Seven Partly Underground Rooms and Buildings for Water, Ice, and Midgets (Pamphlet Architecture, 20)

The latest in the Pamphlet Architecture series, Seven Partly Underground Rooms and Buildings investigates unusual spaces in Italy, ranging from a honeycombed and mazelike series of rooms and stairs for midgets, to the dining chambers of a Pompeiian estate, to a half-buried sphere that serves as a place for ice storage. Ray reveals these quixotic spaces through constructed drawings, collaged photographs, and insightful text.

Mary-Ann Ray is a principal, with Robert Mangurian, of the architecture firm Studio Works in Los Angeles. A fellow of the American Academy in Rome, she is also a professor at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Her projects have received various awards, including the Progressive Architecture Urban Design Award (1991). Her work also appears in "Re: American Dream".

Pamphlet Architecture, begun in 1978 by William Stout and Steven Holl, has become a popular venue for publishing the works and thoughts of a younger generation of architects. Small in scale, low in price, but large in impact, these books present and disseminate new and innovative theories.