration of John Entenza, who ran the magazine for over two decades until David Travers became publisher in 1962. The era’s greatest architects were featured in A&A, including Neutra, Schindler, Saarinen, Ellwood, Lautner, Eames, and Koenig; and two of today’s most wildly successful architects, Frank Gehry and Richard Meier, had their debuts in its pages. A&A was instrumental in putting American architecture—and in particular California Modernism—on the map.

Arts & Architecture, 1945-54: The Complete Reprint, Edited by David Travers, 118 Magazines in 10 Boxes, 6156 pages. limited to 5000 numbered copies.

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Books: The Complete Works of Richard Neutra

Originally from Vienna, Richard Neutra came to America early in his career, settling in California. His influence on post-war architecture is undisputed, the sunny climate and rich landscape being particularly suited to his cool, sleek modern style.
Neutra had a keen appreciation for the relationship between people and nature; his trademark plate glass walls and ceilings which turn into deep overhangs have the effect of connecting the indoors with the outdoors. Neutra’s ability to incorporate technology, aesthetic, science, and nature into his designs brought him to the forefront of Modernist architecture.

Neutra. Complete works, Edited by Peter Gössel, 464 pages.
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Books: Tadao Ando Complete Works

“In architecture, there is a part that is the result of logical reasoning and a part that is created through the senses. There is always a point where they clash. I don’t think architecture can be created without that collision.” -Tadao Ando

Philippe Starck describes him as a “mystic in a country which is no longer mystic.” Philip Drew calls his buildings “land art” that “struggle to emerge from the earth.” He is the only architect to have won the discipline’s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. His name is Tadao Ando, and he is the world’s greatest living architect. Combining influences from Japanese tradition with the best of Modernism, Ando has developed a completely unique building aesthetic that makes use of concrete, wood, water, light, space, and nature in a way that has never been witnessed in architecture.

Ando: Complete Works, Edited by Philip Jodidio, 500 pages.
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