Philip Jodidio – författare

Across small cottages and lavish villas, beach houses and forest refuges, discover the world’s finest crop of new homes. This cutting-edge global digest features such talents as Shigeru Ban and Marcio Kogan alongside up-and-coming names like Aires Mateus, Xu Fu-Min, Vo Trong Nghia, Desai Chia, and Shunri Nishizawa. Here, there are homes in Australia and New Zealand, from China and Vietnam, in the United States and Mexico, and on to less expected places like Ecuador and Costa Rica. The result is a sweeping survey of the contemporary house and a revelation that homes across the globe may have more in common than expected.Among guava trees and abandoned forts in Western India is a sanctuary designed for and by Kamal Malik of Malik Architecture. The House of Three Streams is a sprawling spectacle with high ceilings, verandas, and pavilions, perched atop a ridge overlooking two ravines. A medley of steel, glass, wood, and stone, the house weaves along the contour of the landscape, almost as an extension of the forest. Encina House by Aranguren & Gallegos, an elegant, sloping structure reminiscent of a gazebo, similarly inhabits its surrounding vista. Ensconced in a pine forest north of Madrid, the lower level is embedded in rock and connected to the upper by a natural stone wall. Shinichi Ogawa’s Seaside House is an immaculate two-story minimalist marvel in Kanagawa that overlooks the Pacific. Its living area spills onto a cantilevered terrace and infinity pool, almost dissolving into the ocean as one seamless entity. In Vietnam, Shunri Nishizawa’s House in Chau Doc exudes tropical sophistication with exposed timber beams, woven bamboo, plants, concrete panels, and inner balconies and terraces. Its corrugated iron panels act as moveable walls and shutters, ushering in views of surrounding rice fields.These homes—along with more than 50 others—are each remarkably distinct in design. They all, however, toe the line between inside and outside, each one symbiotic with its surroundings.

Zaha Hadid was a revolutionary architect, who for many years built almost nothing, despite winning critical acclaim. Some even said her audacious, futuristic designs were unbuildable.During the latter years of her life, Hadid’s daring visions became a reality, bringing a unique new architectural language to cities and structures as varied as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, hailed by The New York Times as “the most important new building in America since the Cold War”; the MAXXI Museum in Rome; the Guangzhou Opera House in China; and the London 2012 Olympics Aquatics Centre.At the time of her unexpected death in 2016, Hadid was firmly established among the elite of world architecture, recognized as the first woman to win both the Pritzker Prize for architecture and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, but above all as a giver of new forms, the first great architect of the noughties.From her early sharply angled buildings to later more fluid architecture that made floors, ceilings, walls, and furniture part of an overall design, this essential introduction presents key examples of Hadid’s pioneering practice. She was an artist, as much as an architect, who fought to break the old rules and crafted her own 21st-century universe.

Designing private residences has its own very special challenges and nuances for the architect. The scale may be more modest than public projects, the technical fittings less complex than an industrial site, but the preferences, requirements and vision of particular personalities becomes priority. The delicate task is to translate all the emotive associations and practical requirements of “home” into a workable, constructed reality.This publication rounds up 100 of the world’s most interesting and pioneering homes designed in the past two decades, featuring a host of talents both new and established, including John Pawson, Richard Meier, Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Daniel Libeskind, Alvaro Siza, and Peter Zumthor. Accommodating daily routines of eating, sleeping, and shelter, as well as offering the space for personal experience and relationships, this is architecture at its most elementary and its most intimate.

The most exciting new buildings today are almost all environmentally aware, sustainable, and conceived to consume less energy than ever before. Discover the best examples of green projects from the Architecture Now! series in this handy Bibliotheca Universalis edition.Celebrated architects like Frank Gehry and Norman Foster are presented alongside young up-and-coming creators from all over the world. Filled with plans, renderings of proposed projects, and stunning architectural photography, this is nothing short of an encyclopedia of eco-design.From a water treatment facility to an art museum, luxurious holiday homes to commercial structures, these buildings all make a bold environmental statement. Being “green” means being aware of the responsibility in the construction and use of modern buildings; some solutions are as old as the history of architecture, while others are born of cutting-edge technologies. Explore these approaches and many more in this groundbreaking collection showcasing 100 of the world’s most innovative eco-friendly buildings.

