Contemporary Concrete Buildings

<p>Concrete? That characterless stuff of parking lots or Communist tower blocks, right? Well, yes. And no. Concrete is actually a name applied to a remarkably wide range of building substances, and, when properly handled, is <strong>one of the noble materials of contemporary architecture</strong>. A kind of “liquid stone” at the outset, it is malleable, durable, and capable of prodigious feats of engineering.<br /><br /> This <em>Bibliotheca Universalis </em>edition highlights the <strong>best work done in concrete of recent years</strong>. It includes such stars as <strong>Zaha Hadid, Herzog &amp; de Meuron</strong>, and <strong>Steven Holl</strong>, but also surprising new architects like the Russians <strong>SPEECH</strong> and artists such as <strong>James Turrell</strong>, who turned the famous concrete spiral of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in New York into the setting of one of his most remarkable pieces.</p>