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Arno Ritter, Eva Schlegel, Lars Müller (eds.)

Carl Pruscha: Singular Personality

Architect, Bohemian, Activist

Carl Pruscha is an unusual architect. His works are found in New York, Kathmandu, and Vienna. Far removed from each other, these three geographical areas profoundly influenced his outlook and career. In the United States Pruscha planned visionary and utopian projects. He began to deal with the real world in Nepal where the UN had sent him as a consultant in 1964. In this foreign culture the young architect grew with the challenge. Aside from complex development proposals for the Kathmandu Valley he created remarkable buildings that blend tradition and Modernism in close harmony with their natural and landscape environment.

Following his return to Vienna in 1974 he became visibly engaged in academic and social issues. As rector of the Academy of Fine Arts, the man-about-town bohemian became a prominent figure in Vienna’s architectural scene.

In this book essays by Manjushree Thapa and Natalie Lettner, a memoir by Michael Sorkin, photographic documentations by Iwan Baan and Hertha Hurnaus along with portfolios of Pruscha’s projects cover his eventful life and extraordinary work.

Carl Pruscha is an unusual architect. His works are found in New York, Kathmandu, and Vienna. Far removed from each other, these three geographical areas profoundly influenced his outlook and career. In the United States Pruscha planned visionary and utopian projects. He began to deal with the real world in Nepal where the UN had sent him as a consultant in 1964. In this foreign culture the young architect grew with the challenge. Aside from complex development proposals for the Kathmandu Valley he created remarkable buildings that blend tradition and Modernism in close harmony with their natural and landscape environment.

Following his return to Vienna in 1974 he became visibly engaged in academic and social issues. As rector of the Academy of Fine Arts, the man-about-town bohemian became a prominent figure in Vienna’s architectural scene.

In this book essays by Manjushree Thapa and Natalie Lettner, a memoir by Michael Sorkin, photographic documentations by Iwan Baan and Hertha Hurnaus along with portfolios of Pruscha’s projects cover his eventful life and extraordinary work.

English edition – also available in German

Edited by Lars Müller, Arno Ritter, Eva Schlegel

With photographs by Iwan Baan, Hertha Hurnaus

With contributions by Natalie Lettner, Michael Sorkin, Manjushree Thapa

Design: Integral Lars Müller

29,7 × 21 cm, 11 ¾ × 8 ¼ in

272 pages, 488 illustrations

hardback

2020, 978-3-03778-590-4, English
Architectural Research Portrait
CHF 40.00

Eva Schlegel

Eva Schlegel (*1960 ) studied fine arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. After several stays abroad she was a professor of art and photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1997 to 2006. In 2011, she was commissioner for the Austrian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. As a freelance artist, her work in photography, installation, painting, and film focuses primarily on architectural and immaterial space and its perception by the viewer. Since 1985 her works have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad. She designed the Austrian Pavilion together with Coop Himmelb(l)au as part of the Venice Biennale in 1995 and participated in the Kochin Biennale in India in 2017, together with Carl Pruscha. Besides her exhibitions in galleries and museums, Eva Schlegel implemented permanent, site-specific projects in Basel, Copenhagen, Mumbai, Stockholm, Vienna, and San Francisco, among others.

Arno Ritter

Arno Ritter (*1965) studied journalism, history and philosophy at the University of Vienna. Since 1995, he has directed the exhibition space "aut. architektur und tirol" in Innsbruck (formerly Architekturforum Tirol), which he positioned as a place for the presentation of architecture, art, design and graphic design, as well as a space for interdisciplinary discussion on creating our living environment. From 2003 to 2012, he had a lectureship in architectural criticism and curatorial practice at the University of Innsbruck and in 2012, he was commissioner of the Austrian contribution to the Architecture Biennale in Venice. As an editor and author, he publishes on architecture, photography and art.

CHF 40.00