The practice of Atelier Kempe Thill is renowned for their neutral and economic as well as enjoyable and innovative designs in architecture and urban design. To achieve this, the architects do not shy away from endless discussion with their clients and an unconventional use of materials. “Specific Neutrality” is what they call the balance between unique designs and an architecture that is as flexible as possible since publishing their design manifesto on collective housing in 2004. In today’s world, where the economic situation, the demand for spaces and their use can rapidly change, this approach is more relevant than ever. In their second monograph, the two architects present 23 projects from the last 12 years, complemented by thematic essays by the authors and well-known experts in the field of architecture.

During his long career, Pier Luigi Nervi has explored the potential of concrete through the cast-in place and the prefabrication of elements in reinforced concrete or in ferro-cement, the material he invented and patented during the war. All of his best known works, such as the Berta Stadium, the hangars built in Orivieto, Orbetello and Torre del Lago Puccini, the Halls of the Turin Exposition Center, the Unesco buildings, the Little Sport Palace and the Papal Audience Hall represent an important chapter in the history of architecture, structure and construction of the twentieth century. The passion of Nervi for the manufacturing process of the concrete and formworks is examined in a systematic manner within the volume. The authors illustrate the creative process put in place by Nervi through the examination of documents never even studied in other essays, unpublished designs, drawings, specifications, photographs of the yards and correspondence with colleagues and collaborators.

This groundbreaking new perspective on Le Corbusier is based on exhaustive archival research and the study of neglected or completely unknown documents. It is innovative in showing the role of materials and construction techniques in the architecture of Le Corbusier and the book also delves into the project management and the construction of several buildings in the period 1940 1965. Each worksite, from the Unit d Habitation (Housing Unit) in Marseille to the city of Chandigarh, and also including the Tokyo museum, the Carpenter Center in Cambridge and the Unit d'Habitation in Berlin, is analyzed in detail.

The reemergence in the early eighteenth century of the technology and use of concrete provide the starting point for this first volume of the Treatise on Concrete. In this book are described and analyzed, for the first time, the various contributions that led to the rediscovery of concrete made by the specialists of the period, from chemists to volcanologists; from engineers to architects and construction workers; from inventors to archaeologists and even men of letters. The book traces the various criteria for concrete production using local materials, from hydraulic lime to pozzolana and trass, as well as how the technique of casting concrete in formwork developed from construction-site practices that had survived locally from the times of ancient Rome. The subjects of the book include the transport of Roman pozzolana with which Italian, French, English or Danish engineers built grandiose offshore concrete structures; the genealogy of techniques for manufacturing wood formwork for foundations at sea, in rivers and above ground; the description of the various formwork systems invented to pour concrete in water; the research conducted by chemists on lime and pozzolana that led to the development of concrete; the invention of artificial stone, obtained using various types of cement; and the series of fantastic archaeological findings about the concrete structures of antiquity, which, even if sometimes baseless, nevertheless helped build confidence that this material could be invented. Finally, several great personalities in the history of architecture, such as Piranesi or Soufflot, are presented in a new light and are shown to be vital players in the affirmation of concrete in the eighteenth century. Thus emerges the first entry of a new history of concrete, one that will provide the essential principles needed to understand how the manufacturing methods discovered between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century emerged and led to the production of this mythical material. This new history of concrete is clearly of present-day interest, specifically in the context of recent research which aims to encourage concrete production using local materials, including volcanic constituents such as pozzolana - exactly as it was fabricated during the eighteenth century.

Die Entwicklung im kulturellen Umfeld der Beaux-Arts Solange in der Architektur Interpretationsmuster vorherrschten, die von einer Kontinuitat der architektonischen Moderne ausgingen, hat die inter nationale Geschichtsschreibung fur die Zeit zwischen 1919 und 1939 ein Bild der franzosischen Architektur geliefert, in dem die komplexe Vielfalt der Formen vom Interesse fur die Arbeiten von Le Corbusier, Andre Lun; at und Robert Mallet-Stevens uberlagert wird. Die Jahreswende 1922/1923 kann. als entscheidend fur die franzosische Debatte bezeichnet werden: die Zeit, zu der sich, wenn auch eher auf der Ebene des Entwurfs, eine besondere Richtung der architektonischen Moderne, die nouvel/e archi tecture, durchgesetzt hat. Ihre Besonderheit besteht in einer ganz einzig artigen Nahe zum Kubismus. Den Arbeiten, die man als Ausdruck der Beaux-Arts bezeichnen kann und die die franzosische Architektur mehr heitlich bestimmten, hat die Baugeschichtsschreibung kaum Aufmerk samkeit geschenkt; oft genug wurden sie sogar mit ganz oberflachlichen Argumenten verworfen. Selbst die Arbeiten von Tony Garnier, Auguste Perret und Henri Sauvage, von denen Anstosse sowohl fur die neuen Tendenzen der Beaux-Arts als auch fur die nouvelle architecture ausgin gen, wurden nur allzu haufig in einer Weise kritisiert, die aus heutiger Sicht nicht mehr vertretbar oder zumindest luckenhaft erscheint. Diese Einschatzungen wurden auch durch die andersartigen Ausrichtun gen neuerer Studien insbesondere in Frankreich nur zum Teil modifiziert."

Through sheer determination and courage, Kahn has researched the nature of concrete in the form of precast, cast in place or blocks. Each of his renowned works in exposed concrete, such as the Yale Art Gallery, the Richards Laboratories, the Bath House, the Salk Institute, the National Assembly, the Kimbell Museum, the Exeter Library and the Yale Center for British Art, is itself an important chapter in the history of architecture for the exploration into concrete's formal expression, beyond the lessons of Le Corbusier. Kahn's obsession with concrete's fabrication processes, the formwork and the mix-design is systematically examined in two volumes. They illustrate Kahn's vision using documents that have never been revealed in other essays, drawing heavily from original sketches, plans, specifications, worksite photographs, and correspondences with collaborators, engineers, technicians and contractors. The first volume Exposed Concrete and Hollow Stones focuses on the first ten-year period of Kahn's research on concrete. Moving through the many construction systems experienced by Kahn, from the discovery of exposed concrete in the form of beton brut at the Yale Art Gallery, to the precast and poured-in-place techniques, to the values of joint, growth and ornament, the work culminates in the reconstruction of the artistic and technical characteristics of two great worksite, the Richards Laboratories and the First Unitarian Church and School. The second volume, Towards the Zero Degree of Concrete, covers the following fourteen years and leads the reader along Kahn's path to the true 'nature of concrete', focusing on his main techniques and discoveries such as the 'liquid stone' of the Salk Institute, the 'smooth finish' at Bryn Mawr and the concept of 'monolithic' at the Yale Center for British Art.