Joseph Giovannini – författare

Examines the influence of twentieth-century avant-garde movements on the contemporary architectural landscape through the work of “disruptors” such as Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, and Zaha Hadid. With an irregular format designed by celebrated graphic designer Abbott Miller of Pentagram. In Architecture Unbound, noted architecture critic Joseph Giovannini proposes that our current architectural landscape ultimately emerged from transgressive and progressive art movements that had roiled Europe before and after World War I. By the 1960s, social unrest and cultural disruption opened the way for investigations into an inventive, antiauthoritarian architecture. Explorations emerged in the 1970s, and built projects surfaced in the 1980s, taking digital form in the 1990s, with large-scale projects finally landing on the far side of the millennium. Architecture Unbound traces all of these developments and influences, presenting an authoritative and illuminating history not only of the sources of contemporary currents in architecture but also of the twentieth-century avant-garde and the twenty-first-century digital revolution in form-making, and profiling the most influential practitioners and their most notable projects, including Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall, Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House, Daniel Libeskind’s master plan for the World Trade Center, Rem Koolhaas’s CCTV Tower, and Herzog and de Meuron’s Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing.

The juxtapositions of Zaha Hadid's architectural models and drawings and Judith Turner's photographs of the architect's buildings in this volume reveal that Hadid and Turner are complicit. There is a clear agreement of sensibilities. Each understands the other. Hadid does not design with complete geometries in stable con-figurations, but designs instead with incomplete or distorted geometries that are dynamic and visually unstable. Turner does the same in her photographs, cropping before a form completes itself in a frame that leaves the rest of the form suggested outside the frame. Hadid's work is abstract a permutation of Modernism's trifecta of point, line and plane. Turner's photography, too, is abstract so that Turner's photographs of Hadid's buildings compound the abstraction, arguably intensifying the three-dimension-al abstraction by compressing it into two. Hadid's neutral palette of materials, especially concrete, takes on value in Turner's graphic compositions of black, white and gray, counterintuitively giving neutrality subtle intensity. Hadid structures her designs dynamically with diagonal lines and oblique planes playing with and against each other in three-dimensional fields. Likewise Turner works on the diagonal, always positioning herself obliquely to buildings, shooting glancingly rather than frontally: her diagonal position further dynamizes Hadid's already energized diagonals. Often Turner doubles down on the diagonality by cranking the camera's lens off its up-down axis to heighten the architectural dynamism. Turning her photographic angle lofts Hadid's already anti-gravitational architectural system off the ground. Judith Turner resides in New York where she began taking photographs in 1972. She has had solo exhibitions in various cities in the United States, Europe, South America, Israel, and Japan. Turner has been awarded several grants and fellowships. She received an Honor Award from The American Institute of Architects in 1994 and a Stars of Design Award in Photography from The Design Center of New York in 2007.

This book narrates the complete detailed history of the New Rome Convention centre in Rome and its construction through numerous and evocative images of the work site showing the complexity of the construction stages and the special techniques that were necessary. There are photos of the completed building, by internationally renowned photographers and an essay by Joseph Giovannini, and is completed with very rich iconographic material composed of technical drawings on various scales, and sketches by the Massimiliano Fuksas, author of the work together with Doriana Fuksas. The NUVOLA (NEW CONVENTION CENTRE) is a work of outstanding artistic merit, featuring innovative logistics solutions, and a choice of technically advanced materials. The structure rises in the historic EUR quarter and covers a surface of 55,000 square metres. The project concept can be defined in three images: the Theca, the Nuvola, and the Lama of the hotel structure. The Theca [display case] is the enclosing structure in steel and double glass facades that encases the Nuvola [cloud], the true core of the project, enclosed inside the Display Case box underlining the contrast between the organisation of free space without rules, and a geometrically defined form. The Nuvola contains an auditorium with seating for 1850, cafés and snack bars, and support services for the auditorium. This highly flexible complex is able to house congresses, exhibitions, and events with a seating capacity of almost 9,000 people. The book has been published on various types of paper and differently sized sheets which are inserted within the pages. Studio Fuksas, directed by Massimiliano and Doriana, is one of the most famous international architectural firms in the world. Over the past 40 years, the firm has developed an innovative approach through a surprising variety of projects all over the world and and has been awarded numerous international prizes.

Michele Oka Doner is one of today's foremost artists. Her prodigious career spans five decades and numerous artistic media, including sculpture, works on paper, furniture, video, jewellery, and sets and costumes. In addition, she has created over forty iconic public and private permanent art installations. Everything is Alive offers a glimpse into the full breadth of Oka Doner's work. Above all, it shines a light on the continuing importance of art and the worldview that there is beauty to be found in all living things.