The Zacherlhaus is located in the heart of Vienna, just 180 meters from St. Stephen's Cathedral, and is one of the most important buildings created by the Otto Wagner School. It was built in the years from 1900 to 1913 and designed for its owner Johann Zacherl by Joesef Plecnik, who later taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and from 1925 worked on the urban renewal of Ljubljana. It was the first combined residential and commercial building of modern style in the historic inner city and is one of the best known buildings in Vienna. This generously illustrated, authentic publication documents the building and its thorough renovation, which will be completed in 2015; it includes contributions by experts on European architecture of the 20th century.

Materiality is a recurring and central issue in architecture. This book explains how materials are "constructed", how they become cultural substances. Metamorphism investigates the complex relationship between natural materials and technology, science and sensuality. Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) made the notion of Stoffwechsel the key element of his theory. With this concept he intended to explain how a structural form originally bound to a method of processing is transferred from one material to another, liberated from its original function. For the first time, the book investigates the subject from a historic point of view whilst reflecting on current interdisciplinary research. Examples from Aalto to Zumthor illustrate the specific aspects of historic and contemporary material concepts.