Building for Tomorrow: Visionary Architecture Around the World

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.

Over thirty international 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. In so doing they have blurred the line that separates the realities of our everyday environment from the cinematic realms of science fiction.

This paperback edition of Building for Tomorrow includes dramatic recent projects, including The Seed Cathedral in Shanghai, the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, and the Metropol Parasol in Seville. Readers can also explore Richard Rogers's instantly recognizable Lloyds Building, Bart Prince's extraordinary organic wooden houses, Frank Gehry's billowing titanium gallery, and Santiago Calatrava's concrete beetle-like planetarium. Wherever the inspiration has been drawn, be it NASA capsules or nautilus shells, these buildings show that imagination and creativity can work on a variety of scales and budgets, and can collectively set a thought-provoking agenda for an alternative architecture of tomorrow.

Paul Cattermole is a full-time writer and researcher working with a practice covering the fields of architecture, master-planning, and landscape design. He is the author of five books exploring both contemporary and historic architecture and design, including Architects: From A to Z, Bizarre Buildings, and Architectural Excellence: 500 Iconic Buildings.