Our aim is that, taken together, the new publications of any one year should give a more or less clear picture of the spectrum of our program. This year the picture is crystal clear: In all subject areas we have achieved a selection that does full justice to our guiding principle of pinning down facets of cultural debates and revealing social contexts. The new titles provide insights into seminal themes of our times, discuss design processes, social questions, cultural phenomena, and they document outstanding positions in design and art. These are specialties that are not only for experts, but for an interested audience that shares our fascination with multifaceted and quality debate.

In the manifesto The City in the City – Berlin: A Green Archipelago, Oswald Mathias Ungers and a number of his colleagues from Cornell University presented the first concepts and intellectual models for the shrinking city. In contrast to the reconstruction of the European city that was popular at the time, they developed the figure of a polycentric urban landscape. However, the manifesto really began to exert an effect beginning in the 1990s onwards, when the focus of the urban planning discourse turned to the examination of crises, recessions, and the phenomenon of demographic shrinking. This critical edition contains a previously unpublished version of the manifesto by Rem Koolhaas, as well as interviews with co-authors Rem Koolhaas, Peter Riemann, Hans Kollhoff, and Arthur Ovaska. Introductory texts explain the development of the manifesto between Cornell and Berlin, position the work in the planning history of Berlin, and reveal its influence on current approaches.

In 1936 the first and only issue of the magazine telehor (Greek for tele-vision) was released in four languages, as a special edition on and by László Moholy-Nagy. The facsimile reprint of the magazine is accompanied by a commentary volume.
The reprint makes the magazine accessible again in terms of its artistic and theoretical-historical dimensions. Particular attention has been paid to the production process. Thus the volume appears spiral-bound, an ultramodern technique in the mid-1930s. The commentary contains an editorial statement that places the magazine, telehor, in the context of the art and media of the 1920s and 1930s and unlocks the position of the artistic avant-garde at the intersection of two epochs.

It also contains new translations of the original texts: in Mandarin, Russian, Hungarian and Spanish.

With a text by Sigfried Giedion

Since the late 1990s cultural icons have been built in numerous cities throughout the world in order to court the attention of potential visitors in a globally competitive market. The book Culture:City analyzes this phenomenon from the point of view of artists, architects, and scientists. Does culture today still function as a guiding principle, or does it merely serve as a catalyst for spectacular buildings? Are the creative and cultural sectors the industries of the future in postindustrial societies? Do these buildings liberate or constrain the cultural activities that gave rise to them in the first place? How does the “Bilbao effect”—the revaluation of a city through prestigious cultural buildings—work? Thirty pioneers, case studies, and negative examples are assembled paradigmatically in this book. Numerous essays and illustrations provide the reader with extensive and profound insight into this phenomenon.

With an introduction by Wilfried Wang, a text about the exhibition by Matthias Sauerbruch, and contributions by Ricky Burdett, William J.R. Curtis, Jochen Gerz, Nele Hertling, Kasper König, Michael Mönninger, Beatriz Plaza, Andy Pratt, Jan Schütte, Ingo Schulze, Richard Sennett, Alain Thierstein, and Manos Tsangaris, among others.

Featured projects: Sydney Opera House, Kulturforum Berlin, Kulturhuset (Stockholm), Inter-Action Centre (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), SESC Fábrica da Pompéia (São Paulo), Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Tate Modern & Tate Modern Project (London), Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Guangzhou Opera House, Parque Biblioteca España (Medellín), Espacio Andaluz de Creación Contemporánea (Córdoba), Cidade da Cultura de Galicia (Santiago de Compostela), West Kowloon Cultural District Master Plan (Hong Kong), M9 Museum of the 20th Century (Venice-Mestre), Die Grosse Weltausstellung (Berlin), Metropol Parasol (Sevilla), Paju Book City (South Korea), Toni-Areal (Zurich), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Radialsystem V (Berlin), Zeche Zollverein (Essen), Berghain/Panorama-Bar/Lab.oratory/Bierhof (Berlin), Detroit Soup, 2-3 Streets (Dortmund, Duisburg, Mühlheim an der Ruhr), Parkaus Projects (Berlin), Museum Gunzenhauser (Chemnitz), Kunsthaus Graz, Inner-City Arts (Los Angeles), Centre Pompidou Mobile, El Batel (Cartagena), Generali Foundation (Vienna), Seattle Central Library, Daikanyama Tsutaya Books (Tokyo), Library of Birmingham, Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum (Berlin), Kenniscluster Library and Cultural Center (Arnhem)

Volume 1 of 11 from the printed publication Ecological Urbanism:
The world’s population continues to grow, resulting in a steady migration from rural to urban areas. Increased numbers of people and cities go hand in hand with a greater exploitation of the world’s limited resources. Every year, more cities are feeling the devastating impacts of this situation. What are we to do? What means do we have as designers to address this challenging reality?

