Thom Mayne

Cutting-edge urban proposals from Thom Mayne, one of architecture's most celebrated and controversial practitioners. For the past five decades Thom Mayne and his firm, Morphosis, have been engaged with projects that exist in the hybrid space between architecture and urban planning. This volume, the long-awaited follow-up to Mayne's seminal book Combinatory Urbanism from 2011, presents fourteen urban projects--from Paris and Vienna to Chengdu, China--that show in detail why Mayne and Morphosis stay on the cutting edge of architecture and urban planning. Spectacular models and compelling graphics accompany innovative diagrams and descriptions of projects ranging from public housing in Madrid to regional planning for a high-speed rail system for Cangzhou. Both a manifesto on urbanism and a comprehensive presentation of Morphosis urban design projects, this book fills a void in the world of architectural and urban design publications.

An exhaustive and resounding masterpiece of architectural publishing, this volume, Rizzoli s seventh on Morphosis and its founder, architect Thom Mayne, features the work of the award-winning interdisciplinary architectural and design practice through a careful and comprehensive look at the models upon which all the rest has been built: a 40-plus-year office retrospective, and a love letter to models, their process and concepts, and those that made them. As the name entails, the monograph will include only models, no drawings or explanative building photography, in order to bolster the power and prominence of models in the design process, as presentation material, and within conceptual scope of Morphosis. In addition to models never-before documented or published, the book will also include outside commentary from architecture historians and critics, such as Kenneth Frampton, practicing architects, such as Rem Koolhass, and ex-Morphosis model builders that will explain the power of models in the design practice, unite critical themes embedded in a project s models, and expand the theoretical discourse surrounding Morphosis s work over the past forty years. In essence, the model is not only the concept of the book but rather a vehicle for discussing the broader aims of architecture and exhibiting the conceptual DNA of the office.

Bringing together a select group in tune with both places, the editors asked artists based in Vienna and Los Angeles to contribute a snapshot of their thinking--a spontaneous record in form of a brief written or visual statement to capture an outlook in the future flavored by this very moment in suspense, sheltered in place, and socially distant. Los Angeles-Vienna: an oscillating exchange informed by contrast frequently leading to a surprising outcome. How will this vivid and relevant sphere made up by these two very different urban environments advance tomorrow? 2020 as a pivotal moment in time, captured in artistic footnotes. Vienna artists: Alfredo Barsuglia, Heinrich Dunst, Andreas Fogarasi, Edgar Honetschl ger, Barbara Imhof, Piotr Janowski, Elke Silvia Krystufek, Robert Menasse, Markus Mittringer, Wolf D. Prix/Coop Himmelb(l)au, Eva Schlegel LA: Matias Del Campo & Sandra Manninger (SPAN), Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, April Greiman, Nik Hafermaas, Bettina Khano, Kasper Kovitz, Helmut Lang, Alexandra Lieben, Mark Mack, Kimberly Meyer, Eric O. Moss, Johannes Porsch, Stefan Scherer

An exquisitely crafted, large format volume featuring new and previously unpublished artwork by legendary architect Thom Mayne, principal of Morphosis Architects. Strange Networks debuts a new body of artwork and studies by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne. Emerging from the same interests that shape the design philosophy of his internationally renowned architecture firm Morphosis, the works explore the tension between organizational systems and chance behavior, between the manual and digital, and between individual and collective authorship. Reproduced in exquisite detail, the intricate lithographic prints and digitally derived sculptural works--or "drawdels" for how they combine the notion of drawing and modelling--embody a search for forms and methods resonant with our contemporary state of instability and hyper-connection. With a foreword by Thom Mayne and essays by Stefano Casciani, Sir Peter Cook, Craig Hodgetts, and Frédéric Migayrou.

One of the few truly visionary architects of large-scale commissions working today, Thom Mayne s influential firm Morphosis, founded in the early 1970s, has maintained an avant-garde presence among contemporary architecture firms, even as it has garnered high-profile, big-budget commissions from around the world. Since Rizzoli published Volume I of the Morphosis series in 1989, the Los Angeles based firm has continued to push its intricate modernism into new territories. In the tradition of its four visually groundbreaking predecessors, this fifth volume packs 500 illustrations into a comprehensive tour of Morphosis s activity. New works covered in Volume V include Cal Trans Headquarters in Los Angeles (2004); the San Francisco Federal Office building (2006); the Wayne L. Morse United States Courthouse in Eugene, Oregon (2006); and the University of Cincinnati Student Recreation Center (2006). Projects in progress, such as the New Academic Building for the Cooper Union in New York (expected completion 2008) and the Phare Tower for La Defense, France (2012), will also be featured.

For this volume, over forty internationally renowned architects and educators from Peter Eisenman and the late Zaha Hadid to Rafael Moneo and Cesar Pelli were asked to list the top 100 twentieth-century architectural projects they would teach to students. The contributors were encouraged to select built projects where formal, spatial, technological, and organizational concepts responded to dynamic historical, cultural, social, and political circumstances. The capacity of these buildings to resist, adapt, and invent new typologies solidifies their timeless relevance to future challenges. The result is presented here in this unique volume: a master list of the top 100 must-know built works of architecture designed and completed between 1900 and 2000. Ranging from houses and apartment buildings to museums and buildings for education and government, the book offers a wealth of extraordinary works of design and construction and is an essential edition for anyone with an interest in architecture and design.

Live + Work is a visually immersive monograph of the work of Shubin and Donaldson Architects, whose creative commercial spaces and high-end residential projects draw on the complex vernaculars of Southern California's cultures and traditions. Organized around the organic process of practice, the complex genealogy of projects, and the flow of influence, this monograph examines the contemporary conditions by which we live and work, and how those terms are increasingly blended. Visuals of the select projects are supplemented with drawings, sketches, diagrams, interviews, and essays by Thom Mayne and Joseph Giovannini.

One of the few truly visionary architects of large-scale commissions working today, Thom Mayne’s influential firm Morphosis, founded in the early 1970s, has maintained an avant-garde presence among contemporary architecture firms, even as it has garnered high-profile, big-budget commissions from around the world. Since Rizzoli published Volume I of the Morphosis series in 1989, the Los Angeles–based firm has continued to push its intricate modernism into new territories. In the tradition of its four visually groundbreaking predecessors, this fifth volume packs 500 illustrations into a comprehensive tour of Morphosis’s activity. New works covered in Volume V include Cal Trans Headquarters in Los Angeles (2004); the San Francisco Federal Office building (2006); the Wayne L. Morse United States Courthouse in Eugene, Oregon (2006); and the University of Cincinnati Student Recreation Center (2006). Projects in progress, such as the New Academic Building for the Cooper Union in New York (expected completion 2008) and the Phare Tower for La Defense, France (2012), will also be featured.