Catalogue Mendrisio Academy Press
The founding father of contemporary architecture in Ticino, Rino Tami (1908-1994) designed, when still very young, the Lugano Canton Library (1936-1940), the first excellent example of a modern public building in Ticino. In the Forties, organic architecture became a part of his wide cultural heritage. His professional maturity, attained in the Fifties and Sixties with public buildings (headquarters of the Italian Swiss Radio in Lugano) and private houses (Torre House in Lugano, Nadig House in Maroggia), coincided with his teaching commitment at the Zürich Polytechnic. From the Sixties he also held the post of supervisor of the architectural features along the Ticinese stretch of the Swiss motorway: tunnel entrances, bridges, portals, viaducts, embankment walls, service area buildings, public conveniences, storehouses, air shafts.
Rino Tami. Opera completa
edited by
Kenneth Frampton, Riccardo Bergossi
24 x 28 cm, 496 pp.
800 ill. b/w
hardcover
italian
ISBN 9788887624373
€ 75 / frs 120.–
Out of stock
Open Access
The book shows the big steps that Chinese urbanism is taking today. Beijing and Shanghai represent modern developments: one is the political and cultural center of the nation, while the other is its economic hub. Nanjing is taken as a typical case of Chinese urbanism, with its long history, natural geography, political events, and economic development.
Texts in English by Josep Acebillo, Wowo Ding, Chen Zhao, Hongyan Xiao.
Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing: Three Chinese Venues
edited by
Wowo Ding
16,5 × 19 cm, 136 pp.
151 ill. col., 28 ill. b/w
paperback
english
ISBN 9788887624366
€ 16 / frs 25.-
Out of stock
The book offers an overview of the transformations under way in Johannesburg and its metropolitan area, and a selection of the most interesting architectural and urban projects completed or under way in the last ten years. The common denominator of the best of these projects is twofold: firstly, they implement architectural and planning practices to overcome the social, political and cultural divisions of the past and to respond to the fluidity of the post apartheid landscape; secondly, they contribute to develop South Africa’s enormous economic potential and to make its principal cities international points of reference.
Texts in English by Josep Acebillo, Lindsay Bremner, Pep Subirós, Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall.
Johannesburg: Emerging / Diverging Metropolis
edited by
Lindsay Bremner, Pep Subirós
16,5 × 19 cm, 176 pp.
185 ill. col., 65 ill. b/w
paperback
english
ISBN 9788887624359
€ 16 / frs 25.-
Esaurito
The work of Luciano Rigolini (Tesserete, 1950) is developed in a constant dialogue between photography and painting, an exchange of references through which to explore issues relating to the theory of vision or to clarify the status of photography in contemporary aesthetics. The book opens with an "Exercise in style": 70 snapshots of anonymous subjects, collected by the artist over a period of several years. In their reasoned and sensitive comparison, these images form a sort of visual vocabulary of Rigolini’s oeuvre. They are followed by photographs from the series "Urban landscapes" which, taken between 1990 and 2002, re-examine the urban landscape in a constructivist key.
Luciano Rigolini, The Form of Looking. Photographs '90-'07
edited by
Marco Franciolli
24 x 28 cm, 248 pp.
176 ill. b/w, 9 ill. col.
hardcover
english / italian
ISBN 9788887624335
€ 36 / frs 56.–
Out of stock
The book presents a contemporary picture of the urban development models devised by the Modern Movement and a reflection on what they mean today. Chandigarh and Brasilia, newly founded cities built ex nihilo in 1950-1960, looked explicitly to the “functionalist” and “rationalist” traditions of modern town planning. Also, like some of the plans inspired by the neoclassical that were prepared in the early decades of the 20th century, especially for the building of government capitals or civic centres, they both sought to fulfil monumental ambitions to represent state institutions. The book examines the contemporary reality of Chandigarh and Brasilia through a grid of catchwords that sum up the distinctively modern terms in which the two projects are stated. Divided into two main categories, Urbanism and Architecture, the catchwords accompany the reader along a photographic sequence that helps to define an “official” idiom whereby architecture was expected to represent the “modernisation” of both countries.
