David Leatherbarrow

Mohsen Mostafavi

A study of the building surface, architecture's primary instrument of identity and engagement with its surroundings. Visually, many contemporary buildings either reflect their systems of production or recollect earlier styles and motifs. This division between production and representation is in some ways an extension of that between modernity and tradition. In this book, David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi explore ways that design can take advantage of production methods such that architecture is neither independent of nor dominated by technology. Leatherbarrow and Mostafavi begin with the theoretical and practical isolation of the building surface as the subject of architectural design. The autonomy of the surface, the "free facade," presumes a distinction between the structural and nonstructural elements of the building, between the frame and the cladding. Once the skin of the building became independent of its structure, it could just as well hang like a curtain, or like clothing. The focus of the relationship between structure and skin is the architectural surface. In tracing the handling of this surface, the authors examine both contemporary buildings and those of the recent past. Architects discussed include Albert Kahn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Alison and Peter Smithson, Alejandro de la Sota, Robert Venturi, Jacques Herzog, and Pierre de Meuron. The properties of a building's surface—whether it is made of concrete, metal, glass, or other materials—are not merely superficial; they construct the spatial effects by which architecture communicates. Through its surfaces a building declares both its autonomy and its participation in its surroundings.

Surface Architecture

On Weathering illustrates the complex nature of the architectural project by taking into account its temporality, linking technical problems of maintenance and decay with a focused consideration of their philosophical and ethical implications.In a clear and direct account supplemented by many photographs commissioned for this book, Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow examine buildings and other projects from Alberti to Le Corbusier to show that the continual refinishing of the building by natural forces adds to, rather than detracts from, architectural meaning. Their central discovery, that weathering makes the "final" state of the construction necessarily indefinite, challenges the conventional notion of a building's completeness. By recognizing the inherent uncertainty and inevitability of weathering and by viewing the concept of weathering as a continuation of the building process rather than as a force antagonistic to it, the authors offer alternative readings of historical constructions and potential beginnings for new architectural projects.

The Life of Buildings in Time

On Weathering

So much writing about architecture tends to evaluate it on the basis of its intentions: how closely it corresponds to the artistic will of the designer, the technical skills of the builder, or whether it reflects the spirit of the place and time in which it was built, making it not much more than the willful (or even subconscious) assemblage of objects that result from design and construction techniques. Renowned writer and thinker David Leatherbarrow, in this groundbreaking new book, argues for a richer and more profound, but also simpler, way of thinking about architecture, namely on the basis of how it performs. Not simply how it functions, but how it acts, "its manner of existing in the world," including its effects on the observers and inhabitants of a building as well as on the landscape that situates it. In the process, Leatherbarrow transforms our way of discussing buildings from a passive technical or programmatic assessment to a highly active and engaged examination of the lives and performances, intended and otherwise, of buildings. Drawing on an encyclopedic reading of contemporary philosophy, as well as from the work of architects whose work he admires, including Peter Zumthor, Renzo Piano, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright, Leatherbarrow challenges us to fundamentally reconsider the way we think about buildings and ask architects to think about their buildings in a vastly wider context, opening up the possibility of creating works that are richer in meaning, quality, and life. In asking for and presenting a sea change in the way of thinking about buildings and their design, Architecture Oriented Otherwise is required reading for anybody who makes or cares about architecture.

Architecture Oriented Otherwise

John Tuomey

Sheila O'Donnell

Hugh Campbell

In today's Ireland, it's not only the economy that's booming. Dublin-based architects O'Donnell + Tuomey have brought a wealth of exciting buildings to the Emerald Isle for the past seventeen years. Their striking modernist works show their appreciation for Ireland's rich cultural, historic, and civic identity without falling into the trap of typical pitched roofs, gables, slate, and brick. Instead the firm chooses less conventional but more fitting materials that seem to express something not quite visible about their sites. O'Donnell + Tuomey, the first monograph on the firm, presents fifteen of their institutional and residential projects in an arresting collection of color photography, plans, and drawings. The book includes the controversial Irish Pavilion at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Ranelagh Multidenominational School, the Irish Pavilion at the 2004 Venice Biennale, and their recent Glucksman Gallery at the University College Cork, which was one of six buildings shortlisted for the 2005 Stirling Prize.

Selected Works

O'Donnell + Tuomey

Focusing on the years 1930 to 1960, this book reassesses the relationship between siting and construction. It argues that the the interplay of technology and topography was paramount.

David Leatherbarrow

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