Modern minimalism with a Japanese touch Philippe Starck describes him as a "mystic in a country which is no longer mystic." Drew Philip calls his buildings "land art" that "struggle to emerge from the earth." He is the only architect to have won the discipline`s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. His name is Tadao ...

Modern minimalism with a Japanese touch Philippe Starck describes him as a "mystic in a country which is no longer mystic." Drew Philip calls his buildings "land art" that "struggle to emerge from the earth." He is the only architect to have won the discipline`s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. His name is Tadao Ando, and he is one of the ...

Functional beauty Founded in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus school developed a revolutionary approach that fused fine art with craftsmanship and engineering in everything from architecture to furniture, typography, and even theater. Originally headed by Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus counted among its members artists and architects such as Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, ...

Feats of design and engineering Santiago Calatrava is not only one of the world’s most prominent architects, but is also an engineer, sculptor, and painter. His reputation as an unparalleled architectural engineer was cemented with his numerous bridges for cities around the world. With recent projects such as the stadium for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and the new railway station in Liège, Belgium, ...

Experimentation and invention The focus of this monograph on Spanish-born Félix Candela (1919–1997) is on modern Mexican architecture and its international influence. Conducting daring structural experiments with materials such as reinforced concrete and experimenting with shell vaulting to find new methods to save costs and material in building, Candela not only succeeded in putting his engineering ...

The desert modernist In 1930, when Albert Frey (1903-1998) came to the US from his native Switzerland, he brought the influence of his mentor, Le Corbusier, with him. The innovative Aluminaire House that he developed together with A. L. Kocher was exhibited in 1932 by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson in the legendary show in the Museum of Modern Art in New York “The International Style: ...

Inspiring, visionary buildings by the great Gaudí "Do you want to know where I found my model An upright tree; it bears its branches and these, in turn, their twigs, and these, in turn, the leaves. And every individual part has been growing harmoniously, magnificently, ever since God the artist created it." - Antoni Gaudí Raised during the Industrial Revolution, Spanish architect Antoni ...

Inspiring, visionary buildings by the great Gaudí "Do you want to know where I found my model An upright tree; it bears its branches and these, in turn, their twigs, and these, in turn, the leaves. And every individual part has been growing harmoniously, magnificently, ever since God the artist created it." - Antoni Gaudí Raised during the Industrial Revolution, Spanish architect Antoni ...

The avant-gardist The influence of the Austrian architect and designer Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) is extraordinary: for a period of over 60 years he kept up an aesthetic dialog with Modernism, the International Style, and Art Deco. Before being rediscovered in the 1980s by the Post-Modernists, his work was nearly forgotten; now his importance is unquestioned. As a designer he was one of the leading ...

Space age architecture "Disappearing space seems to me to be the most durable and endurable and life-giving quality in architecture." - John Lautner American architect John Lautner (1911-1994) is responsible for some of the most original buildings of the space age and, indeed, the 20th century. The residences he designed in the Los Angeles area, including the Chemosphere House and the ...

Architectural poetry in the machine age "Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light." - Le Corbusier Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) adopted his famous pseudonym after publishing his ideas in the review L`Esprit Nouveau in 1920. The few buildings he was able to design during the 1920s, when he also spent much ...

A prophet of modern architecture "Mankind loves everything that serves his comfort. He hates everything that wants to tear him from his habitual and safe position and that bothers him. And thus he loves the building and hates art." - Adolf Loos Widely regarded as one of the most significant prophets of modern architecture, Adolf Loos (1870-1933) was a star in his own time, known throughout ...

Let There Be Light The work of celebrated American architect Richard Meier As one of the most important contemporary architects, Richard Meier (b. 1934) is a key figure in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series. His brilliant career ranges from elegant family homes to dazzling institutional buildings like the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. This work gives an insight into the development ...

Expressionist at heart The work of Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953) is extraordinarily open-minded in its attitude to material and planning, as a result of his completely original form of architectural thinking. Mendelsohn`s genius lay in the fact that he was not influenced by his predecessors; rather, his imagination sprung from an entirely personal place, refusing to borrow from any existing artistic ...

Less is more: finding perfection in purity Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) was one of the founding fathers of modern architecture. The creator of the Barcelona Pavilion (1929), the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois (1945–1951) and the Seagram Building in New York (1954–1958), Mies was one of the founders of a new architectural style. Well known for his motto "less is more," ...