Texts in English by Josep Acebillo, Maristella Casciato, Stanislaus von Moos.
Photographs by: Enrico Cano.
Twilight of the Plan: Chandigarh and Brasilia
edited by
Maristella Casciato,
Stanislaus von Moos
16,5 × 19 cm, 196 pp.
148 ill. col., 77 ill. b/w
paperback
english
ISBN 9788887624342
€ 16 / frs 25.-
Out of stock
The book features the illustrated catalogue raisonné of the collection, held in the Ticino, of drawings by the Gilardi architects.
The Gilardis were architects of Ticinese stock who worked in Russia during the first half of the nineteenth century. In particular, Domenico (1785-1845) made a number of masterly contributions to the reconstruction of Moscow after the fire of 1812.
The catalogue opens with two essays: by Piervaleriano Angelini on neoclassical architecture in Moscow and St Petersburg, and by Alessandra Pfister on the human background and critical fortunes of the Gilardis.
Gli architetti Gilardi a Mosca. La raccolta dei disegni conservati in Ticino
edited by
Alessandra Pfister,
Piervaleriano Angelini
24 × 28 cm, 248 pp.
225 ill. b/w, 14 ill. col.
paperback
italian
ISBN 8887624305
€ 60 / frs 90.–
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Arduino Cantàfora, the architect and painter who worked for a long time with Aldo Rossi, has been one of the outstanding personalities at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture. His courses represented a highly idiosyncratic attitude to the figure of the teacher, the maestro. Hence the title of the exhibition (Museo d’arte Mendrisio, 10 February 25 March 2007) and its catalogue. The sequence presented, in the exhibition and in the book, is spread over a selection of works by the artist, his assistant Annina Ruf, and students who have attended his ateliers at the Accademia. The event seeks to show how Cantàfora’s art is also an art of the paideia: educational in the formation of tools with which to understand and represent the world and its natural as well as architectural forms. Viewed together, the works of Cantàfora and of his pupils thus stimulate visitors and readers to explore one of the core issues of artistic cultures: the transmissibility of their knowledge.
L'immagine maestra. Opere di Arduino Cantàfora e dei suoi atelier
edited by
Bruno Pedretti
22 × 24 cm, 116 pp.
45 ill. col., 68 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
ISBN 9788887624311
€ 20 / frs 30.-
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Moscow is today a mighty laboratory for experimentation in social and economic policy and urban planning. As a free market forms and capitalism gathers pace, a new metropolis of a kind never seen before is being born. Following the history of utopian experiments and physical transformations of the city in the 20th century, we can distinguish at least three different and specific approaches to the formation of a model of New Moscow: in the urban experimental projects of the 1920s, and in the master plans of 1935 and 1971. The goal of "New Moscow 4" is to show the kind of transformations Moscow has experienced since the renunciation of socialism, to help identify the character of the city’s regeneration as it switches to a capitalist economy, and to outline prospects for the city’s further development.
Texts in English by Josep Acebillo, Blair A. Ruble, Alessandro De Magistris, Irina Korobina, Il’ya Lezhava.
New Moscow 4
edited by
Irina Korobina
16,5 × 19 cm, 180 pp.
184 ill. col., 34 ill. b/w
paperback
english
ISBN 9788887624135
€ 16 / frs 25.-
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The panorama of Mexican architecture at the beginning of this century is a variegated one, revealing the widest conceptual, stylistic and formal expressions and a happy mixture of the austere language of the Modern Movement, the lively idiom of the vernacular, and the legacy of Luis Barragán. This book illustrates the vibrant urban context of Mexico City in a selection of works by ten architects: the imposing embassy by Teodoro González de León, the metaphysical towers of Ricardo Legorreta, the buildings of Augustín Landa and Augusto Quijano, and the most recent accomplishments which are also so richly diverse in their aesthetic conception of Enrique Norten, Bernardo Gomez-Pimienta, Alberto Kalach, Javier Sánchez, Mauricio Rocha and Fernando Romero.
