Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Beauty provides the dynamic catalyst for sixteen very charged and individual discussions about architecture and design. Based on a series of interviews by Yael Reisner, Architecture and Beauty has been developed into sixteen individual chapter/portraits, written up by Fleur Watson, that eloquently recount the thoughts of some of the world's most creative designers. Each interviewee candidly expresses their beliefs and experiences and espouses their own distinctive position on aesthetics. Offering up rare and often highly personal insights into the minds of today's most progressive and high-profile architects, the book is lusciously illustrated with the works that the architects discuss.

Featured architects: Will Alsop, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Peter Cook, Odile Decq, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Zvi Hecker, Mark Goulthorpe, Kolatan/MacDonald Studio, Greg Lynn, Tom Mayne, Juhani Pallasmaa, Gaetano Pesce, Eric Owen Moss, Wolf Prix and Lebbeus Woods.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

With a seductive black cover and vivid images within, this book by architect Reisner is an informative critical work disguised as a glossy coffee-table book. The collection of interviews interweaves the ancient architectural struggle between form and function, art and life, beauty and truth. The book does not reach a consensus, nor does it generate a consistent definition of beauty. Instead it offers a visual and conversational symposium regarding the aesthetics of architecture. Each personal perspective exposes the shared disciplinary struggle to shape significance, whether via materials, function, process, or symbolism. The 16 interviewees are Frank Gehry, Zvi Hecker, Peter Cook, Juhani Pallasmaa, Lebbeus Woods, Gaetano Pesce, Wolf D. Prix, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Will Alsop, Zaha Hadid, Odile Decq, Mark Goulthorpe, Greg Lynn, Kolatan/MacDonald Studio, and Hernan Diaz Alonso. Equally elegant and informative, this book will be extremely useful for a wide range of readers interested in architecture, design, and art. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through professionals/practitioners; general readers. L. Banu Purdue University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

YAEL REISNER has a Diploma in Architecture from the Architectural Association in London. Before turning to architecture, she completed a BSc in Biology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Born in Tel Aviv, she now lives in London where she has her own practice. Having taught for nine years at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL), she currently teaches internationally while completing a PhD at RMIT in Australia on the theme of emotional beauty and experience in contemporary architecture. She is also curating two parallel exhibitions on the work of Gaetano Pesce for the Design Museum and the Aram Gallery in London.

FLEUR WATSON is a design journalist, curator and former Editor-in-Chief of the Australian architecture journal MONUMENT (2001-7). She has a Bachelor in Design from Curtin University, an Associate Degree in Journalism and a Masters of Arts in Curating Contemporary Design from London's Design Museum and Kingston University. Fleur is Director of something together , a multi-disciplinary studio that presents architecture through events and exhibitions, and is the Managing Curator for the Cultural Program of Melbourne's State of Design Festival.