| | Portraits of the New Architecture, Richard Schulman with Paul Goldberger.
Richard Schulman's color photographs
highlight fifty international architects and their buildings.
In some ways a product - and critique - of the celebrity
status of architects, the candid images of each (mainly
individuals but sometimes firms) are the most illuminating
aspect of the book. Mainly taken in offices and homes, the
portraits don't have a stylistic theme, instead finding
their inspiration in the architects themselves. For example,
Rem Koolhaas is the only focused head among a sea of blurry
OMA-ers - exhibiting the teamwork of his practice - and
Daniel Libeskind sits on an office chair in a loft populated
only by crates and boxes - a clue to his transient nature.
The one consistency in the portraits is Schulman's use of
light, the strongest element in each photograph. The only
distracting part of the book is its geographical bias. Schulman
admits in his introduction that picking the final fifty
was difficult, though looking at the list
of architects the crosshairs are pointed at New York
City. Twenty-one of the fifty architects are based in NYC,
half of the fifty located in the Northeastern states. The
rest are spread across Europe, Japan, Mexico and the other
US coast, with exceptions like Miami's Arquitectonica and
New Mexico's Antoine Predock. Unfortunately no representatives
from the Midwestern states are present, nor is Africa, South
America, or the rest of Asia included. But this isn't necessarily
a detraction of the book, as it is an indication of where
the most popular and cutting-edge architecture is being
produced. Perhaps this is a book that can be updated in
ten years or so, as an architectural barometer showing the
profession's cultural and geographical evolution.
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