Texts in English by Josep Acebillo, Néstor García Canclini, José Luis Cortés Delgado, Miquel Adriá.
Contemporary Mexican Architectures
edited by
Miquel Adriá
16,5 × 19 cm, 116 pp.
40 ill. col., 13 ill. b/w
paperback
english
ISBN 8887624046
€ 16 / frs 25.-
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The book comprises two volumes. The first tells the story of the Girasole and illustrates its progress with the help of contemporary drawings and photographs. The second takes the reader on a guided tour of the Villa accompanied by Enrico Cano’s recent colour photographs.
Villa Girasole. La casa rotante / The Revolving House
Kenneth Frampton, Aurelio Galfetti, Valeria Farinati
photographs by Enrico Cano
2 voll. 24 x 28 cm, 76 + 136 pp.
120 ill. col., 57 ill. b/w
hardback in slipcase
english / italian
ISBN 8887624178
€ 120 / frs 180.-
Out of stock
Structure is a fundamental aspect of construction. It concerns both engineers and architects who, however, often speak mutually incomprehensible languages. The purpose of this book is to foster dialogue between their two professions, so as to optimise their common work. Originating from the courses held at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture, the book adopts a reader-friendly, lively and immediately understandable approach utilizing graphic visualisation.
Aurelio Muttoni, L'arte delle strutture. Introduzione al funzionamento delle strutture in architettura
24 x 24 cm, 264 pp.
200 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
ISBN 8887624038
€ 42 / frs 65.–
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This album of drawings was originally a gift presented in 1795 by the architect Luigi Rusca to the nobleman Zampiero Grimani, Venetian Ambassador to the court of Catherine II. The precious book, presented here in a facsimile edition with an in-depth historical and critical apparatus, contains twenty plates. Mostly in Indian ink and water-colour, they depict some of the principal monuments and residences of St Petersburg: works by Rusca himself and by others such as the illustrious Jean-Baptiste Michel Vallin de la Mothe and Giacomo Quarenghi.
Album Rusca Grimani. Architectural Drawings from Catherine II's Russia
edited by
Piervaleriano Angelini, Nicola Navone
30 x 40 cm, 152 pp.
40 ill. col.
hardcover
english / italian
isbn 9788887624380
€ 190 / frs 300.–
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The book is a collection of twelve essays on the history of medieval published since the 1960s in rare editions or in other forms by now hard to obtain. In describing them as «Fragments of life», the author refers not just to the time span they embrace, but also to a common critical purpose: never to lose sight of the concrete object of his work, albeit in a wide range of fields: from late classical to Byzantine, from the miniature to the “minor arts”. A return to these topics, selected by the author himself and in a number of cases revisited for the occasion, affords an opportunity to follow up a critical viewpoint in which rigorous scholarship, faithfulness to “text” and interpretative passion are combined in a uniquely idiosyncratic style.
Carlo Bertelli, Wolvinio e gli angeli. Studi sull'arte medievale
19 x 24.5 cm, 264 pp.
67 ill. col., 54 ill. b/w
hardback in slipcase
italian
ISBN 8887624194
€ 70 / frs 110.–
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The most complete and exhaustively examined study of the work of Panos Koulermos (1933-1999).
A roving architect, Koulermos was of Greek Cypriot birth, British by upbringing but “Mediterranean rationalist” by vocation. He built in Britain and in Italy, in Greece, Cyprus and in the United States, and taught at the principal universities.
He was also among the founders of the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture.
Panos Koulermos. Opera completa
edited by
Kenneth Frampton
24 x 28 cm, 344 pp.
550 ill. col. and b/w
paperback
italian
ISBN 8887624151
€ 100 / frs 150.–
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The book is a record of the seminar devoted annually by the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice to Carlo Scarpa and to matters relating to the preservation of his oeuvre.
