Featherweights Light, Mobile and Floating Architecture

Library Journal

These are the first in Prestel's new "Architecture in Focus" series, "examining important themes, cycles, styles and movements in contemporary architecture." Both are slim, large-format volumes with flexicovers and fine illustrations. Featherweights looks at the idea of lightness in modern architecture. Herwig, a freelance journalist, begins with historical sketches of five well-known designers whom he considers pioneers of light architecture. He then ventures into recent examples of lightweight construction, membranes, inflatable architecture, mobile architecture, virtual architecture, and space station design. Examples include the Millennium Dome in London and Frank O. Gehry's Deutsche Genossenschafts Bank in Berlin. The book touches on many visionary and offbeat concepts, but it's a stretch to find a unifying theme of lightness among them all. Minimal Architecture's four authors, all art historians or architects, differentiate minimalism from modernism. They identify subtypes of essential minimalism, metaminimalism, and transminimalism. Their analysis is detailed and academic. The examples illustrated are mostly from Europe in the 1990s, and they include Herzog and de Meuron's Tate Modern and John Pawson's series of boutiques for Calvin Klein. Both these books are recommended for academic libraries with an interest in global contemporary architecture.-David R. Conn, Surrey P.L., B.C. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.