Building for Tomorrow (Hardback) /anglais - Hardcover

CATTERMOLE PAUL

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500342288 ISBN 13: 9780500342282

Publisher: THAMES HUDSON, 2006

Synopsis

Architects have always dreamed of shaping the future, of building utopian worlds filled with seemingly impossible structures that break with the past to propel mankind far into the twenty-first century and beyond. Buildings for Tomorrow reviews forty such visionary projects that appear to come from futures that mankind has so far only imagined. Buildings for Tomorrow reviews forty such visionary projects that appear to come from futures that mankind has so far only imagined. Spread across nineteen countries, over thirty architects, from famous names to little-known innovators, have combined the latest technological advances with their boundless creative energy to bring their constructions into being.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Cattermole is the former creative director of a specialist architectural picture library and an architectural writer based in London. His most recent work is Buildings for Tomorrow: Architecture That Changed Our World.

Gwyn Headley is the founder of the Folly Fellowship, a society dedicated to extreme buildings of architectural interest, and the author of Architectural Follies in America.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpted from the
Introduction
The Odd, The Eccentric and The Extravagant

This is a book of outrageous oddities and extravagant exceptions, of buildings that brazenly invite the prefix of "bizarre." But for these sensational structures to be considered "exceptions to the rule" there must be rules to begin with. Few creative disciplines are fonder of formulating rules than architecture, that aristocrat of the applied arts, whose practitioners have spent centuries literally drawing up the fabric of our urban world. These rules come in many forms, permeating every level of the profession, from the mundane building regulations to the highbrow minefield that is the "ism." Constructivism, brutalism, expressionism, postmodernism -- the proliferation of schools of architectural thought throughout the 20th century has left a rich legacy of buildings, but without always leaving the layman with any easy explanation as to their underlying rationale. This is modern architecture's Achilles' heel, the veil of elitism that can so easily prevent those outside of the profession from being able to relate to the buildings that surround them. Great architecture has the power to excite and engage all who come into contact with it, inviting the viewer to offer his or her own interpretation and judgment. The stories behind a building, the hidden narratives of architecture, need to be shared.

This is not intended as a scholarly survey into every intricacy of architectural thought but as a visual primer, an accessible introduction to the wild side of a discipline that has the power to change the way we live but can all too often be content to follow a path well-trod. This is a collection of projects that dared to be different, instead of follow the herd. They are not drawn together by a unified movement, a convenient "ism" with which to be pigeonholed. They are themselves. Put simply, they are "bizarre buildings."

Edition details

• Publisher: THAMES HUDSON
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0500342288
• ISBN 13: 9780500342282
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1