Dieter Kienast (1945-1998) is a key Swiss figure in European landscape architecture. Amidst a striking change in the relationship between society and nature in the 1970s, he sought a synthesis between design and ecology. As a designer, planner, researcher, and university lecturer, Kienast introduced new facets to those fields. Critiques of urban planning, processes of participation, and the significance of spontaneous urban vegetation played just as prominent a role in these discussions as did art, literature, architecture, and the popularity of postmodernism. This book not only vividly deconstructs the ways in which design, theory, and representation are interwoven in Kienast's work, but also sheds light on a specific period of landscape architecture.

Landscape architecture is a form of high art for Erik Dhont, who has brought both nuance and sensitivity to various sites. Playing with flowers, grasses, shrubs or trees, he creates unique spaces, structures and textures. His timeless green paradises which are the result of true craftsmanship, are deeply rooted in the European garden tradition. They stand for longevity, evolution, dreams, and life. In this second monograph, Dhont presents his creations from over the last twenty years, combining photographs with abstract drawings, colorful planting plans, and sculptural models that reflect on his artistic approach. Intimate views of seminal creations such as the garden of fashion designer Dries van Noten immerse one into Dhont's creative and sensual universe.

Romeo and Julia, two residential high-rises in Stuttgart, built 1954-59 and designed by Hans Scharoun (1893-1972), constitute the most original and far-reaching of the various attempts to re-design the entire 'process of living' that this extraordinary protagonist of Germany's modern architecture undertook. Over decades, Scharoun had woven an extensive network of research and knowledge systems as a basis for his floor-plan designs. His unpublished writings and, even more importantly, his lectures from between 1947 and 1958 reveal the countless threads of research and discourse, which his work in residential architecture referenced and absorbed. They highlight the sometimes contradictory, yet constant renewal and consolidation of his knowledge in the field of housing. This new book, based on extensive research in collaboration with Berlin's Akademie der Kunste, demonstrates how closely interlocked Romeo and Julia are with their architect's immense engagement with the topic of housing. Drawing on previously unpublished archive material held at the Akademie der Kunste, the authors for the first time allow the reader an insight into Scharoun's design process. Alongside reproductions of original plans and drawings, the book features excerpts from Scharoun's unpublished text fragments. New images by Swiss architectural photographer Georg Aerni, illustrating the two towers' highly expressive appearance, round out this volume.

Georg Aerni is a photographic artist with a particular interest in architecture. Educated as an architect himself, he has been working with the camera on this subject with great precision and consistence for the past fifteen years Paris, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Tokyo: each metropolis is also a zone where mankind's will to create is driving constant change. Aerni documents this change in scrupulously prepared and carefully designed series of images. But also when he focuses on receding glaciers in the Alps, his studies of cages in zoological gardens and of mankind's interventions in nature, the extraordinary carefulness and quality inherent to all of Aerni's work is captivating. It sets his oeuvre in sharp contrast to the quickly done, impromptu photography that has become so widespread in recent years. Sites and Signs is the first comprehensive monograph on Aerni's photographic work. The book presents his complete work with an emphasis on the most recent series. Essays on his work in the context of contemporary photography and on images of architecture and landscape, and a complete catalogue of Aerni's oeuvre so far round out the book.