Japanese houses today have to contend with unique factors that condition their design, from tiny plots in crowded urban contexts to ever-present seismic threats. These challenges encourage their architects to explore alternating ideas of stability and ephemerality in various ways, resulting in spaces that are as fascinating as they are idiosyncratic. Their formal innovation and attention to materials, technology and measures to coax in light and air while maintaining domestic privacy make them cutting-edge residences that suggest new ways of being at home. Contemporary Japanese architecture has emerged as a substantial force on the international scene ever since Kenzo Tange won the Pritzker Prize in 1987. This overview of 50 recent houses powerfully demonstrates Japan’s enduring commitment to design innovation.

Tents, bandstands, displays, places for sitting, listening, seeing and being seen... Pavilions have myriad forms and as many functions. For architects and designers, they offer unique opportunities to experiment with form, construction, material, structure, surface and texture, often as prototypes for larger buildings or as purely artistic pursuits. A pavilion’s particular location also offers rich possibilities for interaction with the landscapes, streetscapes and peoplescapes around it. Pavilions can be temples to digital interaction or provide oases of surreal calm and isolation. This is a selection of the best examples produced in recent years. From the cutting- edge forms of Sou Fujimoto to Zaha Hadid’s Chanel pavilion, from small structures created entirely out of farm waste to a mirrored carapace conceived by Olafur Eliasson, each pavilion featured provides a lesson in the extreme possibilities of built form and demonstrates that many of the biggest ideas in architecture start small.

A career-spanning, slipcased monograph in two volumes presenting the work of one of Asia's most thoughtful and innovative architects. With rising populations around the world and the pressures of looming climatic catastrophe, the work of Vo Trong Nghia is a call for architecture to transform itself from a source of pollution to a reason for hope. Nor is this idea anecdotal: the World Green Building Council estimates that 39% of energy-related carbon emissions can be attributed to buildings. An awareness of architecture’s responsibilities has permeated the profession in the developed world, while new ideas and solutions are coming from places where these issues are most acute. Following a long recovery from decades of war, Vietnam has emerged as one of the most exciting centres of design Asia – led largely by the work of Vo Trong Nghia, born one year after the end of the Vietnam War, whose work has gained an international following. As a student in Japan, he studied under the minimalist architect Hiroshi Naito and encountered the work of the Colombian architect Simón Vélez, a proponent of bamboo architecture with its large spans and high, voluminous spaces – the ideas and teachings of both were to have a profound influence on his own designs. The buildings of Vo Trong Nghia Architects, established in Ho Chi Minh City in 2006, make clear reference to these sources and influences of the past, and to Vo’s own adherence to the Five Precepts of Buddhist teaching. The architect's two main themes - green architecture and bamboo as a building material - form the basis of this two-volume celebration of his work. From the Wind and Water Bar, his first foray into bamboo as a building material, to resort complexes, art installations and his game-changing series of residences, House for Trees, Vo Trong Nighia: Building Nature proves that green architecture creates local relevance, beauty and elegance in its own right.

This survey presents the most striking, innovative and unusual white houses by contemporary architects spanning the globe from Asia to the Americas, showcasing inspirational residential projects by established and emerging talents, including Aires Mateus, Jakob + Macfarlane, Jürgen Mayer and Shinichi Ogawa. From radical new takes on traditional building forms in Latin America to state-of-the-art urban projects in Europe and Japan, each featured house employs the apparent simplicity of white to reflect light and accent materiality, pressing the frontiers of form to the point of abstraction. A white house is also a statement, translating a desire to stand out, just as it may also create a neutral surface for expression. This stylish and timeless publication therefore celebrates a universal form for all people and lifestyles.