Volume 2 of 11 from the printed publication Ecological Urbanism:
The texts in this section of Ecological Urbanism anticipate cities of the present and the future and, indeed as Rem Koolhaas suggests, in looking forward we also need to look back.

Volume 3 of 11 from the printed publication Ecological Urbanism:
This volume contains a series of short texts by professors from across the various departments and schools of Harvard University that highlight not just the similarities in approaches to ecology, but also their differences.

Volume 4 of 11 from the printed publication Ecological Urbanism:
There are two types of sensing discussed in this section. One is related to how technologies might be utilized to understand the city in a more subtle way, and the other to the human senses of touch and smell, as well as what we see.

Volume 5 of 11 from the printed publication Ecological Urbanism:
To curate at the urban scale implies an active and simultaneous engagement with design as well as with the management of the various ecologies: environmental, social, and political.

Volume 6 of 11 from the printed publication Ecological Urbanism:
Cities consume resources, but can they ever produce more than they consume, providing an abundance of energy and food, as well as money, and wealth? An over-cited fact, for instance, is that over half the world’s population lives in cities, yet over three-quarters of the world’s energy is used by cities. If cities are ever to become more productive then it is imperative to move beyond the idea that energy production and all its ancillary industries are something that happens far away.

Volume 7 of 11 from the printed publication Ecological Urbanism:
Ecology, as the “study of the interactions of organisms and the environment,” is based on the principle of interaction. This volume investigates the interaction between cities and their hinterlands. It shows that infrastructure provides the framework from which interactions occur and that the human interactions are a key factor in ecological urbanism.

Volume 8:
On the one hand, to mobilize might relate to rallying in pursuit of a social aim; it might also relate to mobility. In thinking of more ecological cities, questions of mobility are paramount. This volume discusses possible future modes of transportation and how ecological urbanism offers a fairer way forward by acknowledging both natural and socioeconomic concerns.

Volume 9 of 11 from the printed publication Ecological Urbanism:
The metrics with which we measure ecological cities are fundamentally important for how we design them. Ecological urbanism should create new hybrids, overcome disciplinary boundaries, and balance established binaries between the environment and economics; technology and the human; the rational and the irrational and nature and culture.

Volume 10:
This volume deals with adaptation. Adaptation is a trait that refers both to a current state of being and the process by which an organism responds to changing conditions in order to maintain fitness. From an urban perspective, adaptive environments anticipate change. The contextual and deliberative coordination of such small interventions over time can help us design and plan for adaptive urban ecologies.

Volume 11 of 11 from our publiation Ecological Urbanism:
When we think of incubation we might think of a bird sitting on a nest of eggs in order to hatch them, or of the care of newly hatched chicks. Incubating implies the idea of a nurturing care over a period of time, both before and after birth. Urban ecologies need incubation, too.

It was not by chance that Louis Kahn’s move into his profession’s spotlight coincided with the crisis of modern architecture: representing, as his work increasingly did, those aspects of space which modernism had so ambitiously removed from its program. Kahn’s rethinking of modern architecture’s paradigm of space belongs to his most important contributions to the métier. In tracing the genesis of the unbuilt project for the Dominican Motherhouse (1965–69), we are given a close-up view of Kahn at work on a few fundamental questions of architectural space: seeking the sources of its meaning in its social, morphological, landscape and contextual dimensions. 

This rich and multivalent project opens the way to a second section, which sheds new light on several of major works in a timely reappraisal of Kahn’s work.The result of extensive research, illustrated with unpublished archival material and new analytic drawings, this affordable e-book is an indispensible companion to Louis Kahn: Drawing to Find Out.

