|   | FEATURED ARCHITECTURE BOOKSLe Corbusier: Le poème de l'angle droitBetween 1947 and 1953, Le Corbusier (1887–1965) produced a suite of 19 lithographs and illustrated poems that are now regarded as the most complete statement of his worldview. The lithographs and texts of Le poème de l’angle droit are arranged in seven “zones” lettered A–G, and are assigned a thematic title and a color (e.g. A is Environment [green]; B is Mind; C is Flesh [brown]; etc). These titles, and their color codings, were in part inspired by Le Corbusier’s study of alchemy, and each chapter in the book contains a subset of poetical meditations on alchemical theories of tensions between elements, colors and genders, and the relationship between spiritual evolution and architecture. Le poème de l’angle droit was published in 1955. This elegantly jacketed, clothbound facsimile publication presents a classic of architectural literature in a handsome, affordable edition for the first time. Le Corbusier’s handwritten text remains in its original French throughout; an English translation of the text is included as an appendix.  > moreTerunobu Fujimori: ArchitectThe sophisticated buildings of Japanese architect Terunobu Fujimori (born 1946) combine the archaic, eccentric, poetic and the ecological--almost all of them are made of simple, traditional materials such as earth, stone, wood, coal, bark and mortar. Often referred to as a “surrealist” architect, Fujimori designs buildings that stand on stilts, rest in trees, support plant ecosystems and rise from the ground at vertiginous angles. This unique approach perhaps stems from Fujimori’s early career as a successful architectural historian; he accepted his first commission at the age of 44. Buildings completed since then include teahouses, museums and private homes, known by names such as the “Dandelion House,” “Charred Cedar House” and “Too-Tall Tea House.” This publication explores Fujimori’s career with models, drawings, architectural plans and photographs. Also documented is the construction of a teahouse designed for the garden at the Villa Stuck in Munich.  > moreQualities of Duration: The Architecture of Phillip Smith & Douglas ThompsonThe branch of a sycamore grows through the opening of a wall in a Manhattan studio. A pool-house on Long Island becomes a sod-roofed teahouse. An eighteenth-century farmhouse in Pennsylvania expands to echo the path of a meandering stream. Such are the inventive and inspired designs of Phillip Smith and Douglas Thompson, whose work stands out as an oasis of calm in an age of hyperspeed and information smog. Since they met in 1966, Smith and Thompson have sought out a “softer” alternative to the legacy of “heroic modernism,” a quest for spatial quietude guided more by instinct and gradual accretion than enforced concept and ideology. Taking Bernard Rudofsky’s emphasis on forgotten vernacular buildings and “architecture without architects” as the underlying theme in their work, Smith and Thompson’s sources of inspiration have varied widely over the years, from early European modernism to the barns and fishermen’s cottages of Nantucket, to the monasteries of Tibet, the hill towns of Italy and the stilted kampongs of Malaysia. Qualities of Duration is the first book to chronicle their firm’s complete body of work, detailing its numerous residential, commercial, corporate and institutional projects through 350 illustrations and a text by architectural historian Alastair Gordon.  > more | TABLE OF CONTENTS | ARCHITECTURE | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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