Architecture is on the brink. It is a discipline in crisis. Over the last two decades, architectural debate has diversified to the point of fragmentation and exhaustion. What is called for is an overarching argument or set of criteria on which to approach the design and construction of the built environment. Here, the internationally renowned architect and educator Michael Hensel advocates an entirely different way of thinking about architecture....

Architects build in and for a system that is not only pathological, but toxic. It is ruining the only planet we have, and we are clearly at the end of what is still possible within this ecology. The architecture presented in this book is a form of resistance – one which actively engages in the societies and territories it is inscribed in and which presents an antidote to the accelerating banalization of our everyday environments. The search for...

A deserted Paris house holds the mystery of a brilliant Viennese modernist who worked alongside Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos before vanishing. A leading painter still highly regarded in South Africa, Jean Welz's prior architectural career has been virtually unknown until a string of discoveries unfolded for author and filmmaker Peter Wyeth, allowing him to narrate this amazing true tale of genius. Trained in ultra-sophisticated, but conservative Vienna,...

As the world becomes more of a global community, air travel between states and countries is commonplace. Airports are playing an increasingly integral part of infrastructure in the United States and around the world. Through accessible text, readers travel to a time when airplanes landed on grassy fields, then move through the years to futuristic terminals featuring innovative technology.

Tony Hunt spent the six decades of his professional and personal life interacting with the élite in the fields of engineering, architecture and industrial design – this is his story. His life and career are described, showing how he formed lasting relationships with architects, patrons, artists, photographers, industrial designers, writers, critics and with his own staff. Connexions demonstrates the way in which he was able to adapt his engineering...

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Simon Mawer's The Glass Room brilliantly evokes six decades of Eastern European history, beginning in 1930s Czechoslovakia. Jewish newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer build their dream home, and despite the low hum of the German war machine reverberating through the land, the two look forward to a life of promise. But as war becomes inevitable, their lives are transformed in profound ways.

Once condemned by Modernism and compared to a 'crime' by Adolf Loos, ornament has made a spectacular return in contemporary architecture. This is typified by the works of well-known architects such as Herzog & de Meuron, Sauerbruch Hutton, Farshid Moussavi Architecture and OMA. There is no doubt that these new ornamental tendencies are inseparable from innovations in computer technology. The proliferation of developments in design software has enabled...

For ages, architects have been criticized for speaking an insular language, known to some as "archispeak." Writing Architecture considers the process, methods, and value of architecture writing based on Carter Wiseman's 30 years of personal experience in writing, editing, and teaching in young architects how to write. This book creatively tackles a problematic issue that Wiseman considers to be a crucial characteristic of successful architecture writing:...