The first built project and final creative work of artist and architect Lebbeus Woods (1940–2012), the Light Pavilion is transcendent architecture, a project that exemplifies the preoccupations of a consummate draftsman, thinker and educator.

Nestled within a mixed-use complex in Chengdu, China, this daring construction is an emancipated drawing, a light and shadow machine, a chromatic calendar, a fugue of steel, a dance of space and form. The pavilion’s dynamic geometry, perspective and sequence of spaces reframe perceptions of architecture and urbanism.

Filled with drawings, detail specifications, and construction documentation, this book also features breathtaking photography by Iwan Baan; commentary by Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Thom Mayne, Neil Denari, and Eric Owen Moss; historical analysis by Mark Morris; and a touching epilogue by friend and project collaborator Christoph a. Kumpusch. A visionary design made intensely real, the pavilion offers a glimpse of the future as well as a catalogue of architecture’s past.

Le Corbusier’s Pavilion for Zurich uses numerous handwritten documents, drawings, and papers to trace the history of Le Corbusier’s last built work. This dwelling, which is also a museum, was initiated by Zürich gallery owner Heidi Weber. With its abstract forms and colors, it represents an intellectual legacy of the famous architect in which the further development of architecture as envisaged by Le Corbusier is clearly legible. From the first ideas and sketches from 1949–50 to the opening in 1967 and beyond, the genesis of this exceptional building—the completion of which the architect did not live to see—is presented with lavish use of illustrations and documents. This book explains for the first time the significance of the pavilion, which differs strongly from the beton brut of Le Corbusier’s late work, in terms of its position as one of the architect’s central and forward-looking works.

Can one visualize peace? Are there signs, symbols, and images that present a positive image of peace as opposed to receiving their meanings in opposition to war? Over several years of research, the Design2context Institute has intensively examined the representation and representability of peace and has compiled a comprehensive collection of images. In order to include a number of historical, cultural, and political perspectives, the archival aspect is supplemented by workshops in crisis regions. The encyclopedia—which, as new sociopolitical situations continue to arise and call for new pictures, must inevitably remain incomplete—provides a broad overview of the iconography of peace, and is also intended to assist in gaining an understanding of the concept. This book represents a significant contribution to future discussions on the need and desire for peace in political and social life.

China’s spectacular growth has brought not just prosperity, but also serious damage to the environment. For photographer Andreas Seibert, the present state of the Huai River is a clear example of these problems. Several stretches of the river have been so seriously polluted by toxic waste that people are advised not to even touch the water. Seibert has traveled along the river from source to mouth in order to record how it changes from a stretch of water rising amidst unspoiled nature into a large and poisonous river. Pictures taken on his travels present the poor hinterlands which are generally forgotten in discussions on China, and show the people who live on and near the river—in a habitat on the brink of destruction.

News represents a further development of the much-acclaimed work of artist Thomas Flechtner. Whereas in Snow he looked at snow as a metaphor for timelessness, calm, distance, and loneliness, and in Bloom Flechtner used atmospherically condensed studies of plants to examine the boundless colorfulness and movement of grown nature, for his new project News Flechtner collected newspaper front pages over a period of one year, scattered plant seeds from very different countries over them, watered them, and, finally, exposed them to the sun. He recorded the way the “news” was gradually bleached and overgrown with plants in more than one hundred color photographs. Flechtner contrasts the anarchy of nature with the agenda of mankind, while also questioning the fleetingness of memory and the demands made on it in shaping today’s world.

Encyclopedia of Flowers is a visual exploration of the breathtaking floral arrangements by Makoto Azuma—encounters of unusual, sometimes exotic plants that wouldn’t typically occur in nature. With his meticulously composed photographs,
Shunsuke Shiinoki exposes the flowers’ tenuous existence, their fragile forms, continuous metamorphoses, and inevitable decay.

In a contemporary manner, Encyclopedia of Flowers immerses the reader in a universe of extraordinary beauty while at the same time addressing dichotomies such as durability and vanity, artificiality and nature, hybrid culture and environmental change. This volume by the Japanese “haute-couture” florists includes an introduction by Makoto Azuma and an index identifying all of the more than 2,000 featured species with their binomial names.

All three publications by Klaus Merkel–The Reading of Time in the Text of Nature, Album of Stones and Trees like Stones–are available in the exclusive Trilogy of Stones and Time. Presented in a premium cardboard slipcase, this limited edition is signed by the artist and will be a great addition to every photo and art book collection.

