"British artist Nicholas Hawksmoor (approx. 1661-1736) is recognized as one of the major contributors to the traditions of British and European architectural culture. Nevertheless, there is insufficient visual documentation and analysis of his work. Nicholas Hawksmoor: Seven Churches for London reconsiders his archtiecture in relation to urbanism. The publication focuses on a series of important London churches the architect designed during the early part of the eighteenth century. The key distinguishing features of these churches are their spires, each designed with different qualities and motifs. While Hawksmoor was inspired by the ancient history of architecture, his work was considered radical and contemporary in its day.
Photographer Helene Binet was specially commissioned to document the various aspects of the seven remaining London churches. Her immaculate black and white photographs demonstrate the beauty of Hawksmoor's architecture with special attention to the variety of scales, sites, interiors, textures, and materials. "

Combining the talents of an architect, artist, and developer, John Portman was able to embark on a series of large-scale building projects-megastructures-that radically redefined the relationship of architecture to the city and its citizens.Portman's own voice and ideas complement the contributions of others, including new photographs by Iwan Baan, to present a more complex and nuanced reading of both the architect and his architecture.Finally, the repertoire of Portman's buildings is analyzed in meticulous detail and used by a group of students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design as a catalyst for a host of divergent and new architectural speculations.

On Weathering illustrates the complex nature of the architectural project by taking into account its temporality, linking technical problems of maintenance and decay with a focused consideration of their philosophical and ethical implications.In a clear and direct account supplemented by many photographs commissioned for this book, Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow examine buildings and other projects from Alberti to Le Corbusier to show that the continual refinishing of the building by natural forces adds to, rather than detracts from, architectural meaning. Their central discovery, that weathering makes the "final" state of the construction necessarily indefinite, challenges the conventional notion of a building's completeness.By recognizing the inherent uncertainty and inevitability of weathering and by viewing the concept of weathering as a continuation of the building process rather than as a force antagonistic to it, the authors offer alternative readings of historical constructions and potential beginnings for new architectural projects.Mohsen Mostafavi is Associate Professor of Architecture and Director of the Master of Architecture I Program at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. David Leatherbarrow is Chairman of the Department of Architecture and of the Program in Urban Design at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania.

The restoration of the Cheonggyecheon River that runs through Seoul, Korea, in a mere twenty-nine months--transitioning from an outmoded highway into a multipurpose performative infrastructure piece of unprecedented size--merits recognition as a seminal project in contemporary urban design. This remarkable achievement recovers the biological and social ecology of the city and demonstrates the profound ability of design at the urban scale to provoke positive transformation effectively over large territories. The project also signifies a broader sea change in Asian attitudes toward city design, from a quantitative model concerned primarily with growth to a more qualitative program that incorporates quality of life and environmental sustainability into strategies for economic development.

In this well-illustrated volume, contributors consider the ecological, infrastructural, and urban impacts of this exceptional project at the heart of the city. For its many merits, the Cheonggyecheon restoration was awarded the Tenth Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design by the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

The Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 uprooted and globally dispersed an enormous number of Iranians from all walks of life. Bitter political relations between Iran and the West have since caused those immigrants to be stigmatized, marginalized, and politicized, which, in turn, has discredited and distorted Iranian migrants' social identity; subjected them to various subtle and overt forms of prejudice, discrimination, and social injustice; and pushed them to the edges of their host societies. The Iranian Diaspora presents the first global overview of Iranian migrants' experiences since the revolution, highlighting the similarities and differences in their experiences of adjustment and integration in North America, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. Written by leading scholars of the Iranian diaspora, the original essays in this volume seek to understand and describe how Iranians in diaspora (re)define and maintain their ethno-national identity and (re)construct and preserve Iranian culture. They also explore the integration challenges the Iranian immigrants experience in a very negative context of reception. Combining theory and case studies, as well as a variety of methodological strategies and disciplinary perspectives, the essays offer needed insights into some of the most urgent and consequential issues and problem areas of immigration studies, including national, ethnic, and racial identity construction; dual citizenship and dual nationality maintenance; familial and religious transformation; politics of citizenship; integration; ethnic and cultural maintenance in diaspora; and the link between politics and the integration of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants.

"Platform 2" provides a sampling of the most salient research and design explorations undertaken at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) during the 2008-2009 academic year. Organized thematically, the publication identifies underlying congruencies among studio work, theses, research, lectures, conferences, and writings to unfold some of the many critical ideas and interests currently being explored in the School. Ranging in scope from detailed material fabrication to large-scale territorial and infrastructural strategies, the work spans a broad and diverse set of geographies and scenarios. In documenting this work, the publication archives and disseminates the rich intellectual momentum of the GSD. With contributions by Dirk Sijmons, Sissel Tolaas, Scheri Fultiner, Louisa Hutton, Matthias Sauerbruch, Judith Grant Long, Jose Luis Vallejo / Belinda Tato, Joshua Prince Ramus, Chris Reed, among others.

Showcasing the work of Tezuka Architects, with specific reference to a selection of realised projects. The Japanese architect Takaharu Tezuka caused a stir in 2015 with his TEDtalk 'The best kindergarten you've ever seen'. As the first text-focused publication, Tezuka Architects: The Yellow Book now provides an insight into the design philosophy of the internationally renowned architecture firm. Based on a lecture by Tezuka at Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), this 'pocket guide' in scale and feel introduces the architects' way of thinking, using examples of seminal projects from recent years. Buildings such as the Roof House (2001), the Child Chemo House (2013), or the Fuji Kindergarten (2007) illustrate the powerful impact of Takaharu and Yui Tezuka's design and show how architecture can contribute actively to building a better society.

Today’s urban environments face ever-increasing flows of human movement, natural disasters, and iterative economic crises. In response, city planning has developed innovative, hybrid forms that go beyond conventional ways of planning. Integrating practices of other disciplines, planning has become increasingly intricate and at the same time dependent on the cross fertilization of data, ideas, and actions across economies, societies, and geographies.This richly illustrated book of edited essays aims at introducing new approaches towards the planning of cities across the world, including Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Covering demographically, politically, culturally, and socially diverse regions, it not only examines the use of conventional planning tools, but also explores more experimental and cross-disciplinary approaches of urban planning.

A study of the building surface, architecture's primary instrument of identity and engagement with its surroundings. Visually, many contemporary buildings either reflect their systems of production or recollect earlier styles and motifs. This division between production and representation is in some ways an extension of that between modernity and tradition. In this book, David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi explore ways that design can take advantage of production methods such that architecture is neither independent of nor dominated by technology. Leatherbarrow and Mostafavi begin with the theoretical and practical isolation of the building surface as the subject of architectural design. The autonomy of the surface, the "free facade," presumes a distinction between the structural and nonstructural elements of the building, between the frame and the cladding. Once the skin of the building became independent of its structure, it could just as well hang like a curtain, or like clothing. The focus of the relationship between structure and skin is the architectural surface. In tracing the handling of this surface, the authors examine both contemporary buildings and those of the recent past. Architects discussed include Albert Kahn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Alison and Peter Smithson, Alejandro de la Sota, Robert Venturi, Jacques Herzog, and Pierre de Meuron. The properties of a building's surface-whether it is made of concrete, metal, glass, or other materials-are not merely superficial; they construct the spatial effects by which architecture communicates. Through its surfaces a building declares both its autonomy and its participation in its surroundings.