Texts by Peter Allison, Adam Lindermann, and interviews with David Adjaye
Principal photography by Robert Polidori and Lyndon Douglas
Pub Date: March 22, 2011
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Rizzoli
Trim Size: 9 x 11

For the several years, David Adjaye has been at the forefront of world architecture, having designed some high-profile buildings such as the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, and the recently winning the design for the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Written by Raul A. Barreneche

Pub Date: February 8, 2011
Format: Hardcover
Category: Architecture - Domestic
Publisher: Rizzoli
Trim Size: 9 x 9

It’s the time of the year that we long for the warm weather of the tropics immersing in the lands of sunshine. If you cannot afford the tickets to such destinations, then why not do it through a book featuring modern tropical dwellings. Such en experience would soothe both sides of the brain. Traveling around the globe between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, the author selected a collection of attractive modern houses that he shares with his readers.

Last February, the architecture community lost a prominent figure with the passing away of Frank Williams. For over forty years, Mr. Williams designed dozens of skyscrapers that impact the skylines of many cities like New York, Dubai, and Shanghai.

After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley and receiving a master’s degree from Harvard, Frank Williams taught at Columbia University for four years before opening his own office, Frank Williams & Partners in New York. Since then, the firm has received many honors, including those from the Municipal Art Society of New York and the American Institute of Architecture. Mr. Williams died on February 25th, 2010, he was 73.

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A new book about the late Frank Williams has just been released in September. The book, with a strikingly elongated format, starts with an introduction by the architect, then features 35 skyscrapers designed by Mr. Williams, including renderings and photographs. While going through these mega-buildings, one can notice the architect's attention to details, as well his constant effort in bringing those huge volumes to the human scale.


Skyscrapers, assume a role that goes far beyond its functional requirements. They are are symbolic landmarks that define a city's skyline. Their stylistic form-givers vary from cultural background of the host city to the technological criteria that allow those building to go ever so higher.

The book covers the majority of the work of Tokyo-based architectural firm of Atelier Bow-Wow. Founded by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima, Atelier Bow-Wow has mostly concentrated its activity around small houses, usually built within dense urban surroundings. With a fresh vision that is well detailed in the book, Atelier Bow-Wow’s have defied the conventional guidelines and created original, volumetrically optimized spaces that respond to the needs of its users despite their constrained dimensions.

While large portions of the book are dedicated the firm’s architecture work, the architects’ work on furniture as well as their research projects are well detailed. Interesting essays by different writers help the reader to learn more about the principles that guide the firm’s design. The book’s introduction written by Kaijima and Tsukamoto themselves sheds the light on the concepts that glue all their work together. They insist on the fact that their projects had a tendency to “contaminate, inform, and mutually develop one another”. While striving to produce livable, viable, and enjoyable spaces, they developed a recurrent theme based on “Behavior”.