Pamela Johnston, Sarah Handelman, Jelena Pancevac. Text: Roberto Gargiani, Kersten Geers & David Van Severen
Reference : 61543
, Koenig Verlag, 2023 PB, 302 x 216 mm, 256 pages, 16 illustrations color, 816 z/w illustrations, ENG edition. ISBN 9783753301754.
This book presents OFFICE projects through a critical analysis based on archive documents. It also reconstructs the influence of OFFICE's creative principles among the new generations of architects. The OFFICE projects appeared in the early 2000s and gained prominence as new forms of digital collage with a cultural engagement. The author traces the evolution of their early ideas developed as paper architecture to the current buildings of a significant scale and presence. The underlying argument of the book demonstrates OFFICE's ability to preserve in every project the spark of a theoretical construction, which in most cases is carried out according to a rigorous economy of means. Even the new monuments for public institutions continue to be illuminated by a creative tension of radical superiority. OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen was founded in 2002 by Kersten Geers and David Van Severen. OFFICE is renowned for its idiosyncratic architecture, in which realisations and theoretical projects stand side by side. The projects are direct, spatial and firmly rooted in architectural theory. The firm reduces architecture to its very essence and most original form: a limited set of basic geometric rules is used to create a framework within which life unfolds out in all its complexity. Since its establishment OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen has earned a reputation as one of Belgium's most successful and renowned practices, and one of the world's truly original voices in presentday architecture. OFFICE engages in all architectural and urbanist design, creating projects of all scales ranging from furniture to masterplanning in Belgium as well as internationally. This practice is combined with academic research and teaching. Roberto Gargiani, *1956 in Poggio a Caiano. He has taught the History of Architecture in Florence, Rouen, Paris, Venice and Rome. He is currently a professor of History of Architecture and Construction at the Ecole polytechnique f d rale de Lausanne (EPFL).