MARCH-10-Forum-Wensing:June/06/Forum2 06/03/2013 11:11 Page 2
F o r u m
F o r u m
HHF Architects Archilife, 336pp, £72 Luc Deleu – TOP Office: Orban Space Valiz, 420pp, £22
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some tend towards trendy graphic design and obfuscating language. Emphasising the physical quality of the book is one way to ensure that monographs remain covetable objects. The other is to offer good content and writing that need time to be digested – some effort to relate the architect’s own work to broader concerns. Bernard Tschumi’s ‘Architecture Concepts – Red is not a Color’ isn’t short on substance, but it does lose itself in selfreferential indulgence. While I enjoy learning more about Tschumi’s work, the book is so unwieldy that it quickly becomes tiresome. It is 18 years since the publication
of OMA’s 1,376-page magnum opus S, M, L, XL, and I’d hoped the idea of architecture books as complete visual immersion had worn off. More irritating, however, is Tschumi’s narcissistic tendency to write about himself in the second person: ‘In 1977 you end up posing in front of the New York Public Library in a performancefilm…’. If the object is to engage the reader, it doesn’t work. Kengo Kuma Complete Works is a monograph in the classic sense, with an introductory essay by Kenneth Frampton, project descriptions, plans and sections; a tried and tested formula. The essay
suggests both continuity and fissure between Kuma and the earlier generation of Japanese architects such as Ando. Again, however, the book’s reliance on photographs is not ideal: the move by Kuma to embrace the tradition of tectonic timber construction would be better communicated in a book of more line drawings and perhaps more tactile paper. Above Alesia Museum interior and sketches, and Manhattan Transcripts drawings from Bernard Tschumi Architecture Concepts: Red is Not a Color. Below Xinjin Zhi Museum, China, and Water/Glass Villa, Japan, from Kengo Kuma Complete Works.
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Kengo Kuma Complete Works Thames & Hudson, 320pp, £40
Manifesto
Bernard Tschumi – Red is Not a Color Rizzoli, 776pp, £55
The monograph has long been an important part of architectural culture as a vehicle for the dissemination of ideas. Today, however, the print format cannot compete with either the speed or reach of the web, and therefore monographs have to offer substance over image in order to remain relevant. As monographs rely heavily on the cooperation and support of the office in question, they can suffer from a lack of critical distance. Another common trait – true of recent monographs on Bernard Tschumi, Kengo Kuma, HHF Architects and Luc Deleu – is a reliance more on photographs than drawings, and
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Lampposts’, or ‘Two Small Triumphal Arches’, which were envisaged for a site on an unfinished flyover in Zürich. TOP Office’s projects are not just exercises in frippery but real attempts to make architecture ideologically relevant and to address larger societal issues. Its most significant work is the development of an urban theory called ‘Orbanism’ which respects the limits of resources and offers a maximum quality of life.
Orban Space
Architectural monographs must offer substance over style to remain relevant, says Thomas Wensing. Do four recent works pass the test?
Aglaia Konrad
Speaking volumes
Sometimes, however, when the content is strong enough, presentational quibbles seem less important. That is true of ‘Luc Deleu TOP Office: Orban Space’. Based in Antwerp, TOP Office has been around since the 1970s, and it specialises in installation, speculation and provocation. The patchiness of the layout makes it hard to get into the book, but once you do, it reveals a refreshingly stimulating and humorous take on architecture, including projects such as ‘Scale & Perspective with Two
Deleu, des fois!
HHF Architects, the eponymous book of the Basel-based practice, is from a similar mould, but is more exciting and fresh in its execution. The ‘dirty realism’ of the photos, some by Iwan Baan, whose peoplecentric reportage style is currently influential in architectural photography, combines well with the controlled atmosphere of the drawings. The text, however, tends to resort to hyperbole, which detracts from the enjoyment of this otherwise well-produced and attractive book.
Books
For anyone who longs for the reintroduction of social debate into contemporary architectural dialogue, TOP Office’s book is highly recommended. Thomas Wensing is a London-based architect who studied at Delft and Columbia University. Left Lookout on the Ruta Peregrino pilgrimage route from Ameca to Talpa de Allende, near Guadalajara, Mexico, as illustrated in HHF Architects. Above Collage as chaos, from Luc Deleu TOP Office: Orban Space.