A stunning collection of outstanding works of contemporary residential architecture from around the world. Contemporary Interiors is the perfect source of inspiration for homeowners and architects alike.

This is the first book on the world-renowned Chilean architect Cazu Zegers, who practices an intensely ecological form of architecture based on an observation of the territory and landscape in which she builds. Working frequently in timber, Zegers has developed a philosophy about how to inhabit territories. Starting with what she calls poetic proposals, Zegers reaches unique, sustainable, and recyclable solutions that combine the traditional work of Chilean carpenters with modern techniques. In an almost metaphysical journey, where organic forms, curves, diagonals, and verticals are combined, Zegers affirms her rising presence as a force in ecologically minded architecture. The book is filled with private residences, hotels, and sacred spaces that evoke the geographical magnitude of the Andean landscape. Projects include the Soplo ( Breath ) House, built in an urban setting, with living that occurs in a continuous flow, between interior and exterior, horizontally and vertically. The Tierra Patagonia Hotel, which she associates with the poetic word Viento, (Wind), emerges beside craggy mountains and the glistening Lake Sarmiento at the entrance of the Torres del Paine National Park, with stunning views of the Patagonia wilderness in a luxury setting. The large format book includes sketches for each project and is printed with a fifth color throughout.

A seductive, stylish, compelling, and authoritative assembly of vanguard small-scale houses that tread very lightly in nature, leading the way for architects, homeowners, and dreamers to rethink ways we can live, reside, and flourish.Architects have sought more and more to integrate residences into their settings minimally disturbing nature, with houses that float on the water or up in the trees. This book reveals 51 designs that bring their residences into nature, even allowing the natural setting to enter the very walls, with priority given to sustainability and carbon footprint. Each of the book’s homes is carefully chosen for its innovative and seductive design, approachable scale, and stunning location, whether cocooned within the earth itself or soaring high amongst the treetops, surrounded by cooling waters, or resisting the desert heat.Considerations of energy consumption can dictate a green roof in some cases, while blending ever more fully into the environment gives the satisfaction of not existing in contradiction with the world, a kind of escape to the original garden, or more precisely, a return to fundamental, incontrovertible values.The book’s collection spans the globe—from a remote bay on Bruny Island (Tasmania) to an isolated beach in Nicaragua or cabin perched above a fjord in Norway. Today’s architectural vanguard is represented, as well as established firms working at the forefront of twenty-first-century design, such as Tom Kundig of the Seattle practice Olson Kundig and Snøhetta from Oslo. With a wealth of photographs showcasing each house inside and out, plus plans, Houses Natural/Natural Houses offers inspiration—and tranquility.

Inaugurated in 2020 and founded by entrepreneur Paul Thiers, N.E.S.T. is a bold incubator for contemporary creation bringing together art, design, architecture, wine, automobiles, and music under one roof. Part exhibition space, part meeting place, part laboratory, it invites dialogue, cross-pollination, and independent thinking. This richly illustrated volume plunges readers into the heart of N.E.S.T. Through more than 200 previously unpublished photographs, it reveals an extraordinary constellation of objects and works: iconic pieces of modern and contemporary design, classic cars, rare vintage wines, and major artworks by figures including Wolfgang Tillmans, Christopher Wool, Franz West, Tracey Emin, Bruce Nauman, Thomas Schutte, Gunther Forg, Danh Vo, and others who shape today s artistic landscape. At the core is the building itself transformed by architect Olivier Dwek into a space where industrial rawness meets organic harmony. More than a setting, N.E.S.T. is a living, breathing environment where creativity unfolds. Visually striking and intellectually stimulating, N.E.S.T.: House of the Arts is essential reading for lovers of art, design, and architecture and for anyone drawn to places where ideas and opinions are free to grow.

Contemporary Interiors showcases a wide range of twenty-first-century residences by world-renowned architects and designers. Filled with more than 300 color illustrations, specialist Philip Jodidio compiles from around the globe fifty of the most innovative homes designed and built within the last five years. Whether urban or rural, large or small, the book has projects that are international in scope: a summer home in Montauk by Roman and Williams, Houssein Jarouche's apartment in Brazil by Triptyque; a David Adjaye house in West London; a Luxembourg ecogreen house by Richard Meier; a Studio Mumbai Palmyra house in India; a Shigeru Ban-designed villa in Sri Lanka; a Tadao Ando house in Monterrey; Sean Godsell's Edward Street House in Melbourne, Australia. The book has hundreds of design ideas from minimialist white to cozy color that can be applied to each room of the house.Sou Fujimoto experiments with a house that is entirely open, without clearly defined floors; Werner Sobek's B10 House is designed to be dismantled in one day and rebuilt in the same time frame; Eduardo Arroyo's house in Spain has iridescent polycarbonate walls that change colors with the light; the Leaf House by Mareines and Patalano architects has a curving swimming pool that enters the house and passes below the dining room where it becomes a pond with aquatic plants and fish; Steven Holl's gallery and house in Seoul has his signature door that wraps into a corner, notched walls, and neo-constructivist lighting fixtures.

Pritzker Prize winning architect Christian de Portzamparc is renowned for bold yet artful architecture that is at once sensitive to its context while at the same time being novel, adventurous, and frequently exciting. One57, the soaring residential skyscraper in New York, with unparalleled views of Central Park, is perhaps his most famous building in the United States, but his work ranges widely across the globe, from an extraordinary handkerchief puff shaped boutique for Christian Dior in Seoul to a low-winged arabesque of a building for the wine producer Cheval Blanc to a mysterious temple of the modern for Casarts in Casablanca. This volume, the first major comprehensive book on Portzamparc s work in more than three decades, is a revelation and a comprehensive survey of the work of one of the world s most innovative and exciting architects at the height of his powers.

This collection of visionary residences takes us on a tour of the height in luxury, designed to accommodate all amenities available from the indoor gym and hair salon to the movie theatre, champagne vault and wine cellar, cigar room, and wellness room. California Living looks at McClean s rise to prominence, from his first Bird Streets home in the Hollywood Hills to houses that drew attention from the likes of fashion designer Calvin Klein and the record-setting Bel Air home of Beyonce and Jay Z. In addition to incorporating water in all of his designs, he makes extensive use of glass to eliminate the barrier between the indoors/outdoors. His sleek designs seamlessly integrate the outdoors taking advantage of the spectacular views and landscapes. After an illustrated introduction, the portfolio section of twenty-four magnificent ultra-modern homes describes each house in detail with sketches and site plans, explaining the architect s work. McClean offers his reflections on these beautiful projects and the design strategies behind their creation, all completed in the past fifteen years. McClean Design has grown into one of the leading contemporary residential design firms in the fashionable areas of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, with projects throughout the Western United States and beyond to Hawaii and British Columbia

The scope of Emre Arolat Architecture (EAA) projects is all-encompassing, from luxury hotels, museums, and factories to multiuse complexes. EAA's roots are in modernism's honesty of structure, expression, and materials, yet their projects are tempered by the context and the tradition and culture from which they spring.The book highlights thirty-two projects across Turkey, England, Portugal, and the United States. Projects include the award-winning Sancaklar mosque, built in a cavelike space with walls of concrete and slate, which seamlessly blend in with the topography; the architect sought to strip away design conventions and return to the essence of Islamic philosophy. The Museum Hotel Antakya engages a novel design strategy for a hospitality center, which straddles archaeological findings: it is built alongside the ruins of St. Pierre Church (an important Christian pilgrimage site). Other projects include the innovative Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture, which will historically document and display the largest collection of paintings of Turkish artists, and the Abdullah Gul Presidential Museum and Library, the first presidential museum of Turkey. All-new photography for each project is accompanied by the architect's drawings and plans.

Tadao Ando is one of the best-known and most influential contemporary architects with a minimalistic aesthetic and love of natural materials like glass and concrete proof that less is more. This volume features ten houses and examines his approach to these designs. Viewed as a collection, these houses serve to demonstrate the wide range of Ando s prodigious genius through lavish and striking photographs. Characteristics of his work include large expanses of unadorned architectural concrete walls combined with wooden or stone floors and large windows. He uses simple methods to solve complicated and small spaces and turns them into spaces with breathtaking landscapes. With precise and beautiful photographs accompanied by Tadao Ando s sketches, drawings, and plans, this volume presents several unseen and little published works, from the Bosco Studio and House facing the Pacific Ocean in Oaxaca, Mexico (2014)to a penthouse in Manhattan for a Japanese collector, completed in 2019.

October 2019 marks a milestone for the Museum of Fine Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland, with its long-awaited reopening in a new site: a striking contemporary building from the award-winning Italian and Catalan architects Barozzi Veiga. An art center within the heart of one of Switzerland s most beautiful cities, this space will house the museum s prestigious collection of over 11,000 works, from eighteenth-century pieces to contemporary art. Edited and authored by the well-known architecture expert Philip Jodidio, this book is dedicated to the ambitious project of rehousing a collection that was begun in 1841. With 150 photographs and drawings that illuminate an enormous undertaking, this volume provides a detailed insight into the different phases of design and construction, and the creation of an art complex that will later include museums of photography and design created by the Portuguese architects Aires Mateus.

Seeking the perfect escape from city life and congestion? This book is filled with environmentally low-impact homes and retreats using eco-friendly materials and technology that reduce the carbon footprint and lower its energy needs, all built within the past ten years. The broadening interest in back to nature and homesteading plays a role, and many new structures are examples of sustainability that are in touch with nature, far from the madding crowd but not only for the select few.International in scope, the book is an A to Z of ideas for the twenty-first century, from a pavilion in Argentina to a forest house in New Zealand, all designed to have minimal architectural traces--made with local materials that harmonize with the surrounding environment. An outdoor care retreat outside Oslo provides space where visitors can benefit from the therapeutic qualities of nature; a residence in Tottori, Japan, adapts with the changing seasons; a treehouse in Cape Town uses cylindrical towers that are elevated on stilts, offering views among the trees; and in Quebec, three geodesic domes were designed as part of an eco-tourism project to highlight the area's natural beauty. Each house is paired with photographs and plans.

Architect Olivier Dwek celebrates the twentieth anniversary of his firm with a new book highlighting his signature style of modern European luxury.A virtuoso of volumes and a master of light, Brussels-based architect Olivier Dwek shapes buildings and interiors that are inhabited by a timeless aura. Fluid lines and varied perspectives define monumental structures, enhancing details and contemporary art pieces in both private and public spaces, all imbued with serene elegance.Ranging from Greek vacation homes to Parisian townhouses, this volume celebrates the refined approach that marks Dwek's style while taking the reader on a journey across Europe and the world. Vibrant photographs showcase Dwek's fascination with textures and new uses for materials developed in collaboration with artists and artisans. His skilled use of light, his innate sense of symmetry, and his effortless merging of architectural elements with design details are all apparent in this volume. With texts by architecture expert Philip Jodidio, this printed journey through Dwek's buildings and interiors is bound to seduce architecture connoisseurs and curious spirits alike.

