With all of the attention Mies van der Rohe has received over the last few years, it's hard to believe that there could be a pair of "undiscovered" buildings begging for even the slightest considerationand receiving none. Such has been the fate, however, of Mies's Krefeld Villas, a pair of neighboring brickresidences of typically restrained elegance built from 1927 to 1930. Their anonymity is, to some degree, Mies's own doing; in 1959, in his only public comment about the projects, he quipped that he would have preferred to use more glass, but the clients objected. "I had great trouble," he said.As historians Kent Kleinman and Leslie van Duzer show in this carefully researched, eminently readable study, sometimes it's best not to take the architect at his word. Here they guide us through the two villas, which were converted into a joined museum of contemporary art after World War II. Each chapter begins with a study of an artist who has created a site-specific installation within the villas. By analyzing how Yves Klein, Sol LeWitt, Richard Serra, and Ernst Caramelle chose to engage Mies's architecture, they arrive at a truly original understanding of these two forgotten masterworks.

Mies van der Rohe - The Krefeld Villas

Kleinman, Kent

Van Duzer, Leslie

Reference

Princeton Architectural Press

The Villa Muller, built in Prague in 1930, is one of Loos's best designs. Inaccessible for twenty years, this seminal work never received the exposure commensurate with its position in the history of modern architecture - until now. The authors are among the first scholars to have been admitted into the building, and their meticulous research and documentation has yielded an indispensible book for anyone interested in the work of this modern master. Their work reveals Loos's original palette of materials and colors, and a series of design submissions at a local building office in Prague, which disclose new information about Loos's design methods. Illustrated in color and black-and-white, Villa Muller includes a foreword by John Hejduk.

Villa Muller: A Work of Adolf Loos

Arts & Photography

Loos, Adolf

Architecture

Princeton Architectural Pr

Imagine a site fifteen minutes from the heart of downtown Vancouver, able to capture in one view: snow-covered mountains and an archipelago, a lighthouse and the downtown skyline, the vegetation of a moderate rainforest and ocean waters. Imagine the same view transgressing national borders to include an active volcano. This is the site where the story of House Shumiatcher unfolds. As the son of Morris Shumiatcher, founder of Smithbilt Hats in Calgary, Judah spent his summers in high school and college learning the art of the hatter. Like so many other North American cities during this period, Calgary was experiencing a postwar housing boom. Judah developed an interest in the delivery of inexpensive, well-designed houses and began to consider an alternate career as a building contractor. After all, work in that sector was abundant and the lifestyle appealing. A scheduled stop in New York City altered the course of his career. There, by chance, he encountered Frank Lloyd Wright, first in an interview on television, and then, having gotten upthe courage to request a private meeting, briefly in person in a temporary building on the site of the new Guggenheim Museum. Judah took the knowledge and ambition he took from his meeting with Wright to continue a storied career in architecture in his home country of Canada. After 38 years in a house he built specifically for his family, they had to struggle with the difficult decision to sell the property as Vancouver rates were increasing by 200%, even though they knew a developer would tear it down. This book then serves as the lasting testament to a brilliant home designed by one of Canada's best unsung architects.

House Shumiatcher: UBC SALA | West Coast Modern Series

ORO Editions

Since the founding of Atelier Nishikata in 2000 in Tokyo, partners Reiko Nishio and Hirohito Ono have built just four residential works, three of them renovations, all of them publicly inaccessible. Until now, this remarkable collection of private spaces was little known outside Japan. Almost, Not: The Architecture of Atelier Nishikata belatedly presents this extraordinary, almost-ordinary architecture to an international audience. Leslie Van Duzer, author of four monographs on 20th-century architecture and a former magician's assistant, draws parallels between the architects and magicians in this hybrid architectural monograph and magic instruction manual. The introductory essay, "Almost Not," outlines their shared aspirations and techniques, including delay by layered rules, déjà vu by repetition variation, and detour by category jumping. Detailed project descriptions unpack Atelier Nishikata's methods step by step, demonstrating the possibility of bewildering effects achieved with minimal means. Each project is richly illustrated with design studies, new diagrams, detailed drawings, and photographs, including before and after views of renovated spaces, and intimate post-inhabitation scenes. A concluding conversation with the architects provides further insights into their approach.

Almost, Not: The Architecture of Atelier Nishikata

Travel

Asia

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Books by Van Duzer, Leslie