Part monograph, part work of architectural theory, part novel, Architecture Concepts: Red is Not a Color narrates a journey through a personal history of architecture and architectural ideas in five parts. Intertwining theory and practice, hypothetical studies and built projects, the book presents an architectural perspective and the conceptual strategies behind each work, discussing architecture in an original way: as a balance of images and story that offers a new perspective on the architecture book and redefines the monograph. Designed by 2x4, the book is to be released on October 30th in bookstores and online vendors.
"Architecture Concepts: Red is Not a Color traces an examination of architecture through projects that were developed over a number of years. Motivated by passion for architecture as well as by dissatisfaction with architectural dogma, it represents a search for a general definition of architecture outside of doctrines or canons. Key to its process is a view that much as architecture can help us understand contemporaneous cultures, so several key cultural concepts can assist us in understanding what architecture actually is."
While Tschumi’s work has been documented extensively in his Event-Cities series, intended primarily for architects, students, and specialists, no single publication has taken on an in-depth investigation and analysis of his work for a broader audience. Not just an illustrated survey of projects, the book presents both images and the theoretical or contextual back story of each project, giving equal weight to word and image. This approach makes the work accessible andre-examines what a book about architecture can be. The book also includes a substantive new essay written by Tschumi titled “Architecture Concepts.”
From Tschumi’s early Manifestoes and Advertisements for Architecture inspired by conceptual art to the narrative exploration of The Manhattan Transcripts to the Parc de la Villette, the concert halls at Rouen and Limoges, and the recently opened Acropolis Museum, the book presents a journey through the architect’s most significant work set in the context of a rich history of architectural ideas. Written for the lay person as well as the specialist, the book intersperses excerpts from key theoretical texts with an illuminating narrative about the condition of architecture today. The narrator is “you,” simultaneously an observer of and a protagonist in architecture.
