Mohsen Mostafavi

This book brings together a diverse range of exemplary architectural projects from across the globe. Carefully selected and examined by a team of experts, these projects demonstrate innovative approaches that respond to the challenges and potentials of contemporary conditions and contexts. One guiding principle of this cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture is the importance of plurality. Since its inception the Award has aimed to be inclusive and to embrace the engagement of a diverse group of users. But equally, it has sought projects that explore a plurality of methods and architectures in achieving that goal. Here, the authors of the essays use that productive tension between architecture and plurality not only to provide a framework for the examination of the projects but also to explore the intellectual and projective means by which architecture and plurality can find other common grounds in the future.

Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2016

Architecture and Plurality

Eric Mumford

Josep Lluís Sert

Writings of Josep Lluís Sert

ปรากฏ-กาล

Gareth Doherty

Ecological urbanism

Harvard University. Graduate School of Design

"In times where global matters such as the climate, currencies and places of residence become increasingly volatile, the urban public space we live in is an area where power, identity and belonging are negotiated. Cities have always been melting pots of history, society, art and politics, which is why the way a city is shaped tells us a lot about the people who live in it. With contributors from a variety of fields, Ethics of the Urban discusses these urban spaces of the political. "How do we move about the city?", "How does memory of the past inspire the future of cities?" and "What makes a city a home?" are only some of the many questions that Ethics of the Urban addresses. The publication gathers experts from history, sociology, art, political theory, planning, law and design to emphasize the complexity of the meaning that urban space has today. Urban spaces are on one hand political spaces, since buildings, streets and people moving around all mirror political decisions in one way or another. On the other hand, the urban space is also a designed space, conceptualized, planned and sometimes gentrified. Complimented by stunning photography, Ethics of the Urban is a vibrant intellectual journey straight into the bone marrow of every contemporary city around the globe." -- from publisher's website.

The City and the Spaces of the Political

Ethics of the Urban

Martino Stierli

Kenneth Frampton

Kristin Feireiss

Hans-Jürgen Commerell

Zhang Ke

Nondita Correa Mehrotra

Amanda Ju

ZAO/standardarchitecture

Hutong Metabolism

David Leatherbarrow

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

Hélène Binet

The publication focuses on a series of important London churches the architect designed during the early part of the eighteenth century. Photographer Hélène Binet was specially commissioned to document the various aspects of the seven remaining London churches. Her immaculate black and white photographs demonstrate the beauty of Hawksmoor's architecture with special attention to the variety of scales, sites, interiors, textures, and materials."

Seven Churches for London

Nicholas Hawksmoor

The book presents the shortlist of 19 projects including the winners. What these projects in their variety across culturally diverse portions of the globe have in common is a commitment to design excellence despite constraints of budget, resources, climate, technology, and politics.

Implicate and Explicate

Mohsen Mostafavi

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