El Segundo

Jones, Partners's work has continually evolved as a response to and critique of trendsof newness for newness's sake. As likely to be influenced by Le Corbusier as by Gilles Deleuze or science fiction films, their work features an unexpected yet shrewd use of materials and movement. The office pursues meaningful innovation toward a more engaging experience of architecture, empowering individuals to interact with their environmentsCorbusier's "machine for living" taken to the next level. Whether competition schemes for the Grand Egyptian Museum or a radical redevelopment of San Francisco's Union Square, or built designs such as the San Jose Repertory Theater, Jones, Partners approaches architecture as more than simple form and program; it is a fluid and interactive experience. Mies van der Rohe once said, "I'd rather be good than interesting." The sentiment suits Jones, Partners well, as their work highlights the difference between simple building and true architecture; form and function are considered from every angle and pushed to new, unprecedented heights.

For more than fifteen years, Jones, Partners: Architecture has dedicated itself to innovative, iconoclastic architectural projects. Picking up where their 1998 book, Instrumental Form, left off, Jones, Partners: Architecture presents an overview of the work created from their office in El Segundo, California, over the last decade.

Jones, Partners's work has continually evolved as a response to and critique of trends of newness for newness's sake. As likely to be influenced by Le Corbusier as by Gilles Deleuze or science fiction films, their work features an unexpected yet shrewd use of materials and movement. The office pursues meaningful innovation toward a more engaging experience of architecture, empowering individuals to interact with their environments Corbusier's "machine for living" taken to the next level. Whether competition schemes for the Grand Egyptian Museum or a radical redevelopment of San Francisco's Union Square, or built designs such as the San Jose Repertory Theater, Jones, Partners approaches architecture as more than simple form and program; it is a fluid and interactive experience. Mies van der Rohe once said, "I'd rather be good than interesting." The sentiment suits Jones, Partners well, as their work highlights the difference between simple building and true architecture; form and function are considered from every angle and pushed to new, unprecedented heights.

Paul Glassman - Library Journal

The projects of Jones, Partners: Architecture (J,P:A) exhibit a highly technological image and modular form. The PRO/con system (for programmed container) delivers its most developed prototype. A more individualized approach emerges from F2, an unbuilt design referring to a variation of (and self-proclaimed improvement on) Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House, in which J,P:A replaced Mies's elegant floating terraces with a ramp and introduced other technologies. This chronologically arranged catalogue raisonné of the firm's work consists of more unbuilt than realized projects. Fifteen essays present abstract and theoretical observations of the state of modernism today. The most useful apparatus is the table of contents, in which boldface entries presumably indicate completed commissions, these illustrated with floor plans and sections in addition to the otherwise ubiquitous and overwrought computer-generated perspective views. Minimally edited and inscrutably designed by the firm, this is ultimately a vanity publication, and its unexplained numbering protocol for the entries and overly small type make for an achingly superfluous reading experience. Nevertheless, larger architecture libraries will want to acquire the monograph for its documentation of this important Southern California architecture firm.

Jones, Partners: Architecture has been operating since 1993. Their award-winning work has been published in numerous international architecture and design magazines.