100 Contemporary Concrete Buildings

Concrete? That characterless stuff of parking lots or Communist tower blocks, right? Well, yes. And no. Concrete is actually a name applied to a remarkably wide range of building substances, and, when properly handled, is -strong-one of the noble materials of contemporary architecture-/strong-. A kind of “liquid stone” at the outset, it is malleable, durable, and capable of prodigious feats of engineering. This two-volume book highlights the best work done in concrete of recent years. It includes such stars as -strong-Zaha Hadid, Herzog - de Meuron-/strong-, and -strong-Steven Holl-/strong-, but also surprising new architects like the Russians -strong-SPEECH-/strong-, and rising stars of the international scene like -strong-Rudy Ricciotti -/strong-from France, as well as artists such as -strong-James Turrell-/strong-, who turned the famous concrete spiral of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in New York into the setting of one of his most remarkable pieces. -strong-The author -/strong- -strong-Philip Jodidio -/strong-(born 1954) studied art history and economics at Harvard, and edited -em-Connaissance des Arts -/em-for over 20 years. His books include TASCHEN’s -em-Architecture Now! -/em-series, and monographs on Tadao Ando, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, and Zaha Hadid. He is internationally renowned as one of the most popular writers on the subject of architecture.