Synopses & Reviews
Action-packed architecture!: A manifesto of architecture as seen by the Copenhagen-based group BIG, told in comic book form Yes is More is the easily accessible but unremittingly radical manifesto of Copenhagen-based architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG. Unlike a typical architectural monograph, this book uses the comic book format to express its radical agenda for contemporary architecture. It is also the first comprehensive documentation of BIG’s trailblazing practice—where method, process, instruments and concepts are constantly questioned and redefined. Or, as the group itself says:
"Historically, architecture has been dominated by two opposing extremes: an avant-garde full of crazy ideas, originating from philosophy or mysticism; and the well organized corporate consultants that build predictable and boring boxes of high standard. Architecture seems entrenched: naively utopian or petrifyingly pragmatic. We believe there is a third way between these diametric opposites: a pragmatic utopian architecture that creates socially, economically and environmentally perfect places as a practical objective. At BIG we are devoted to investing in the overlap between radical and reality. In all our actions we try to move the focus from the little details to the BIG picture."
Bjarke Ingels attracts highly talented co-workers, but also gifted and ambitious clients from all over the world. He then creates intelligent synergies from wild energies and unforeseen dynamics, and transforms them into surprising, functional, valuable and beautiful solutions to the specific and complex challenges in each task.
BIG projects have won awards from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Architecture Biennale, as well as many other international prizes. Yes is More is a play on words that represents the company’s ethos and sums up its irreverent attitude towards excessive formalism, and its determination to involved the population at large in its creations. As an extension of its methods and results, its debut monograph uses the most approachable and populist means of communication available—the cartoon.
Synopsis
YES IS MORE is the first monograph of its kind devoted exclusively to the trailblazing practice of BIG, a Copenhagenbased group of architects, designers and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. Unlike a classic architectural monograph, this book is more of a manifesto of popular culture, in which BIG’s methods, means, processes and approach to the concept of architecture are revealed as being as unconventional, unexpected and result-producing as the world in which it exists, continually reaffirming its mission with a resounding “YES.” In YES IS MORE BIG shows how its members respond to the polymorphous demands, complex rules and highly specialized knowledge of society, creating tangible solutions through artistic processes: solutions that time and again attract the interest of the population at large while earning the respect of aficionados across the globe. YES IS MORE speaks the language of popular culture, allowing the sublime to shine through in the commonplace. It enables readers to gain insights into Big’s processes, methods and results through the most approachable and populist means of communication – the cartoon. BIG has repeatedly attracted public attention and triggered political debate with projects such as a three-kilometerlong wall of social housing wrapped around a park of soccer fields in Copenhagen, the proposal to consolidate all of Denmark’s harbor activities in a star-shaped superharbor along the bridge between Denmark and Germany and recently by proposing to move Denmark’s national symbol, the Little Mermaid, to China for six months as part of the Danish Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 – and getting to do just that!
Synopsis
Action-packed architecture
A manifesto of architecture as seen by the Copenhagen-based group BIG, told in comic book form Yes is More is the easily accessible but unremittingly radical manifesto of Copenhagen-based architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG. Unlike a typical architectural monograph, this book uses the comic book format to express its radical agenda for contemporary architecture. It is also the first comprehensive documentation of BIG's trailblazing practice--where method, process, instruments and concepts are constantly questioned and redefined. Or, as the group itself says:
"Historically, architecture has been dominated by two opposing extremes: an avant-garde full of crazy ideas, originating from philosophy or mysticism; and the well organized corporate consultants that build predictable and boring boxes of high standard. Architecture seems entrenched: naively utopian or petrifyingly pragmatic. We believe there is a third way between these diametric opposites: a pragmatic utopian architecture that creates socially, economically and environmentally perfect places as a practical objective. At BIG we are devoted to investing in the overlap between radical and reality. In all our actions we try to move the focus from the little details to the BIG picture."
Bjarke Ingels attracts highly talented co-workers, but also gifted and ambitious clients from all over the world. He then creates intelligent synergies from wild energies and unforeseen dynamics, and transforms them into surprising, functional, valuable and beautiful solutions to the specific and complex challenges in each task.
