Figments of the Architectural Imagination and Other Essays

Todd Gannon

Softcover | 14.61 x 1.91 x 22.23 cm | 284 pp

ORO Editions | 2022 | 9781954081970

Gathering twenty essays written over twenty years, Figments of the Architectural Imagination explores the frontiers of speculative architectural design, theory, and pedagogy to offer clear-eyed and incisive treatments of some of the most important projects, practices, and polemics that make contemporary architecture contemporary.

These sharp and insightful texts, whether addressing the impact of digital technology, the design of an effective hotel, the emergence of the Los Angeles vanguard, or the proper execution of a thesis project, combine frontline reportage, archival scholarship, trenchant prose, and impressive critical acumen to cut through the cacophony of recent architectural discourse with uncommon clarity, intelligence, rigour, and wit.

Taken together, these essays provide an essential orientation for practitioners, academics, students, and aficionados hoping to understand how contemporary architecture came to be where it is and to speculate on where it might go next.

Key Features:

• In-depth investigations into the projects and ideas of noted contemporary architects including Archigram, Preston Scott Cohen, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Peter Eisenman, Wes Jones, Oyler Wu Collaborative, Jason Payne, PATTERNS, Lindy Roy, servo, Bernard Tschumi, and UN Studio
• Several texts written in collaboration with notable thinkers in architecture and related fields including the literary critic N. Katherine Hayles, the philosopher Graham Harman, and architects Tom Wiscombe, David Ruy, and Andrew Zago
• Explications of the development of contemporary architecture in Los Angeles from the 1970s to the present, featuring treatments of the formative years of Pritzker Prize-winners Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne and other members of the so-called “L.A. School” including Eric Owen Moss, Craig Hodgetts, Michael Rotondi, Robert Mangurian, and Coy Howard