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Installations
by Architects: Experiments in Building Design
by Sarah Bonnemaison and Ronit Eisenbach
Princeton Architectural Press, 2009
Paperback, 192 pages
Provisional:
Emerging Modes of Architectural Practice USA
by Elite Kedan , F. Jonathan Dreyfous , Craig Mutter
Princeton Architectural Press, 2009
Paperback, 288 pages
These two books by publisher Princeton
Architectural Press tread into the margins of architectural
practice. One looks at creations by architects that eschew
the defining traits of architecture: function and permanence.
The second investigates practices that are pushing the boundaries
of not only building design but how architectural practices
function in doing so.
Installations by Architects
by Nova Scotia-based Bonnemaison and Maryland-based Eisenbach
collects over forty projects by primarily North American
architects. Many familiar names can be found, such as John
Hedjuk, Diller
+ Scofidio, Kennedy
& Violich, but most of them are not so familiar.
(I can't remember the last time I learned about so many
designers not known to me in a collection of contemporary
architecture!) The projects are split into five thematic
sections (Tectonics, Body, Nature, Memory, Public Space)
that follow the broad ideas architects have tackled over
the last decade or two. Unconventionally each chapter separates
the text descriptions from the photo documentation, allowing
the book to be read in a number of ways, depending on how
much the reader wants to delve into the subject of installations
by architects.
I'm amazed it has taken so long for
a book on this specific topic to be realized, given how
many contemporary architects now see installations as stepping
stones towards larger commissions, in some cases taking
the place of small residential and interiors jobs. I'm reminded
of shows like Fabrications -- held simultaneously
at MoMA,
SFMOMA
and the Wexner
Center in 1998 -- where the potential for architects
to respond to site via materials was exploited. Many of
the installations in this book exist outside of conventional
museum settings, and the most important chapter might be
the last one on public space. It is in that realm where
installations -- which can be seen as ways of exploring
how architecture can change not only space but attitudes
towards it -- should have the greatest potential.
Provisional features interviews
with nine firms practicing architecture in the United States:
Front,
Gehry
Technologies, Chris
Hoxie, LTL
Architects, MY
Studio, nARCHITECTS,
Servo,
SHoP
and George Yu Architects. A few are consultants and many
produce buildings of their own design, but none of them
resemble traditional architectural firms. These offices
can be seen as architecture firms of the not-too-distant
future, on the forefront of production and building design
in the profession. Naturally technology and its incorporation
into design and practice plays a large role, as does research,
diversity of work and other approaches. It's not hard to
find consistencies among the nine practices in these areas,
but it's difficult to find commonalities in design; each
office is idiosyncratic, arising from the human interaction
with technology, among other things.
The interviews do a very good job
in expressing the focus of each firm and how their working
processes follow from them. Interspersed among the nine
interviews are images of completed projects, diagrams, mock-ups
and renderings, construction documents, and construction
photos. Essays by participating architects and others bookend
the whole package. (At the end are some kind words by Neil
Denari on the late
George Yu.) The book's structure mimics online hyperlinks,
with text and images keyed to each other like an index to
an atlas, gridded coordinates and all, an unnecessary extra
that leads to errors arising from lack of coordination.
Nevertheless the grouped images extend the reach of the
interviews, and they help greatly in sections like onsite
photos where the two L's from LTL actually construct some
of their interior designs. The book ultimately finds a common
denominator in technology's application to architectural
practice, though the diversity of its use is refreshing,
pointing to even more potential with other individuals and
firms. A potential homogenization of design and practice
arising from the computer appears here to be unfounded.
Or as the authors find, "a unifying theory is not what's
called for, but rather the capacity to navigate a multivalent
and expending network of approaches that generates a relevant
architecture now."
Installations by Architects:
US: 
CA: 
UK: 
Provisional:
US:
CA:
UK:
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