What makes an architect tick? What is the state of architecture today? How do architects view each other's work? No one can answer these questions better than the practitioners themselves. Here such distinguished figures as Cecil Balmond, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Philip Johnson, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, I. M. Pei, and others offer a wide-ranging assortment of perspectives on contemporary architecture and the architects' roles in shaping the state of the art today. Each interview focuses on the unique contributions of its subject, and is accompanied by images of their most important works. With a no-holds-barred approach the author obtains interesting details about their ideas on architecture in general, from where they get their inspiration, to what formative experiences led them to become architects in the first place. Informative, accessible, and endlessly fascinating, this collection offers a chance to compare, contrast, and get to know the architects that are shaping the world we live in. AUTHOR: Hanno Rauterberg is the architecture critic for the Die Zeit newspaper in Hamburg, Germany. 100 colour illustrations

Talking Architecture is a part of the series of Ramin Jahanbegloo’s conversations with prominent Indian intellectuals. This revised edition presents additional visuals and an extended dialogue between Jahanbegloo and Raj Rewal, one of India’s leading architects. The conversation flows effortlessly and we learn of Rewal’s early life and experiences in Europe. The discussions also encompass the aesthetic foundations of Indian architecture as well as the role of architecture in the twenty-first century.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Architecture documents a series of conversations with some of contemporary architecture's most accomplished thinkers and practitioners. The conversations took place in 2018 and 2019 at the Melbourne School of Design (MSD), The University of Melbourne, with the hope of complementing lectures by visitors to the school. Where lectures gave insight into projects, these conversations dive deeper into the ideas and processes behind the buildings - the players, places, forces, cultural imperatives and ideologies that buttress every work of architecture, but that are often obscured by the glamour of the finished output. A set of essays commissioned from writers both inside and outside the discipline of architecture offer fresh insights into the themes uncovered, rounding out this thought-provoking book.

Architecturally Speaking is an international collection of essays by leading architects, artists and theorists of locality and space. Together these essays build to reflect not only what it might mean to 'speak architecturally' but also the innate relations between the artist's and architect's work, how they are distinct, and in inspiring ways, how they might relate through questions of built form. This book will appeal to urbanists, geographers, artists, architects, cultural historians and theorists.

How we experience space by listening: the concepts of aural architecture, with examples ranging from Gothic cathedrals to surround sound home theater. We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and "hear" the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture.The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture's attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to "see" objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling. Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines—including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others—Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects.

Foreword by Arthur Drexler. Introduction by Vincent Scully.

While most attention is given to the booming mega-cities in China and the associated problems of over-population, the rural areas in China are being largely ignored. Yet, a sustainable development of the rural areas is precisely that, which will be decisive for China’s future. Through its rapid development into an industrial country, China now needs to tackle far-reaching problems such as increasing population, growing income gap between the poor and the rich, rural exodus, decreased agricultural production, and environmental pollution. Rural Urban Framework is a work group at the University of Hong Kong that not only researches the far-reaching changes of the last thirty years in China’s rural areas, but has also realized concrete projects aimed at improving supply and infrastructure on site. In this publication, the authors present for the first time the results of their research as well as their built projects in the Chinese backlands, and question whether China’s only future model lies in cities.