AA shares with you Jean-Philippe Hugron’s selection of books: architecture, urbanism, art, essays, exhibition catalogues…
To read in issue No. 426, still available on our online shop.

 

A History of Thresholds. Life, Death & Rebirth
Sensual City Studio, Jovis, Berlin.
June 2018, 15 x 21 cm, 184 p., illus., 32 €

Architectural features, such as doors, windows and roofs, are the subject of some very interesting research. The 14th Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Rem Koolhaas, was an illustration of this. In relation to this, Sensual City Studio (Pauline Marchetti, Jacques Ferrier, Philippe Simay, Estefania Mompean), published by Éditions Jovis, offers a “visual narrative” (in English in this French book) of the History of Thresholds. “Crossing a threshold is often the subject of a theatrical and architectural dramaturgy”, say the authors. From a collection of images and quotations (Hannah Arendt, Peter Sloterdijk, Walter Benjamin and Gaston Bachelard, always), the studio introduces the idea of a narrative and experiences that are severely lacking in architecture.

 

 

L’Hypothèse collaborative
Collective book, éditions Hyperville, Paris.
May 2018, 20 × 12,5 cm, 288 p., illus., 25 €

Are collectives the new pet theme in architecture and regional development? There is not a single urban project, these days, that does not have “participative”, space provided by a “collective”.  The Collaborative Theory, the new book launched by the publishing house Hyperville offers several “conversations” about the subject. The dialogue is fascinating, educational, forward-looking, critical and sometimes a little circumspect. Transitional urban development is now manipulated politically to create “symbolic value”, but also quick “financial value”. “It can be the vector for a more inclusive, more open and fairer city, or an instrument for urban gentrification, turnover and all things ‘disposable’, for place marketing, constructing a smooth modern image that guarantees the success and marketing of real estate products”, says Cécile Diguet, urbanist, with some concern, in the pages of this fascinating book.

 

 

Infinite Places. Constructing buildings or places?
Collective book, éditions B42, Paris.
May 2018, 16 x 23 cm, 356 p., illus., 28 €

Have architects lost as much power as they claim? This contemporary lament tends to be contested by the French Pavilion of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, created by a generation, in the footsteps of Patrick Bouchain, that defends the creation of “infinite places”. The catalogue published for the occasion conveys the message of the curators – Encore Heureux – but also anthropologists, sociologists, and journalists, offering a variety of viewpoints to provide food for thought on “the social role of architecture and the architect”.

 

 

Construire avec l’immatériel
Edited by Jana Revedin, éditions Alternatives, Paris.
May 2018, 14 x 19 cm, 176 p., 17 €

Jana Revedin continues her efforts to promote a different and exemplary kind of architecture through the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. This new work, published by Éditions Alternatives, is given over to the various award winners, who now form a “community”.  The publication has risen to the challenge of demonstrating that architecture is also a discipline manipulating “intangible” resources such as time, climate, knowledge, traditions and even law.