Texts by Davide Croff, Mario Botta, Giorgio Busetto, Giancarlo Cunial, Gian Pietro Favaro, Gianna Ghittoni Rattazzi, Angelo Tabaro, Alba di Lieto, Maura Manzelle, Chiara Bertola, Anita Napoleone.
Photographs by: Candida Höfer.
Carlo Scarpa. L'opera e la sua conservazione. VII 2004
Giornate di studio alla Fondazione Querini Stampalia
edited by
Maura Manzelle
15 x 21 cm, 100 pp.
24 ill. col.
paperback
italian
ISBN 8887624186
€ 16 / frs 24.–
Out of stock
This work is a complete catalogue of the drawings by Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817) kept at the state Museum of History of St Petersburg. It offers a remarkable record of the quality and scale of the work done by the Bergamo-born architect at the court of the tsars.
An English version of the catalogue texts is provided at the end of the book.
Disegni di Giacomo Quarenghi. La raccolta del Museo statale della Storia di San Pietroburgo
edited by
Al’bina Pavelkina
24 x 28 cm, 232 pp.
120 ill. col., 115 ill. b/w
paperback
italian / english
ISBN 8887624216
€ 60 / frs 90.–
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The broadest and most closely examined survey of the Italian sources of Russian neoclassicism, a style which from the second half of the 18th century gave form and identity to St Petersburg, raising it to the level of a modern and “enlightened” European capital.
But it is a style that can also be retraced to Moscow and to the cities of southern Russia, where it serves to bring about architectural and town-planning renewal.
The work, resulting from collaboration between western and Russian scholars, offers an innovative (artistic but also social) picture of one of the most fruitful periods in Russian history, stretching from Catherine II’s accession to the throne in 1762 to the death of her grandson, Tsar Alexander I in 1825.
Dal mito al progetto. La cultura architettonica dei maestri italiani e ticinesi nella Russia neoclassica
edited by
Nicola Navone, Letizia Tedeschi
2 voll., 24 x 28 cm, XXIV-936 pp.
306 ill. col., 384 ill. b/w
hardcover in slipcase
italian
ISBN 8887624224
€ 160 / frs 240.–
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The book is a record of the seminar devoted annually by the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice to Carlo Scarpa and to matters relating to the preservation of his oeuvre.
Texts by Giorgio Busetto, Angelo Tabaro, Margherita Guccione, Maura Manzelle, Valeriano Pastor, Sergio Los, Arrigo Rudi, Orietta Lanzarini, Giancarlo Carnevale, Chiara Bertola, Philippe Duboy.
Photographs by Margarita Andreu.
Carlo Scarpa. L'opera e la sua conservazione. VI 2003
Giornate di studio alla Fondazione Querini Stampalia
edited by
Maura Manzelle
15 x 21 cm, 176 pp.
25 ill. col.
paperback
italian
ISBN 8887624143
€ 16 / frs 24.–
Out of stock
Collected into this book are the contributions by Carlo Cattaneo (1801-1869) to the debate on the building of the trans-Alpine railway, viewed by the author from the perspective of a system of communication between ever wider and more complex cultures, whose civilised values he believed were not inferior to their economic ones.
Carlo Cattaneo, Scritti sulle trasversali alpine
edited by
Fabio Minazzi
24 x 24 cm, 328 pp.
120 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
ISBN 8887624283
€ 33 / frs 50.–
Out of stock
The wooden bridges of Wettingen, Reichenau and Sciaffusa, built by the brothers Johannes and Hans Ulrich Grubenmann, were in the second half of the 18th century much admired and studied by scholars, engineers and architects.
Among these was the British John Soane (1753-1837), who did drawings of them which emphasized their technological and structural aspect. He also made them the subject of some of his famous Lecturers at the Royal Academy in London.
John Soane e i ponti di legno svizzeri. Architettura e cultura tecnica da Palladio ai Grubenmann
edited by
Angelo Maggi, Nicola Navone
24 x 24 cm, 224 pp.
44 ill. col., 106 ill. b/w
paperback
italian
ISBN 8887624240
€ 45 / frs 70.–
Out of stock
