Sélection « En vitrine » | Voici les huit recommandations de lecture du mois de mars
De la part de la Librairie du CCA :
“Quelques perspectives actuelles sur nos espaces passés, présents, alternatifs et futurs. Voici huit recommandations que vous trouverez dans notre librairie :
Irma Boom: Book Manifest. Walther König, third revised and expanded edition 2022
In Book Manifest, Dutch designer Irma Boom presents her vision on the essence, meaning and relevance of the book. Based on the in-depth research that Boom conducted into the development of the book in the library of the Vatican. Book Manifest at once a survey of the history of the book and a miniature Irma Boom retrospective, reproducing a selection of more than 350 books she has designed over the course of her eminent career. Alongside reproductions, Boom extensively discusses the relationship between her work and older book forms.
With this tiny (two and a half by three inches), slipcased, 1,000-page, richly illustrated volume, itself an exceptional feat of bookmaking, Boom aims to inspire and encourage a new generation of designers to experiment and develop new ways of conceiving this simplest and most enduringly effective of forms.
Faire – Regarder le graphisme – Volume 12 (#42-43-44-45), Empire Books, 2023
Cette revue critique consacrée au design graphique paraît une fois tous les deux mois, sous forme de recueils incluant entre trois et quatre numéros. Le volume 12 traite notamment de l’écriture typographiée, des gabarits de mise en page et propose une exploration de la revue F.R.DAVID.
A book on making a Petite École. Michael. Meredith, Hilary. Sample, MOS Architects. Actar Publishers, 2023
Dans le cadre de la Biennale d’architecture et de paysage d’Ile de France en 2019, MOS a construit la Petite École, servant de lieu de rencontre et d’apprentissage pour les plus jeunes. Ce livre aborde les questions fondamentales de la pédagogie créative et innovante, de l’accessibilité, de l’expérimentation et de l’équité.
As part of the 2019 Biennale d’architecture et de paysage in Versailles, France, MOS constructed Petite École, a small, open-air pavilion to house educational workshops for children. It is a place for looking and making, and for making and looking, constructed with 688 aluminum pieces modeled, flattened, cut, folded, prefabricated, shipped, and then assembled onsite. It is made to be taken down and reassembled elsewhere. It is designed to be easily understood, made of simple building elements: a long, low roof with columns and stacked beams holding it up.
Make do with now: New directions in Japanese architecture. Yuma. Shinohara and Andreas Ruby. Christoph Merian Verlag, 2022
Make Do With Now presents a new perspective on Japanese architecture by introducing a young generation of architects and designers. Influenced by the Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, they share the desire for a sincere engagement with social, economic, and ecological issues today. Their creative handling of limited resources, found materials, and existing building stock helps them in their quest to respond to these urgent topics. The book’s written contributions and photographic essays provide a multifaceted impression of architectural innovation in Japan now, including more than 20 current projects and a closer look at five architecture practices.
Absolute beginners. Iñaki Abalos. Park Books, 2022
Iñaki Ábalos explores forms of innovation in architecture in his new book. Drawing on diverse materials elaborated during the twenty years since the publication of his best-known book, The Good Life, Ábalos examines questions centered on how and why architectural creation—at least the kind that arouses the greatest cultural interest—is strongly linked to philosophical thought, especially to the essay and the aphorism. He guides us to an understanding of why innovation—as happens in philosophy—is inextricably linked to reflection on the past and to the emergence of new ways of appropriating old problems.
Absolute Beginners is a single essay written with effort and passion, made for the pure pleasure of composing a new and complex work and understanding the source materials as necessary fragments while remaining open to adjustments, changes, and bridges between them.
Architect, verb: The new language of building. Reinier de Graaf. Verso Books, 2023
Architect Reinier de Graaf punctures the myths behind the debates on what contemporary architecture is. Architecture, it seems, has become too important to leave to architects. No longer does it suffice to judge a building solely by its appearance, it must be measured, and certified. When architects talk about “Excellence,” “Sustainability,” “Well-being,” “Liveability,” “Placemaking,” “Creativity,” “Beauty” and “Innovation” what do they actually measure?
De Graaf skewers the doublespeak and hot air of an industry in search of an identity in the 21st century. Who determines how to measure a “green building”? Why is Vancouver more “liveable” than Vienna? How do developers get away with advertising their buildings as promoting “well-being”? Why did Silicon Valley become so obsessed with devising “creative” spaces or developing code that replaces architects? How much revenue can be attributed to the design of public space? Who gets to decide what these measurements should be, and what do they actually mean? And what does it mean for the future of our homes, cities, planet?
Aldo & Hannie van Eyck: Excess of architecture. Kersten Geers, Jelena Pancevac. Walther König, 2023
Dutch architects Aldo and Hannie van Eyck met as students of architecture and married in 1942, and worked together closely on most projects, interrupted only for a few years in the late 1970s. This book, part of the Everything series by Kersten Geers, presents 24 of their buildings; photographed by Bas Princen and featuring drawings (site, plans, sections and elevations) by students of the Academy of Architecture USI, Mendriso.
Vers un art de l’anthropocène : L’art écologique américain pour prototype. Bénédicte Ramade. Les presses du réel, 2022
Comment un mouvement artistique entièrement consacré à l’écologie et apparu aux États-Unis au cours des années 1960 a-t-il pu passer pratiquement inaperçu jusqu’à aujourd’hui ? Telle est la question au cœur de cet ouvrage qui retrace les conditions d’émergence et le développement de corpus entièrement dédiés à la cause environnementale.
Entre découvertes et nécessaires mises au point définitionnelles, Bénédicte Ramade procède à des analyses plurifactorielles, révise les faux-semblants et affirme ainsi le caractère précurseur de cet Art écologique au regard de l’Anthropocène. Dans cette nouvelle perspective théorique et culturelle, le potentiel visionnaire et l’inventivité des démarches d’Agnes Denes, Joe Hanson, Helen Mayer Harrison et Newton Harrison, Patricia Johanson, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Alan Sonfist et encore Mierle Laderman Ukeles prend une envergure inédite.
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