For architects, the book has been a necessary (if not essential) tool for clarifying, extending, and promoting their ideas and projects. This seminar examines the phenomenon of the book in architecture as both an array of organizational techniques (what it is) and as a mediator (what it does). Arguably, outside of building itself, the book has been the preferred mode of discourse that architects have chosen to express their intellectual project. Because lasting impression relies partially upon durability of message, the book remains the objet par excellence among media. This seminar is part lecture, part workshop where the experience of making a series of books helps to inform the development of ideas about the projective capacity of the book. Through case studies, the first portion of this seminar examines the relationship book production has with a selection of contemporary and historical practices, including each project’s physical and conceptual composition as well as how each project acts as an agent of the architect within a larger world of communication. The second part of the seminar asks students to apply ideas in a series of three book projects that emphasize the book as an instrument of architectural thinking. Limited enrollment.