Koichi Takada is part of a new generation of architects striving to bring nature back into the urban environment an approach he developed after living in Tokyo, New York, and London. His architecture reconnects people to the natural environment, drawing inspiration from organic forms and local contexts. This elegant volume showcases a series of Takada s recent projects, illustrating the unique way his talent connects the natural and the designed, and how it has evolved over the last ten years. Beautiful photographs of buildings and interiors juxtapose against sketches and images of nature illustrating the aesthetic inspirations behind the designs and the way they embody light, air, and even sound. Philip Jodidio s texts guide readers through the range of spaces that span from the interiors of the award-winning National Museum of Qatar in Doha and Urban Forest in Brisbane, the greenest residential building in Australia, to striking buildings in Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, China, and the construction of a new space in Tokyo. This unique architectural journey will inspire readers to see architecture with a new mindset.

Whether it s a yearning to escape the stress of day-to-day existence, or a desire to live more sustainably and to get closer to nature, more and more people are finding reasons to go off-grid, high above the ground. Today s treehouses have evolved into shapes and sizes that nobody could ever have dreamed of. Philip Jodidio takes us on an exciting international tour of more than 36 structures, revealing how they are designed, built, and appreciated in a wide array of cultures and settings. Each treehouse is presented with breathtaking exterior and interior photography, giving readers an in-depth glimpse of this rapidly evolving symbiosis between nature and shelter, indoor and outdoor, and rustic and polished, in a definitive examination of tree-house living. For people interested in eco-friendly living, this book presents the most innovative inter-pretations of the genre, from a house nestled in the tree trunks of Norway to a hexagon-shaped shelter in Mystic, Connecticut.

In 2005, Fran Silvestre founded his Valencia-based interior design studio and architecture firm, Fran Silvestre Arquitectos. With its clean lines and minimalist yet sophisticated style, the practice rapidly attracted international renown. This monograph presents Fran Silvestre s finest projects that display his ethos of efficient beauty. Driven by the search for architectural continuity and the aim to create ideal places to live in, Silvestre pays special attention to the cohesion of his buildings within their natural environment the volumes celebrate their surroundings rather than take away from them. From the sunny shores of Valencia and Alicante in Spain to the verdant hillsides of Brazil and Colombia to Los Angeles and China, the striking projects illustrate Silvestre s approach of conceiving architecture that holds onto air and walks on water. Complete with an informative text written by leading expert Philip Jodidio, this new title will inspire readers to see architecture in a new way.

Tadao Ando is one of the best-known and most influential architects of the contemporary age. His work is unmistakably spiritual, even for a nonbeliever. Heavily influenced by Japanese traditions and primarily interested in using concrete as a building material, Ando leverages simplicity to make it easy for people to experience the spirit and beauty of nature, leaving out ornament in favour of emphasizing the buildings surroundings and embedding with the natural world. To Ando, sunlight, wind, and rain are expressions of the natural world, and geometry is also part of the underlying reality of life. Philip Jodidio provides insight into Ando s unique way of envisioning spiritual spaces, which intermingle simplicity with mystery and rationality with wild nature. The volume features thirteen places from the Hill of the Buddha in Sapporo, Japan, which is surrounded by thousands of lavender plants, to the Meditation Space in Paris, where one can pause for a moment of quiet reflection. The Church of the Light is marked only by a cruciform opening that leaves the spectator to contemplate the qualities of form, light, and space. At the Water Temple, an elliptical lotus pond appears behind a curved wall.

This volume presents a new collection of Takada s most recent projects, pushing further his continuing reflections on reconnecting the natural world with the built environment. Featuring breathtaking photography of his buildings and interiors, along with sketches and nature-inspired imagery, the book guides readers through Takada s global work and innovations. The climate positive residence Sunflower House in Italy has a rotating roof and floors to manage sun exposure and heat gain; the Landmark by Lexus pavilion in Melbourne has 1,000 native Australian plants growing on its facade that granted it a carbon neutral certification; the Palm Frond Retreat at Balmoral Beach in Australia is designed for the inhabitants to use different parts of the house depending on the season and time of day, creating positive impact within homes. Each project illustrates Takada s study of how the present ecological constrains weigh on the architectural design processes and how the reality of our densely built habitats changes the perception we have of buildings and cities, offering a compelling look at environmentally conscious architecture today and to the future evolution of the practice.

