The structures include expensive single homes in exotic locales and high-rise offices and apartments in major cities. Airports, stadiums, hotels, railway stations, embassies, museums, galleries, libraries and schools are also depicted. Unusual profiles, ingenious engineering and high functionality are everywhere.
More than 60 maps and statistic charts from the London School of Economics summarize global trends in architecture, and easy-to-read indexes on the projects and architects are helpful in navigating the wealth of material. Hefty at 14 1/2 pounds, the atlas comes with a plastic carrier to aid portability.
Almost half the projects - 476 buildings - are located in Europe, including 52 in the United Kingdom, 46 in Switzerland and 37 each in Spain and Germany. Two European firms - Foster & Partners of London and Herzog & de Meuron of Basel, Switzerland - have the most projects in the atlas, 10 apiece.
Regional bias in the book’s selections? Not according to Phaidon editorial director Emilia Terragni, who said it accurately reflects where the most variety and innovation are occurring in global architecture. One in six projects in the atlas were executed by an architect foreign to the site, the book notes.
The United States has the most projects with 95. These include the groundbreaking Seattle Central Library, 14 flat-roofed units of affordable housing in Aspen, Colo., the industrial-influenced Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the New York Times skyscraper in New York.
Japan has 91 buildings represented, from the low-slung Fuji kindergarten in Tokyo to the glass-walled Ring House in Nagano Prefecture. China’s 41 projects include the Bird’s Nest National Stadium and the Watercube National Swimming Center built for the 2008 Olympics.
The contrasts are striking. Diebedo Francis Kere, the first from his African village to study abroad, returned to Burkina Faso to design a $46,437 brick primary school with an elevated roof that allows cooling air to flow across classroom ceilings. At the high end is Santiago Calatrava’s 54-story Turning Torso Tower in Malmo, Sweden, 147 apartments above 10 floors of offices in a graceful spiral landmark overlooking the harbor.
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