Product Description

More than any of their contemporaries, Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are challenging the boundaries between architecture and art. Natural History explores that challenge, examining how the work of this formidable pair has drawn upon the art of both past and present, and brought architecture into dialogue with the art of our time. Echoing an encyclopedia, this publication reflects the natural history museum structure of the exhibition which it accompanies, organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Models and projects by Herzog & de Meuron, as well as by other artists, are structured around six thematic portfolios that suggest an evolutionary history of the architects' work: Appropriation & Reconstruction, Transformation & Alienation, Stacking & Compression, Imprints & Moulds, Interlocking Spaces, and Beauty & Atmosphere. Each section is introduced with a statement from Herzog, and more than 20 artists, scholars, and architects have contributed essays, including Carrie Asman, Georges Didi-Huberman, Kurt W. Forster, Boris Groys, Ulrike Meyer Stump, Peggy Phelan, Thomas Ruff, Rebecca Schneider, Adolf Max Vogt, and Jeff Wall.

A building is a building. It cannot be read like a book; it doesn't have any credits, subtitles or labels like pictures in a gallery. In that sense, we are absolutely anti-representational. The strength of our buildings is the immediate, visceral impact they have on a visitor. --Jacques Herzog

Edited by Philip Ursprung. Contributions by Fernando Romero, Carrie Asman, Boris Groys, Gernot Bohme, Jeff Wall, Thomas Ruff, Alfred Richterich, Adolph Max Vogt, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Reinhold Hohl, Petros Koumoutsakos, Albert Lutz, Christian Muoeix, Hurzeler, Catherine, Rebecca Schneider and Remy Zaugg. Foreword by Phyllis Lambert. Introduction by Kurt W. Forster.

Hardcover, 480 pages, 300 color and 200 b&w illustrations

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #399691 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 459 pages

About the Author
Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have had nearly parallel careers. They were born in 1950, in Basel, Switzerland, attended the same schools, and formed a partnership in 1978. Recipients of the 2001 Pritzker Architecture Prize, their highest profile project to date is the Tate Modern, for which they transformed the giant Bankside power station in London into a suite of new galleries. They are currently at work on an extension to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the New de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Customer Reviews

Herzog & De Meuron: Natural History
Another object book with content that matches the originality of the design. Herzog & De Meuron, the Basel-based architects, are best known for their art museums, but also for creating buildings that are works of art--even when the program is as mundane as a railroad signal box. This companion to the recent CCA exhibition is an anthology of interviews, stimulating essays by artists and clients, and pictures of objects that have inspired them, in addition to an illustrated catalogue of their 200 buildings and projects. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

layers of history, time, artifacts, translated into architecture
I don't think this is an "object book" but a book in which herzog & de meuron want readers to understand their work like an archaelogical history. you cannot flip through it like an photographic architectural essay, but you really have to sit down, have a cup of coffee/tea, and really read the book, think about what they are saying, how other ideas such as art, history, materials, cultural, industrial changes, and etc. are interacting to their architectural process. certainly, they have the depth in their thoughts to publish a book that doesn't depend on photographs/architectural drawings. quite refreshing.

art of H & DeM
H & DeM have always been influenced by art & you can even argue that their body of work could be an entire exhibiton. This book follows up some of their selected projects with interviews of the architects themselves as well as the collaborative artists. It does well to probe into theie unique process of design & actualization of their work. Jaques Herzog says that Art is roughly 20 years ahead of architecture. This vivid book clearly shows the great accomplishments by two men who are constantly trying to even up the odds between art & architecture through inspirations from the natural world.