Farshid Moussavi - Architecture and Micropolitics: Four Projects by Farshid Moussavi Architecture, 2010-2020

Farshid Moussavi

ISBN 10: 3038601942 / ISBN 13: 9783038601944

Published by Park Publishing (WI) June 2021, 2021

About this Item

Architecture and Micropolitics deconstructs two widespread prejudices: that architects nowadays are no longer important for the overall construction process, and that design is a linear process with a fully formed architectonic vision from the outset. Farshid Moussavi, a renowned architect and professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, shows how the specific character of contemporary architecture involves enriching the pragmatic aspect of creating architecture with random elements and subjective factors, which can change our circumstances and the architecture that surrounds us. Thus, the micropolitics of our everyday lives becomes the basis for our built architecture. Moussavi illustrates this process with the help of four of her buildings from the last decade. They are presented through hundreds of photos, drawings, and sketches, and discussed in an essay, where Moussavi develops her thesis. New photos of the four buildings have been taken by the celebrated British photographer Stephen Gill, whose creative work combines documentary, experimental, and conceptual approaches. Also featuring a preface by French philosopher Jacques Rancià re, Architecture and Micropolitics is an astonishing book for all those who are interested in the interaction between architecture and society.

Seller Inventory # 298172

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Farshid Moussavi - Architecture and Micropolitics: Four Projects by Farshid Moussavi Architecture, 2010-2020
• Publisher: Park Publishing (WI) June 2021
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3038601942
• ISBN 13: 9783038601944
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The interaction of architecture and society, demonstrated through important buildings by Farshid Moussavi Architecture.

This timely book seeks to dispel two widely held misconceptions: first, that architects are no longer central to the making of buildings and, second, that design is a linear process which begins with a fully formed architectural vision. Architect Farshid Moussavi argues that the temporality of architecture provides day-to-day practice with the potential to generate change. She proposes that we abandon determinism and embrace chance events and the subjective factors that influence practice in order to ground buildings in the micropolitics of everyday life.

Using four buildings designed by FMA, Moussavi’s London-based practice, Architecture & Micropolitics shows how the rhizomatic nature of their design process is combined with diligent research and an openness to elements of chance to fuel creativity and bend rules that would generate a merely functional building.

A substantial essay by Farshid Moussavi and an afterword by the philosopher Jacques Rancière are followed by detailed analyses of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland; Lot 19, the first new residential block to be built in the La Défense district of Paris in thirty years; the Folie Divine apartment building in Montpellier; and the Ismaili Center Houston, the first new building in the US which is dedicated to use by the Ismaili community. The book also features contributions by Iñaki Ábalos, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Irénée Scalbert.

Architecture & Micropolitics is recommended for any professional and academic library. It is a surprising book which will be of value to anyone who is interested in the relationship between architecture and society.

About the Authors

Farshid Moussavi, OBE, RA, is an architect, professor in practice of architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and former cofounder of Foreign Office Architects. She has published an influential series of books in conjunction with Harvard: The Function of Ornament, The Function of Form, and The Function of Style.

Iñaki Ábalos is founding principal of Ábalos+Sentkiewicz Architects with offices in Boston, Madrid, and Shanghai. He is professor of architectural design and director of the Laboratorio de Técnicas y Paisajes Contemporáneos (LTPC) at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM) and professor-in-residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.