University of Chicago Press: New Titles in Architecture: European Architecture

Greece

Alexander Tzonis; Alcestis P. Rodi — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

The remains of antiquity define Greek architecture in the popular imagination, but Greek edifices encompass far more than these ancient structures. Offered here is a comprehensive survey of modern Greek architecture of the past hundred-plus years.

The book explores the buildings and architects of modern Greece, ranging from nineteenth-century neoclassical edifices to minimalist contemporary works and urban renewal projects. The ideas driving the creation of these buildings are given full attention, as the authors examine the influence of the rise of Modernism in the arts and the characteristics of regional styles, while also considering the reasons behind the bland, functional structures that have dominated Greek cityscapes since World War II. Greece situates this design survey within the nation’s tumultuous cultural and political history, including the two world wars, a military dictatorship, civil war, and the consumerist boom of the 1990s.

A penetrating and thorough study, Greece offers a compelling account of modern Greek architecture that will be invaluable for all scholars of design and European history.

Buchner Bründler

Reto Geiser; Ludovic Balland — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Basel-based architects Daniel Buchner and Andreas Bründler have established an international reputation for creating attractive, innovative designs over the past decade. This monograph presents a selection of the firm’s most famous projects including the Swiss pavilion for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the St. Alban youth hostel and the Volta Center in Basel, and the pavilion in Jinhua Architecture Park, China. Beautifully illustrated with over six hundred photographs, Buchner Bründler Works explores twenty different projects from a variety of perspectives, including other architects, critics, and Buchner and Bründler themselves, and discusses not only the buildings, but also the process of creating them.

ETH Yearbook 2012

ETH Zürich — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Every year, ETH Zürich publishes the best of the work created by its students, teachers, and researchers in architectural design, technology, and visual design from the Department of Architecture. All the work in the 2011 yearbook was produced during the previous school year, some of it through exchange programs with other universities and programs of study in Europe and beyond. Highly illustrated, the resulting volume gives an interesting snapshot of the current state of architectural study, the approach and concerns of the Department of Architecture, and the perspectives of young architects learning their craft.

Forms of Practice

Irina Davidovici — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

During the 1980s and ’90s, German-Swiss architecture gained worldwide acclaim for the novelty of its construction and its striking aesthetic coherence. In this book, Irina Davidovici carefully examines the cultural and theoretical conditions that gave rise to the movement. Forms of Practice combines in-depth case studies of specific pieces of architecture with theoretical essays exploring implicit conflicts that arise between a number of dichotomies: the individual artist and the ethos of the movement; artistic integrity and economic interests; and the abstract and the concrete reality of a building.

Stephan Maria Lang

Harry Dirrigl; Petra Dirrigl — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

A proponent of the slow architecture movement, Stephan Maria Lang designs homes that are mirrors of their inhabitants’ souls. Through this highly individualized approach, his work takes on a remarkable diversity. With one hundred full-color illustrations, this volume presents select projects by Lang from 2004 to 2011.

From the California Residence, which conveys the leisureliness of a holiday home on the American West Coast, to the lakefront Alpine Highway, for which Lang restored the surrounding land to its natural state, the homes in this book reveal thoughtful new facets at each turn, with charming hidden details, surprising vistas, interesting interplays of shadow and light, and the clever integration of landscape, garden, and interior decoration. Of course, the homes also change over time as they are inhabited—and that, argues Lang, is what allows them to radiate life.

An impressive pictorial introduction to Lang’s vintage-inspired state-of-the-art architectural work, Stephan Maria Lang will be of interest to scholars of design, architecture, and planning.

Barents Lessons

Harry Gugger; Nancy Couling; Aurélie Blanchard — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Part of a series that explores the role of teaching and research in progressive architecture, Barents Sea Lessons looks at the work done by architecture students from laba, also known as Laboratory Basel and part of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Starting with the thesis that the ocean is an urbanized territory, students completed a one-year investigation of the remote yet resource-rich area. The book is divided into three sections that each reflect laba’s methodology. The first section presents a detailed, interdisciplinary analysis of the Barents Sea. The second part documents a ten-day workshop in the region that the laba students attended. The book concludes with the thirteen architectural projects that synthesize the needs of the region, the information gathered during the workshop, and specific architectural propositions put forth in the introductory analysis. This volume displays the new, comprehensive approach to architectural education that laba embraces.

Central Switzerland. A Metropolis

Bund Schweizer Architekten — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

The region surrounding Lake Lucerne is not only the geographical center of Switzerland, but also the core of its national identity. The lake itself is picturesque, and the mountainous countryside around it is famous for its pristine beauty. But central Switzerland’s architecture has often been overshadowed by the artistic hubs of Zürich and Basel. To correct this oversight, the Swiss photographer Guido Baselgia has created a vast series of photographs focusing on twentieth-century architecture in central Switzerland. He has included images of single buildings and entire streetscapes, as well as private homes, public works, and industrial parks, all built by the regional section of Bund Schweizer Architekten BSA.

Metropolis Central Switzerland seeks to bring the stunning architecture of central Switzerland to a wider audience through 160 of Baselgia’s images, presented here in stunning duotone. Four experts, each from a different field, offer their insights into regional architecture and the history, politics, and cultural climate of the area around Lake Lucerne.

Knapkiewicz & Fickert. Housing

Axel Simon — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Two of the foremost architects in Switzerland, Kaschka Knapkiewicz and Axel Fickert have gained great recognition since establishing their studio in 1992. Their work on residential projects has influenced a generation of younger architects and created important new trends in housing. Knapkiewicz and Fickert have produced work that embraces opposites equally; their buildings are at once austere and luxurious, frugal and lavish.

This volume examines twenty of their residential buildings, including ones that have been realized as well as those that never made it off the page. Each work is presented with a short description and extensive images, from blueprints and renderings to drawings and color photographs. An interview with both architects begins the book and lays the foundation for understanding their oeuvre. Knapkiewicz & Fickert. Housing is published to coincide with Knapkiewicz & Fickert’s work being featured in the exhibition at the Swiss pavilion at the Thirteenth International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennial 2012.

Italy

Diane Ghirardo — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Packed in its dense, historic city centers, Italy holds some of the most prized architecture and art in the world, with which planners and politicians have had to negotiate as they struggle to cope with massive migration from the countryside to the city. Early modern architecture coincided with a sustained drive to transform a country that was still primarily rural into a modern industrial state, and throughout the twentieth century, architects in Italy have attempted to define the role of architecture within a capitalist economy and under diverse political systems. In Italy: Modern Architectures in History, Diane Yvonne Ghirardo addresses these and other issues in her analysis of the last century of Italy’s building practices.

Specifically, she examines the post-unification efforts to identify a distinctly Italian architectural language, as well as the transformation of the urban environment in Italian cities undergoing industrialization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She challenges received interpretations of modern architecture and also looks at the subject of illegal building and current responses to ecological challenges. In order to illuminate the full scope of the building industry in Italy, her examples are drawn not only from the work of widely published architects in the largest cities but from throughout the peninsula, including small towns and rural areas.

Insightful reading for those interested in Italian culture, this book offers a new way of understanding the architectural history of modern Italy.