Chiharu Shiota (SP ED.)

Las líneas de la mano Chiharu Shiota Casa Asia presents the contents of the first exhibition by Chiharu Shiota (Osaka, 1972) in Barcelona, showing installations integrated in a unique project at its headquarters. Shiota’s installations produce their own spaces, where hundreds of invisible threads that bond us to things can be seen. In these domestic scenarios she proposes, threads become bridges between a bride’s dress and the absent subject, a piano, suitcases and a mirror. In her work, these threads are veins with tears, fear for abyss, life and death; threads that are plots of particular and universal stories, interweaving like the inverted roots of a tree, just like a rhizome through multiple branches that hold up the relationship between she and the world. EBOOK VERSION

The Metapolis Dictionary (ENG ED.)

City, technology and society in the information age Manuel Gausa, Vicente Guallart, Willy Muller, Federico Soriano, Fernando Porras, José Morales In the format of a selective dictionary of cross-referenced terms, Metapolis identifies a new architectural will within the contemporary social and cultural panorama. It contributes to a global vision of the emerging new architectural action that participates in advanced cultureâ and visual art disciplines and technology. The book speaks of an architecture inscribed in the information society and influenced by the new technologies, the new economy, environmental concerns and individual interests. The diversity of authors and works is invaluable for the generational intersections in theory discourse. Featuring Manuel Gausa, Vicente Guallart, Willy Muller, Federico Soriano, José Morales, Fernando Porras, Iñaki Ãbalos y Juan Herreros, José Alfonso Ballesteros, Xavier Costa, Enric Ruiz-Geli, Alejandro Zaera Polo. Buy Spanish Edition

A New Urban Metabolism

J.Acebillo, Alessandro Martinelli The growing urbanization of the planet, visible in the fact that by the middle of this century some 70% percent of the population will live in cities, situates the urban question as a key issue for global sustainability. Many of the causes generating the huge environmental crises, climate change for instance, have their rationale in the metabolic inefficiency of our cities. Greater metabolic efficiency contributes to the energy rationalization of urban system and also contributes to greater urban competitiveness. Urban metabolic analysis demonstrates efficiency that small and medium-sized cities can have in the new neo-tertiary context, and could be used as a test to previously evaluate the functional and ecological consequences of future urban transformations.

Verb Connection (ENG. ED.)

Albert Ferré The third issue of Verb boogazine is about the changing status of the city in the electronic era. Connection looks at the impact of electronic technology on new forms of urban reality, which are generated by new phenomena that affect all aspects of space and the experience of living in these new urbanisms. Faced with an increased blurring of the distinctions between the physical and the informational dimension of cities, we explore the relation between virtual connections - the effect of digital networks on the spaces and uses of the city - and the persistent role of architecture in creating physical connections between people, programs and uses. Featured works and texts: OMA, Atelier Bow-Wow, AUDC, PLOT. Featuring the Palast der Republik story in Berlin, Chip City by Shinobu Hashimoto and Rients Dijkstra, and Sim City, which contrasts the real city (the product of virtual processes) with virtual cities (created by real people, via computer-based simulations).

A Peripheral Moment

Experiments in Architectural Agency: Croatia 1990-2010

Ivan Rupnik A comprehensive account of the recent architectural scene in Croatia, this book is an account of the highly productive decade of architectural experimentation in Croatia lodged between the violent break-up of Yugoslavia and their slow integration into the EU. Ivan Rupnik guides the reader through the emergence of this bizarre and fascinating architectural scene on the very edge of united Europe, utilizing Ljubo Karaman's theory of the periphery as a distinct space of artistic production from that of the center or province, Manfredo Tafuri's concept of architectural experimentation, as well contemporary notions of agency. The account is framed using a variety of different lenses, including the observations of this moment by renowned writers, through the atmosphere of the period as defined by Croatia's complex post-socialist/postwar identity and the subsequent positioning of the architectural profession vis-a-vis that context, the practices that emerged, and through a series of discussions with some of the peripheral moment's primary agent provocateurs: 3LHD, njiric , Randic - Turato, and STUDIO UP.

