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2G 52 Sauerbruch Hutton
Barry Bergdoll, Louisa Hutton, Matthias Sauerbruch, Philip Ursprung
Sauerbruch Hutton is a practice founded by Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton with its main offices in Berlin and London. Active as an independent concern for upwards of twenty years, they have developed a personal language that is essentially characterised by two evident features: the free, sinuous forms of some of their buildings and a bold, emphatic use of colour.
Subtending these obvious characteristics are other no less important ones that are in some way derived from the first ones. We are referring to their wish to create a sense of place, whatever the situation, be it in an urban centre or in a rundown industrial area on the outskirts. Their buildings are gestures on an urban scale that resolve the programme of needs defined by the client and establish a dialogue with the location.
Likewise, it is worth highlighting the strong backing they give to an architectural approach based on sustainability. Sauerbruch Hutton defend and construct a holistic idea of the sustainable that incorporates the aesthetic and sensual pleasure the users of the buildings experience as well as an energy-based analysis of the constructional process or passive and active energy systems. In short, theirs is a defence of sustainability that acts in a resolute way, without artifice or pretentiousness.

Paperback / 146 pages / text English, Spanish / Februari 2010

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2G 51 MGM Morales Giles Mariscal
Laurent Beaudouin, Sara de Giles, José Morales, Carles Muro, Ciro Najle
With the death of Franco, Spanish architecture came out of its isolationist shell and subscribed to the international tendencies of the day, whilst always incorporating the special features of a rich and at the same time self-sufficient tradition. Since that time there have been many Spanish architects who have carved out an internationally renowned career for themselves-from Rafael Moneo and Enric Miralles to members of the younger generation like RCR and Tuñón + Mansilla-but even more important is the substratum of small studios concerned with quality architecture that have gradually emerged throughout the country.
Away from the traditional focal points of Spanish architecture-Madrid and Barcelona-, the Sevillean studio MGM Arquitectos stands out among this new batch of Spanish architects, adding a peripheral condition of sorts to the substratum of good workmanship. MGM’s outstanding work with skins and their materials is not restricted to merely epidermal issues, but rather envelops and contains a whole series of intermediary spaces that are neither exterior nor interior, that give an added value to both apartment and public buildings, and pick up in turn on a whole tradition of intermediary spaces typical of Andalusian architecture.

Paperback / 144 pages / text English, Spanish / October 2009

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2G 50 Sou Fujimoto
Sou Fujimoto, Toyo Ito, Julian Worrall
Sou Fujimoto belongs to a new generation of young Japanese architects whose work has aroused enormous interest at the international level. After winning numerous prizes in both Japan and the rest of the world, Fujimoto has become a major presence on the Japanese architectural scene.
Unlike his contemporaries, Sou Fujimoto has not been trained through working in the office of any of the architects of wide experience and international renown-instead, after graduating from Tokyo University in 1994 he preferred to think about and test his personal ideas on architecture in small projects that have enabled him to develop a tremendously personal and distinctive architectural approach. His projects are the result of a sophisticated conceptual elaboration that subverts established models, one mainly based on two major concerns: what it means to dwell in a space in the 21st century and how that space is materialised without following any formal a priori.
Accordingly, innovation in Fujimoto’s work does not proceed from a wish to generate disruptive forms, but from understanding the relationships between people and spaces in a different way, from taking complexity on board as an essential ingredient in his thinking and in his work, or from valuing intermediary space and nature.
Fujimoto manipulates these ideas, which reveal his preoccupation with the essence of dwelling, and transforms them into a new architecture of great spatial richness.
This number of 2G brings together the most emblematic buildings and projects by Sou Fujimoto, outstanding among which are the Children's Centre for Psychiatric Rehabilitation (Hokkaido), the Final Wooden House (Kumamoto), the Primitive Future House 2008 (Basel), the Apartment building (Tokyo), House Before House (Tochigi), House H (Tokyo), and the Library for Musashino Art University, (Tokyo). The two introductions to the monograph, written by Toyo Ito and Julian Worrall, provide us with the basic keys for understanding the richness of the Japanese architect’s projects.

Paperback / 144 pages / text English, Spanish / July 2009

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2G 48/49 Mies van der Rohe. Houses
Moisés Puente, Beatriz Colomina, Moisés Puente, Hans-Christian Schink
A number of reasons have led us to the complete publication of Mies van der Rohe’s single family houses. To begin with, this publication responds to the lack of such a publication about Mies’s domestic work. Comprehensiveness has been paramount and it has been thought important to include all the built houses, regardless of the state of preservation of the very early ones; although their exteriors might seem more than acceptable, their interiors have undergone successive changes that make it almost impossible to find features of the original work. Two of the important houses have disappeared (the Wolf House in Gubin, destroyed in the World War II, and the House for a Childless Couple, dismounted after the exhibition), so that they are presented in the only way possible, using archive material.
Although Mies never got to build too many single family houses, he did receive quite a few commissions that were never built.
In order to understand the true dimension of the domestic facet of his work, it was necessary for all these designs to appear, and they have been collected together in the final section of nexus. Neither of these two parts of the publication, the built and the unbuilt houses, can be understood independently of the other.
As far as possible this publication tries to accompany the projects with the few comments, written or verbal, that Mies left behind about his houses after all, who better than the author to comment on his own buildings?
Last but not least, it is worth highlighting the work of research in numerous archives, which has enabled us to bring together, in a single volume, documents that in some instances were either unpublished or had been published in bad quality reproductions.
Current techniques for digitalising documents permit us to see a hitherto unusual amount of detail.

Paperback / 270 pages / text in English, Spanish / January 2009

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2G offers wide-ranging monographic issues devoted to the recent work of a major contemporary architect, and to particular aspects of the work of the great masters of modern architecture.

Format: 30 x 23 cm
144 pages illustrated in colour
Text: Spanish/English
Frecuency: Quarterly

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2G Books: Arne Jacobsen. Public Buildings
Félix Solaguren
Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971), better known for his prominent career as a designer of furniture and objects than as an architect, is the ultimate proponent of the modern movement in Denmark. Though he was a master of using traditional materials and textures within a modern vernacular, Jacobsen was also interested in industrial buildings and new technologies. His public buildings followed the same criteria of simplicity, order, utility and harmony as all his other projects. However, in his public architecture, Jacobsen also added the discipline inherent in standardisation and use of industrial components.

Hardcover / 144 pages / text in English, Spanish

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2G 47 Paulo David
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2G 46 Tony Fretton Architects
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2G 45 Paulo Mendes da Rocha. Recent Work
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2G 44 Smiljan Radic
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2G 43 Kazuhiro Kojima
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2G 42 HildundK. Recent Work
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2G 41 Eduardo Arroyo. Recent work
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2G 39-40 Gerrit Th. Rietveld. Houses - Casas
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2G 38 Ofis arhitekti
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2G 37 Valerio Olgiati
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2G 36 BKK-3
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2G 35 Burkhalter Sumi
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2G 32 Carlos Ferrater
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2G 31 Riegler Riewe
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2G 29/30 Max Bill
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2G 27 Mansilla + Tuñón
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2G 26 Mathias Klotz
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2G 25 Josep Lluís Mateo
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2G 22 Ábalos & Herreros
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2G 18 Architecture and Energy
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2G 16 Foreign Office Architects
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2G 15 Postwar Italian Architecture
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2G 14 Building in the Mountains
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2G 13 Carlos Jiménez
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2G 7 R.M. Schindler
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2G 6 Ushida Findlay
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