As the world’s population swells and the need for sustainable ways of living grows ever more urgent and obvious, prefabricated architecture has taken center stage. Even before our current predicaments, the mass-produced, factory-made home had a distinguished history, having served as a vital precept in the development of Modern architecture. Today, with the digital revolution reorganizing the relationship between drafting board and factory, it continues to spur innovative manufacturing and design, and its potential has clearly not yet come to fruition. Home Delivery traces the history of prefabrication in architecture, from its early roots in colonial cottages though the work of such figures as Jean Prouvé and Buckminster Fuller, and mass-produced variants such as the Lustron house, to a group of full-scale contemporary houses commissioned specifically for the MoMA exhibition that this book accompanies. In addition to an introductory essay by Barry Bergdoll, Chief Curator in the Museum’s Department of Architecture and Design, this volume contains essays on prefabricated housing in Japan and in Nordic countries by Ken Tadashi Oshima and Rasmus Waern, respectively. It also includes focused texts on approximately 40 historical projects and five commissions, as well as a bibliography.

Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling

Arts & Photography

Ken Tadashi Oshima

Rasmus Wærn

Architecture

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

There appears to be no end in sight to the ongoing love affair with mid-century modern design. Still, it's curious that we keep hearing the same names again and again while so much inspiring work waits for its "moment" to be discovered. Antonin and No mi Raymond are now ready for their close-up. Crafting a Modern World is the first comprehensive book in English on the duo that creatively transformed design from 1917 to 1966. Best known for a series of finely detailed structures built in Japan during the 1930s, the Raymonds had prolific careers that included designs for factories, ofﬁce buildings, churches, and schools as well as furniture, fabrics, and graphic design. 
The Raymonds combined their European modern roots with the vernacular craft traditions they discovered in regions as diverse as Japan, India, and rural Pennsylvania. They also collaborated with some of the twentieth century's leading thinkers and artists, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Cass Gilbert, Isamu Noguchi, George Nakashima, and Fernand L ger. Inspired by the conventions of traditional Japanese buildings, they brought a high level of attention to craft to all their work, from churches in Chicago and Karuizawa to the Tokyo Tennis Club, the Pacific Cable Company Station in Guam, the Golconde Dormitory in India, and houses throughout the northeastern U.S., including their own modernist interventions at a rural farmhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Four essays round out this thorough examination of the Raymonds' careers a missing and enchanting chapter in the history of mid-century modern design.

Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noémi Raymond

Mari Sakamoto Nakahara

Christine Vendredi-Auzanneau

Reference

Princeton Architectural Press

The body of work which comprises Atelier Hitoshi Abe is a unique and beautiful collection of architectural experiments. As the author describes "architecture is a medium", delicately balancing phenomena that emerge as particular forces within a given project. The projects fuse distinctions between architecture and landscape, image and material, architect and user, forging new collaborative relationships from which the practice continually develops. This book highlights recent work by Atelier Hitoshi Abe in Japan. Projects are selected to explore Abe's innovative approach to material, construction and practice, including the Reihoku Community Hall (2002), Aoba-tei restaurant (2005), the K-Museum (2005), temporary installations, and a recent exhibit in Tokyo (2005). Hitoshi Abe delivered the John Dinkeloo Memorial Lecture at the University of Michigan in March, 2005, an annual event celebrating innovative forms of construction and architectural practice. The book includes an interview with Gretchen Wilkins and essays by Ken Tadashi Oshima and George Wagner.

Hitoshi Abe: On-the-Spot (Michigan Architecture Papers)

Hitoshi Abe

Gretchen Wilkins

George Wagner

History & Criticism

University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

Visions of the Real: Modern Houses in the 20th Century

Toshiko Kinoshita

A and U,Japan

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Books by Ken Tadashi Oshima