This timely book reflects an awakening of interest in religious faiths and the emergence of a 'global exchange of architecture and culture. While Spain's Rafael Moneo has recently completed a cathedral in Los Angeles, Britain's Thomas Heatherwick is designing a Buddhist temple in Japan, John Pawson is working on a Cistercian monastery in the Czech Republic and Richard Meier has completed his Jubilee Church in Rome. It seems, as one Wallpaper registered] pundit commented, 'religion is getting a redesign' and the architect's faith is as unimportant as his or her nationality. I Looking at ways in which contemporary architects are approaching religious or meditative space, this book focuses on churches, chapels, temples, synagogues and mosques that have been built in the last few years and that represent a late-twentieth/ early-twenty-first century aesthetic.

Image, Text, Architecture brings a radical and detailed analysis of the modern and contemporary architectural media, addressing issues of architectural criticism, architectural photography and the role of journal editors. It covers examples as diverse as an article by British artist Paul Nash in The Architectural Review, 1940, an early project by French architects Lacaton & Vassal published in the journal 2G, 2001, and recent photography by Hisao Suzuki for the Spanish journal El Croquis. At the intersection of image and text the book also reveals the role of the utopian impulse within the architectural media, drawing on theories of utopian discourse from the work of the French semiotician and art theorist Louis Marin, and the American Marxist critic Fredric Jameson. Through this it builds a fresh theoretical approach to journal studies, revealing a hitherto unexplored dimension of "latent" or "unconscious" discourse within the media portrait of architecture. The purpose of this enquiry is to highlight moments where a different type of critical voice emerges on the architectural journal page, indicating the possibility of a more progressive engagement with the media as a platform for critical and speculative thinking about architecture, and to rethink the journals’ role within architectural history.

An investigation of the influences and evolution of modern Spain’s underappreciated, but foundational, architecture. Spain’s remarkable twentieth-century architecture evolved against a turbulent background of revolution, civil war, dictatorship, and transition to democracy. Architecture played a key role in Spain’s struggle out of poverty and isolation, and its search for identity in the modern world. This book examines Spanish architecture from the roots of Modernism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the present, analyzing significant figures and their works in relation to their political, social, and cultural contexts, as well as their contributions to architecture as a whole. From the austere, local Modernism of the 1920s, the influence of international trends in the ’30s, the renewed, “Organicist” Modernism of the ’50s and ’60s, to the flourishing public architecture of the late twentieth century and beyond, Spain provides a penetrating account of the country’s rich and varied built environment.

The building of religious structures represents a rare opportunity for the architect to concentrate on the creation of volume, space, and form. Sacred architecture is far less determined than other building tasks by functional requirements, norms, and standards. As a rule, it is free to unfold as pure architecture. Thus in design terms this building task offers enormous freedoms to the architect. At the same time, however, the special atmospherics of sacred spaces call, on the part of the architect, for a highly sensitive treatment of religion and the relevant cultural and architectural traditions. In a systematic section, this volume introduces the design, technical, and planning fundamentals of building churches, synagogues, and mosques. In its project section, it also presents about seventy realized structures from the last three decades. Drawing upon his in-depth knowledge of the subject and his many years of publishing experience, the author offers a valuable analysis of the conceptual and formal aspects that combine to create the religious impact of spaces (e.g., the ground plan, the shapes of the spaces, the incidence of light, and materiality).

Over the last few years, architects from around the world are discovering China as the perfect place to develop their architecture. By contrast to the restrictions and limitations of European and American cities, Shanghai, with its seemingly boundless possibilities, represents a bold new opportunity for architecture and urbanism. Shanghai, with the upcoming 2010 World Expo, is immersed in a deep physical transformation, reconsidering the relationships within the city as well as surrounding neighborhoods, and investing in buildings with national and international signatures. "Shanghai Transforming" examines this transformation, focusing on a widely diverse aspects including history, natural and artificial resources, economy, society, and public perception.Graphics and data, along with photographs, and maps, provide the reader with a rich resource from which to understand and appreciate this complex process. With photographs by Juan de Dios Perez and texts by Denise Scott Brown, Saskia Sassen, Silas Chiow, Sharon Haar, Xiangning Li, Xiaochun Zhang, Weigang Qiu, Haolun Shu, Philip Enquist, Sol Madridejos, Juan Carlos Sancho, Robert Venturi, Greg Girard and Jonathan Miller.

Third in the Key series, this book features 95 buildings of the early twenty-first century ... Each of the buildings is illustrated with one or two full-color photographs and accurate scale floor plans, elevations, and sections, as appropriate.

"New Spiritual Architecture looks at ways in which contemporary architects are approaching religious or meditative space. The book focuses on churches, chapels, temples, synagogues and mosques that have been built in the last few years and that represent a late-twentieth/early-twenty-first century aesthetic. These buildings demonstrate how new ideas and developments in urban, domestic and public architecture are being used to inform design that is intended for inspiration, worship or meditation. The text discusses the ways in which architects manipulate light and space and considers the placement of these buildings in their surroundings. Following a brief introduction, the book explores the following five themes: New Traditions, Interventions, Retreats, Grand Icons, and Modest Magnificence. It includes 200 full-color illustrations and 100 line drawings."--BOOK JACKET.

Inspiration for architects and urban planners, this text presents a re-evaluation of a material finally coming into its own in the 21st century - concrete. The text is illustrated with projects from some of the biggest-name architects around.