Candide 4

Journal for Architectural Knowledge Axel Sowa Candide is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to exploring the culture of knowledge specific to architecture. It is released twice a year in English and German. Each issue of Candide is made up of five distinct sections. This frame- work responds to the diversity of architectural knowledge being produced, while challenging authors from all disciplines to test a variety of genres in order to write about and represent architecture. “Essay” provides a forum for discussion of architectural knowledge, including both fundamental research into and speculative arguments on its nature. “Analysis” allows for in-depth examination of built form: how can the knowledge embodied in buildings be retrospectively extracted and creatively re-used? “Project” is directed at architects who see design as a theoretical tool: how can a specific design proposal become a model of thought? “Encounters” gives access to the personal knowledge of renowned, unjustly forgotten, or entirely unknown protagonists of architecture. “Fiction” reflects the editors’ conviction that sometimes the imaginary may reveal more about architectural knowledge than science.

Candide 5

A periodic journey of architectural knowledge Axel Sowa, Susanne Schindler Candide is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to exploring the culture of knowledge specific to architecture. In this fifth issue of Candide, rather than one Essay, you will find six articles on the notion of architectural knowledge, and rather than one piece of Fiction, you will be pulled into seven episodes on the elusive quest for architectural greatness. Framed by these shorts, in Analysis, Ian Pepper challenges the reception of Richard Serra by looking at the American artist’s intervention on a nineteenth-century railroad bridge, previously transformed by the Swiss engineer Robert Maillart. In Encounters, Kim Förster employs oral history to unearth stories from behind the scenes of New York’s Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), focusing on its program of publications in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Project, Luc Merx reflects on aspects of ruin and figuration in “Rokokorelevanz,” a research and design project ongoing since 2005. With contributions by Mario Carpo, Kim Förster, Pedro Gadanho, Sophie Houdart, Luc Merx, Ian Pepper, and Katherine Romba, among others.

Desert America

Territory of Paradox Ramon Prat The desert is a huge paradox. Beneath its outward appearance of immensity and silence, are the sounds of various experiments, mysteries, and utopias. The setting of outrageous true histories, entertainment oases founded on consumerism and play, and the secret staging of military power, the desert is far from empty. Instead, it is full of activity: unexpected, uninhibited, and excessive. Not subject to barriers and seemingly free of the formal, ideological or cultural ties of global society, the desert cultivates alternate architectures, urbanisms, and built phenomena. Through photographs, essays, and history, this book emerges as an exploration of some of these phenomena and the protagonists that made them possible.

Architecture & Violence

Bechir Kenzari This is a compelling compilation of essays by international architectural theorists on the relationship of violence to space. With the events of September 11th, the London bombings, the Madrid train explosions, and the daily blasts in Baghdad, the question of violence and terrorism is imposing architectural ramifications with renewed urgency. A new sense of architectural awareness has been forged as violence is forcing its place as an architectural datum. With contributions of: Libero Andreotti, Annette Fierro, Elie Haddad, Dorita Hannah, Sarah Treadwell, Andrew Herscher, Bechir Kenzari, Donald Kunze, Nadir Lahiji, William B. Millard. EBOOK VERSION

Yona Friedman / Pro Domo ( ENG ED. )

Yona Friedman In 1958 Yona Friedman published his first manifesto on "mobile architecture" and founded GEAM (Groupe d'Etude d'Architecture Mobile), which proposed different strategies and actions geared to the adaptation of architectural creation to modern user requirements for social and physical mobility. In this initial manifesto, Friedman claims that architectural knowledge cannot be the exclusive property of professionals and specialists, and suggests writing guides or manuals, which explain topics related to architecture and urban planning in clear and simple terms. Pro Domo is "a collection of fragments of scattered topics," a set of "milestones" selected by the author himself, a personal selection chosen "according to sentimental value", spanning 50 years of production. Spanish edition EBOOK VERSION

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Experiments in Architectural Agency: Croatia 1990-2010