BIG projects have won awards from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Architecture Biennale, as well as many other international prizes. Yes is More is a play on words that represents the company's ethos and sums up its irreverent attitude towards excessive formalism, and its determination to involved the population at large in its creations. As an extension of its methods and results, its debut monograph uses the most approachable and populist means of communication available--the cartoon.
Synopsis
Yes is More is the easily accessible but unremittingly radical manifesto of Copenhagen-based architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG.Unlike a typical architectural monograph, this book uses the comic book format to express its groundbreaking agenda for contemporary architecture. It is also the first comprehensive documentation of BIG's trailblazing practice--where method, process, instruments, and concepts are constantly questioned and redefined. Or, as the group itself says:
"Historically, architecture has been dominated by two opposing extremes: an avant-garde full of crazy ideas, originating from philosophy or mysticism; and the well organized corporate consultants that build predictable and boring boxes of high standard. Architecture seems entrenched: naively utopian or petrifyingly pragmatic. We believe there is a third way between these diametric opposites: a pragmatic utopian architecture that creates socially, economically, and environmentally perfect places as a practical objective. At BIG we are devoted to investing in the overlap between radical and reality. In all our actions we try to move the focus from the little details to the BIG picture."
Bjarke Ingels attracts highly talented coworkers, but also gifted and ambitious clients from all over the world. He then creates intelligent synergies from wild energies and unforeseen dynamics, and transforms them into surprising, functional, valuable, and beautiful solutions to the specific and complex challenges in each task.
BIG projects have won awards from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Architecture Biennale, as well as many other international prizes. Yes is More is a play on words that represents the company's ethos and sums up its irreverent attitude towards excessive formalism, and its determination to involve the population at large in its creations. As an extension of its methods and results, its debut monograph uses the most approachable and populist means of communication available--the comic.
Synopsis
By Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist
Having wandered the ruins of Hiroshima, Tokyo and other Japanese cities after WW II, The Metabolists – four architects, a critic, an industrial designer and a graphic designer – showed with the launch of their manifesto Metabolism 1960 how they would employ biological systems (aided by Japan's massive advances in technology) as inspiration for buildings and cities that could change and adapt to the vicissitudes of modern life. Units could be added or removed from buildings like Kisho Kurokawa’s Capsule Tower in Tokyo as required; buildings themselves could be added or removed from cities at will in the cell-like master-plans of Fumihiko Maki.
Project Japan features a series of vivid, empathetic conversations, replete with surprising connections and occasional clashes between Koolhaas and Obrist and their subjects. The story that unfolds is illuminated, contradicted and validated by commentaries from a broad range their forebearers, associates, critics, and progeny, including Toyo Ito and Charles Jencks.
Interspersed with the interviews and commentary are hundreds of never-before-seen images: master-plans from Manchuria to Tokyo, intimate snapshots of the Metabolists at work and play, architectural models, magazine excerpts and astonishing sci-fi urban visions. Presented in a clear chronology from the tabula rasa of a colonized Manchuria in the 1930s; a devastated Japan after the war; to the establishment of Metabolism at the 1960 World Design Conference; to the rise of Kisho Kurokawa as the first celebrity architect; to the apotheosis of the movement at Expo '70 in Osaka.
Koolhaas and Obrist unearth a history that casts new light on the key issues that both enervate and motivate architecture today: celebrity and seriousness, sustainability and monumentality, globalization, government participation (and abdication), and the necessity for architecture to reach beyond its traditional boundaries in order to embrace the future.
About the Author
About the editor and Author -
Rem Koolhaas is a co-founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Having worked as a journalist and script writer before becoming an architect, in 1978 he published Delirious New York, a retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. In 1995, his book S,M,L,XL summarized the work of OMA and established connections of contemporary society and architecture. Amongst many international awards and exhibitions he received the Pritzker Prize (2000) and the Praemium Imperiale (2003).
About the Author -
Hans Ulrich Obrist (born 1968) is a curator, critic and historian. He is currently Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews.