For AA, the Technè bookshop is offering a selection of books to give as gifts or to treat yourself. A platform dedicated to architectural culture, Technè is composed of a bookshop located in La Réole, France and a digital media that offers podcasts and itinerant events with architects, artists and craftspeople, to reach all territories. 

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In search of lightness

The catalogue of the eponymous exhibition at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal last winter (2021) reports on a rigorous study of some thirty experimental architectures produced between 1920 and 2020, which bear witness to the evolution of lightweight construction in industrialised countries (projects by Richard B. Fuller, Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé, Jorn Utzon…).

Directed by Philippe Rizzotti, architect, and the IBI laboratory of ETH Zürich, this analysis in the form of an inventory is based on the conviction that building lighter requires less material, uses fewer resources, produces less waste, requires less time to assemble, needs less space, requires exponentially less energy, and thus symmetrically reduces the carbon footprint of building a home.

This quest for lightness seems fundamental and essential today, and this book shows us how certain architects have been able to consider the impact of their projects on the surrounding world.

Philippe Rizzotti, L’empreinte d’un habitat : Construire léger et décarboné, éditions Pavillon de l’Arsenal, January 2022, 344 pages (bilingual)

Craftmanship

 

In this book, the designer Jasper Morrison examines the collection of objects in the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon. Some fifty pieces are presented with a detailed description showing how they combine functionality with beauty.

How did so much beauty and ingenuity come to be found in items of everyday rural life in Portugal? How did the form of these objects so skilfully balance necessity with formal perfection? The objects photographed and described by designer Jasper Morrison can be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set for pure design.

Jasper Morrisson, The Hard Life, Lars Müller Publishers, 2022, 208 pages

 

 

Floral pop-up  

With this second pop-up book, Bloom, Julie Safirstein continues to explore the motif of the floral display. The opening of the paper flowers folded like petals and the book becomes a bouquet of flowers in bright and pastel colours. Primarily intended for children, this book also invites adults to play with the poetry of this printed object.

Open, imagine, manipulate, and hang this three-dimensional object.

Julie Safirstein, Bloom, 2nd edition, éditions du livre, 2022, 10 pages

 

 

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You can find the whole selection at the Technè bookshop, 21 Rue Armand Caduc, 33190 La Réole, or online. A subscription offer is available for agencies and students.