The first complete survey of the thirty-six museums built by world-renowned architect Tadao Ando, spanning Japan, Korea, China, Europe, Uzbekistan, Dubai, and the United States. Designed for readers who want to understand how groundbreaking museum environments are conceived, this richly illustrated volume illuminates Ando s approach through photography, plans, models, and never-before-seen sketches. A Pritzker Prize winning master of light, concrete, and geometric purity, Ando reimagines museums as immersive experiences where architecture and landscape merge. This book opens the door to his creative process, showing how he shapes atmosphere, movement, and emotional impact through minimal materials and precise spatial harmony. Covering more than three decades of visionary work from early icons in Naoshima, Osaka, and Kyoto to the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the transformation of Punta della Dogana in Venice, and the Naoshima New Museum of Art (opened May 2025) the book traces the evolution of Ando s singular design philosophy and presents his major upcoming projects. Created in close collaboration with Tadao Ando and his studio, this volume offers unparalleled insight into the concepts, discipline, and 'secrets' behind Ando s most celebrated cultural landmarks.

Architecture and automobiles have been intrinsically linked since the dawn of the internal combustion engine - from the assembly plant to the showroom and on to that ubiquitous fixture of the artificial landscape, the service station. The streamlined forms of automobiles have often inspired architects and some have even ventured into designing their own cars. Features Foster and Partners, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, ONL, Renzo Piano, Populous, Zaha Hadid, UNStudio and Massimiliano Fuksas.Projects presented include the BMW Museum in Munich, the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, the Audi museum in Ingolstadt by 24-H, Manuel Gautrand's Citroen museum on the Champs Elyssee in Paris, and the Regio Emilia bridge by Santiago Calatrava in Italy.

Valode & Pistre seem atypical in the world of contemporary architecture. Their bright, cheerful offices on the Rue du Bac in the heart of Paris reflect this nature. It seems quite natural that artists who work with light such as Yann Kersalé and the late François Morellet have been pleased to create installations specifically for these offices because, from their first iconic completed work, the renovation of the CAPC Bordeaux Contemporary Art Museum, the pair have been actively interested in the connections between art and architecture. Denis Valode says, “We are convinced that the role of the architect is to do more with less and not the contrary. The economy of means—the correct choice of means—is essential. Our goal is to create the best possible result with a certain frugality of means.” Once again, this interest in obtaining the maximum result with a minimum of means leads the architects to note that their approach is particularly well suited to current ecological concerns. Denis Valode and Jean Pistre’s sense of efficiency has proven to be far more durable and better adapted to the demands of contemporary architecture than the many flamboyant styles that have come and gone since they started working together. Their words are in perfect harmony with their ideas—they avoid excessive rhetoric but when they talk about buildings they do so with passion and with clear ideas and methods, often involving their aesthetic sense developed through the world of art.Denis Valode and Jean Pistre oversee one of the most successful architectural offices in France, working on prestigious towers, hospitals, and research facilities, but also on shopping centers and sports venues. Nor are their projects limited to France—they have worked in China, Russia, and numerous other countries. The pair first worked together in 1978 and created Valode & Pistre in 1980. Today the office employs 200 people and provides interior, architectural, and urban design as well as engineering services. These projects highlight the success of the office in breaking through the barriers that usually separate architects who work on privately funded projects and public ones in France.

The multi-award-winning Ahmedabad-based practice matharoo associates was founded in 1992 by Gurjit Singh Matharoo, whose architectural lineage stretches back to his great-grandfather. Focused on highly refined aesthetics that are married with functional yet playful interpretations of design (for instance, the House with Balls or Curtain Door), the firm's holistic approach is well regarded, and ranges across architecture and structural design, interiors and product design, creating public, private, commercial, and institutional works. This splendid volume provides an in-depth look into the creativity and insight of a very contemporary Indian practice.