Architecture and Beauty: Conversations with Architects about a Troubled Relationship

What makes the world s top architects tick? Through discussions with 16 leading architects, including Frank O Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Greg Lynn and Wolf D Prix, unrivalled access is provided to the formative experiences, creative processes and motivations of some of the most influential design figures today. Through personal interviews with Yael Reisner, written up by Fleur Watson, the authors capture the voices, thoughts and personalities of their subjects. So rare and intimate are the insights that it is often akin to being a party to the very conversations themselves. The articles bring us up close to these creative minds with such widely differing positions and opinions, each expressing a very different point of view on aesthetics: whether they think beauty is integral or non–essential to architecture. Fascinating in what it tells us about individual architects and their work, most significantly Architecture and Beauty raises poignant issues regarding the place of beauty, aesthetics and self–expression within the psychology and the design process of the architectural avant–garde.

Dedication.

Acknowledgements.

Genesis of a Troubled Relationship.

Frank O Gehry.

Zvi Hecker.

Peter Cook.

Juhani Pallasmaa.

Lebbeus Woods.

Gaetano Pesce.

Wolf D Prix.

Thom Mayne.

Eric Owen Moss.

Will Aslop.

Zaha Hadid.

Odile Decq.

Mark Goulthorpe.

Greg Lynn.

Kol/Mac.

Hernan Diaz Alonso.

Suggested Reading.

Index.

Picture Credits.

YAEL REISNER has a Diploma in Architecture from the Architectural Association in London. Before turning to architecture, she completed a BSc in Biology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Born in Tel Aviv, she now lives in London where she has her own practice. Having taught for nine years at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL), she currently teaches internationally while completing a PhD at RMIT in Australia on the theme of emotional beauty and experience in contemporary architecture. She is also curating two parallel exhibitions on the work of Gaetano Pesce for the Design Museum and the Aram Gallery in London.

FLEUR WATSON is a design journalist, curator and former Editor–in–Chief of the Australian architecture journal MONUMENT (2001–7). She has a Bachelor in Design from Curtin University, an Associate Degree in Journalism and a Masters of Arts in Curating Contemporary Design from London s Design Museum and Kingston University. Fleur is Director of something together, a multi–disciplinary studio that presents architecture through events and exhibitions, and is the Managing Curator for the Cultural Program of Melbourne′s State of Design Festival.