Book #022 - Rem Koolhaas: Conversations with Students

Award-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is the founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and has become one of the most intriguing and exciting architectural thinkers of our time. This small-scale, affordable paperback presents a selection of texts from a seminar series conducted by Koolhaas, as well as an essay by the architect discussing three of OMA's large-scale projects. Addressing questions of urbanism and architecture in Europe, Asia, and the United States, these texts ultimately illuminate in a concise manner OMA's long-term mission and ideals.

Book #021 - Louis Kahn: Conversations with Students

Louis Kahn (1901-74) is one of the most renowned practitioners of international modernism, on a par with Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe in the extent of his influence on subsequent generations of architects. Kahn sought the spiritual in his powerful forms, and encouraged his students to seek the essential nature of architecture. His Philadelphia-based practice was responsible for such masterpieces as the Richards Medical Research building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Yale Art Gallery extension in New Haven, Connecticut; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas; the government complex at Dhaka, Bangladesh; and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.
This title, in the same format as our highly successful Rem Koolhaas: Conversations with Students, contains a little-known essay by Kahn on his sources of inspiration, an interview with the architect on his working methods and his vision for the future of the profession, and writings on Kahn by Michael Bell and Lars Lerup, contributors to our title Stanley Saitowitz.
Louis Kahn: Conversations with Students is the latest title in the series from the Rice University School of Architecture.

Book #020 - Le Corbusier Talks with Students

First published in France in 1943 and translated for English-speaking readers in 1961, Le Corbusier Talks with Students presents advice and commentary from the master of modernism for young architects-to-be. In chapters ranging from 'Disorder' to 'The Construction of Dwellings' to 'A Research Workshop,' Le Corbusier discusses his views on architectural history and offers opinions on the future of the profession, while touching on his own projects for the Villa Savoye, the Cite Universitaire, and the Radiant City. Topics such as architecture's role in our directionless society; the balance between spiritual values and technical factors; and the importance of space, proportion, and color are explored by this renowned architect, and still resonate today, almost 50 years later. Our reprint of this classic text is a facsimile of the 1961 edition, now available as an affordable paperback. Similar titles from Princeton Architectural Press include Louis Kahn: Conversations with Students and Rem Koolhaas: Conversations with Students.

Book #019 - Le Corbusier's Hands by André Wogenscky

An assistant to and friend of Le Corbusier, Wogenscky portrays the modernist architect, designer and writer in 50 short chapters in this slender volume, an emotional and poetic accompaniment to traditional biographies.

Eschewing biographical facts and reproductions of Le Corbusier's work, Wogenscky offers a more intimate look at Le Corbusier: detailed images of the wrinkles in his hands, a memory of his mother playing Händel on the piano and the guiding ideology behind his influential design principle for Unités d'Habitation, the urban housing units he designed.

Using enigmatic and often contradictory quotations and anecdotes from Le Corbusier's letters and work, Wogenscky gives a balanced, airy view of the architect. Quotations from writers and thinkers like Rilke, Montaigne and Lao-tzu (identified only in the notes in the back) add depth, but the lack of attribution may make it difficult for readers to differentiate between contributions from outside sources and Le Corbusier's own words. A singular complement to Le Corbusier's work, this book is also an inspiring depiction of an artist.