This title, published in 1979 and long since out of print, now appears as a reprint from Lars Müller Publishers. The original book was released in the series of publications Source Materials of the Contemporary Arts initiated by Kasper König and produced by the Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. The publication represents an important document in Dan Graham’s artistic examination of the video medium. Graham’s installations and performances with video from the years 1970–78 are documented with numerous illustrations, photos, and brief descriptions. In addition, the volume contains an essay by the artist in which he examines the various possibilities and forms of representation offered by the video medium, and draws the boundaries between these and representational spaces in television, film, or architecture. The book also offers contributions by Michael Asher and Dara Birnbaum, as well as an annex with a biography and bibliography.

DAN GRAHAM, born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1942, is one of the most renowned contemporary artists. His work often focuses on cultural phenomena, incorporating materials as diverse as photography, video, performance, glass, and mirror structures. Dan Graham lives and works in New York.

From Camp to City examines the theme of the refugee camp in the context of urbanism and architecture. Using the examples of the refugee camps in the Algerian desert in which Sahrawis originally from the Western Sahara have been living for 35 years, the book looks at the “urban” aspects of these settlements. In contrast to the standard way of seeing refugee camps as scenes of human misery and despair, the examination concentrates on how people live and dwell in refugee camps, on how they work, move around, and enjoy themselves, and looks at the spaces and structures that are created in the process. With numerous images and texts, individual aspects of urban life are presented and analyzed in the different chapters. As an examination of a “borderline case” of urbanity, the publication does not ignore the problematic aspects of this theme, but on the contrary: its potential explosiveness is further underscored by the focus on a “vocabulary of the urban.” It allows an understanding of the camps as a political project. The publication is based on research studies of the ETH Studio Basel, Institute of Contemporary Urbanism at the ETH Zürich.

For over thirty years Klaus Merkel has been photo- graphing stones, rocky landscapes, and trees that he combines in pairs of images. He portrays the astounding harmony between the animate and the inanimate, between natural and designed manifestations. His previous publication Album of Stones featured Milan Cathedral’s forest of figures and pinnacles next to the sandstone columns of Utah’s Bryce Canyon. In the same way, Trees like Stones presents fascinating connections between natural forms and artwork, such as the millennia-old bristlecone pines in Nevada’s Great Basin National Park and the decaying stupa temples of Burma. The book thus invites the reader to examine and compare the manifold similarities of diverse structures, whether between a petrified wandering dune and a gaping trunk of an olive tree in Agrigento, Italy, or between a mushroom rock in the Libyan desert and a Namibian quiver tree.

Torre David, a 45-story skyscraper in Caracas, has remained uncompleted since the Venezuelan economy collapsed in 1994. Today, it is the improvised home to more than 750 families living in an extra-legal and tenuous squat, that some
have called a “vertical slum.”

Urban-Think Tank, the authors of Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities, spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-become home. Richly illustrated with photographs by Iwan Baan, the book documents the
residents’ occupation of the tower and how, in the absence of formal infrastructure, they organize themselves to provide for daily needs, with a hair salon, a gym, grocery shops, and more. The authors of this thought-provoking work investigate informal vertical communities and the architecture that supports them and issue a call for action: to see in informal settlements a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in service to a more equitable and sustainable future.

What is it that gives places their individual qualities and defines the life of a city? Architects and urbanists are accustomed to describing and creating the organizational structures, the layouts and physical attributes of our cities. But what are the relations between the design of a city—its form—and the life engendered by that form? Responding to this question is the inspiration for In the Life of Cities. Contributors from a wide range of fields address the role and life of cities as diverse as Baku, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Detroit, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Paris, Quito, St. Petersburg, Tel Aviv, Tirana, and Toronto. Portfolios of contemporary photography present the layered realities of urban life today.

With contributions by Arjun Appadurai, Eve Blau, Svetlana Boym, Lindsay Bremner, Jana Cephas, Felipe Correa, Rahul Mehrotra, Mohsen Mostafavi, Antoine Picon, Gyan Prakash, Nasser Rabbat, Rafi Segal, Jorge Silvetti, AbdouMaliq Simone, and Charles Waldheim.