Taschen`s new architecture series brings a unique perspective to world architecture, highlighting architectural trends by country. Each book features 15 to 20 architects-from the firmly established to the up-and-coming-with the focus on how they have contributed to very recent architecture in the chosen nation. Entries include contact information and short biographies in addition to copiously illustrated descriptions of the architects` or firms` most significant recent projects. Crossing the globe from country to country, this new series celebrates the richly hued architectural personality of each nation featured.
The words of Frank Lloyd Wright, written near the end of his long career, speak of buildings inevitably linked to nature. Wright`s own conception of "organic" architecture surely had its followers in the United States and elsewhere, but the contemporary situation, the very future that Wright spoke of, seems more distant from the precepts of the greatest of America`s 20th-century architects than he might have hoped. The format and size of this book do not allow it to pretend to be, a complete overview of architecture in the United States. Rather a certain number of recent highlights have been selected, without regard for the defense of a particular style.
The selected projects and architects range from the celebrated (Frank O.Gehry) to the less well known (Michael Jantzen)with a gamut of figures in between who have each, in their own way, marked the architectural scene. There are Pritzker Prize winners (Gehry, Meier, and Thom Mayne of Morphosis), established innovators like Eric Owen Moss, or Steven Holl. They are based in the East (Williams & Tsien, James S.Polshek), the West (Wes Jones, Boora, or Antoine Predock), or the South (Rural Studio). There are innovators who work at the edge, between the virtual and the real, like Asymptote and Jantzen, or rising stars like Diller Scofidio + Renfro and LTL Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis. The point of this enumeration is to emphasize the variety present in this selection, which can serve at the very least as an exciting introduction to a world that seems to have left behind not only Wright, but also Gropius and Mies.