Building from Tradition examines the recent resurgence of interest in the handmade building and the use of local and renewable materials in contemporary construction. In the past, raw materials were shaped to provide shelter and to accommodate the cultural, social, and economic needs of individuals and communities. This is still true today as architects, engineers, and builders turn once again to local resources and methods, not simply for constructing buildings, but also as a strategy for supporting social engagement, sustainable development, and cultural continuity. Building from Tradition features global case studies that allow readers to understand how building practices—developed and refined by previous generations—continue to be adapted to suit a broad range of cultural and environmental contexts. The book provides: • a survey of historical and technical information about geologic and plant-based materials such as: stone, earth, reed and grass, wood, and bamboo; • 24 detailed case studies examining the disadvantages and benefits to using traditional materials and methods and how they are currently being integrated with contemporary construction practices.

Wonder Wood presents this timeless material as it is being used today and how it can be used in the future. It also documents a selection of current international projects and processes, making-ofs, and experiments by 120 internationally renowned designers, architects, and artists, whose creative and innovative approach to the material makes their work compelling. For selected projects, interviews with the designers provide an in-depth look at the creative process and its results. A second section, dedicated to materials and technologies examines innovative developments as well as wood, wood-based materials, finishing technologies, and wooden structure principles. With biographies of the designers represented in the book, an alphabetical index, a bibliography and sources, Wonder Wood will serve the reader as a classic book of reference.

The successful combination of a regional building style of sophisticated simplicity with sustainable construction methods has made the architecture of Vorarlberg (Austria) a model for the rest of the world. This book presents particularly successful projects from recent years involving various building types and portrays their development from design idea to built detail. The documented structures by Cukrowicz Nachbaur, Christian Lenz, Oskar Leo Kaufmann + Albert Rüf, Hermann Kaufmann, Dietrich Untertrifaller, Baumschlager Eberle, Marte.Marte, and Martin Rauch place the focus on their energy strategy and formally ambitious construction methods. All of the plans and detail drawings were specially prepared for the book, which makes it easy to compare the projects.

1955 fand die erste documenta in Kassel statt. Zunächst als einmalig konzipiert, ist sie zu einer heute alle fünf Jahre wiederkehrenden, grundlegenden Ausstellung und Reflexion zeitgenössischer Kunst geworden. In seinem Essay, 1987 an der University of British Columbia, Vancouver, als Vorlesung gehalten, beleuchtet Ian Wallace die erste documenta, die nach dem 2. Weltkrieg ebenjenen Künstlern ein Forum bieten wollte, die im Nationalsozialismus als »entartet« verfemt worden waren. Die erste documenta ist gleichermaßen Spiegel wie Protagonist des kulturellen und politischen Klimas der Nachkriegszeit und hat unter der Führung von Arnold Bode, mit Unterstützung Werner Haftmanns, wesentlich zum Siegeszug der Abstraktion beigetragen, der West-Deutschland den Anschluss an die europäische Moderne verschaffte. Ian Wallace (*1943) ist Künstler. Er lebt in Vancouver und hat an der University of British Columbia sowie der Emily Carr University of Art and Design gelehrt. Sprache: Deutsch/Englisch

The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS), established in 1984, is a quarterly, double blind peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary journal, published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), and distributed worldwide. The journal showcases a wide variety of scholarly research on all facets of Islam and the Muslim world including subjects such as anthropology, history, philosophy and metaphysics, politics, psychology, religious law, and traditional Islam.