I’ve been carrying New Architects 4 up and down the stairs for the last week, but that’s not something I advise. It’s a heavy thing – literally a brick of a book – so I’m sure it’s intended to sit happily and steadfastly on a coffee table.
But, yes, I’ve been reading it cover to cover as if it was a much more normal book, because I’m both a word geek and an architecture geek, professionally and personally, so this book meets me at every junction. If you’ve done the same give me a shout. It’s likely we’ve got quite a bit in common.
Anyway, it’s a beautiful thing, inside and out.
I loved the essays at the beginning, which put me in exactly the right mindset to see architecture as a way to change the world. And I loved the way the profiles brought me together with old friends, current clients, and so many others who I’d love to get to know.
Actually, I’m in profound awe of Pamela Buxton who wrote about all 109 practices, pulling out what was different, interesting and unusual about each one. Writing about one practice is, as I know well, a serious endeavour, so writing about 109 of them is a marathon worthy of high praise.
Hats off to the Architecture Foundation for making it happen.