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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 720.028
EAN num: 9780870700392
ISBN number: 0870700391
Label: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Manufacturer: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 180
Printing Date: July 15, 2002
Publishing house: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Release Date: July 02, 2002
Sale Popularity Level: 184394
Studio: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Perfect Acts of Architecture presents six sets of highly inventive drawings by contemporary avant-garde architects Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, and Thom Mayne. Created between 1972 and 1988, when many architects turned to teaching because economic conditions had drastically curtailed building commissions, these works reflect the period's intellectual debates and demonstrate graphic experimentation as a proactive mode of research. Each suite of drawings, fully illustrated with superb reproductions, offers great insight into the creative processes of six young designers, who have since gone on to establish major international reputations. To put this 'paper architecture' into a broader historical context, Jeffrey Kipnis and Terence Riley provide introductory texts as well as concise commentaries on each of the projects.
Architects Include: Madelon Vriensendorp, Zoe Zenghelis, Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, Thom Mayne, Andreq Zago, amongst others.
Essays by Jeffrey Kipnis, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis.
Foreword by Sherri Geldin.
Foreword by Terence Riley.
Introduction by Terence Riley.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This is a great book, awesome spine and cover design, and the typeset plays really well with the subject matter, especially for Rem and Elia's Exodus proposal.
Also you get pretty much all of the Manhattan Transcripts for about the same price as they'd be on their own.
Rated by buyers 
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First what this book is not. This is not a book about buildings, in a traditional sense, although all the architects with work represented in the book are actually far busier these days building real buildings than creating the sort of explorations seen here. Don't confuse this book for anything other than avant-garde drawing exercises.
So what this book IS -- well, the possibility that these avant-garde drawings can be a good thing, even a visionary and optimistic thing, that they can inspire, and finally can stretch the possibilities of what we mean by architecture. The title calls these "acts" of architecture, which really is just a bit of jargon meaning ravishingly beautiful drawings that are riffs on architectural ideas. These ideas don't always boil down into words (you could for instance skip most of the text), or comprehensible buildings, but are irreduceably visual and all exciting.
The collection presented here is a work of a generation of visionary architects now our elders and respected and all that means (like building real stuff now), but at the time this work was done these architects were effectively scribbling in their attics with no real commissions. The group as a whole was, and continues to be, enormously influential. It's also interesting to see the development of such famous architects as Rem Koolhaas or Tom Mayne (although hard to single them out amongst this group) compared to their mature and more "mainstream" production now.
One star is cut from the rating for the quality of reproductions. This is a catalogue for the MoMA and Wexner show, and the original drawings at the show were far more subtle and ravishing that the printing here. Especially the Mayne and Libeskind work suffers. Finally, Terry Riley's introduction is pitch-perfect, as one would expect.
Rated by buyers 
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Notwithstanding that these projects (thankfully) were never built, they shatre the commonality of lacking any substance. The drawings are obtuse and match the pretentious texts that typify what passes for academic writing today. In the main, however, they have nothing worthwhile to say. This book might best be described as a collection of self-important musings by architects who have made questionable contributions to the cities we live in.
Rated by buyers -
The author notes that these works were produced in an economic slump when many architects were forced to turn to drawings and teaching to suplement their incomes. In a way, that period was the beginning of the end of architecture too. In place of real design, intelligent solutions, an interest in housing and other real-world problems, the architecture of academia took root. For some, this took precedence over real building and design. What we have here is a series of absurd propositions that Kipnis (perhaps he too was in an economic slump and needed to write a book), finds more fascinating than they really are. This was the period when it became popular (amongst a self-styled academic elite), to produce incomprehensible drawings as a way of distinguishing oneself from the pack. Great claims were made about the newness of this architecture and like much of what went before, we are suffering bthe urban degredation that Eisenman, Tschumi, Libeskind et al have reaped on cities across the globe. - Flack lackey Kipnis does little more than ingratiate himself into the circle. Like his subjects, however, he has little to offer sensible architectural commentary. Avoid.
Rated by buyers -
The book shows exceptional stratigical drawing from a selection of famous achitects. Although some explanations about the projects is short, this book is great for architectural students because it simply provokes thought.
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