Asymptote : Architecture at the Interval

by Hani Rashid, Lise Anne Couture, Frederic Migayrou (Introduction)

Founded in New York in 1987, Asymptote is a highly regarded, innovative young firm whose avant-garde work includes building designs, urban planning proposals, gallery installations, and computer-generated imaging and environments. Asymptote's practice explores the meaning of architectural production in today's post-information age, when digital and telecommunications technology and an increasingly sophisticated media are radically changing our perception of space and time.
In this first volume of their work, Asymptote presents fifteen speculative and experimental works and ten architectural projects, many of which were for prestigious international invited competitions. These include the new library for Alexandria, Egypt; the Moscow State Theater; a national courthouse for Groningen, the Netherlands; the Berlin Spreebogen, a new parliamentary precinct; and a proposal for a new city center in Lanciano, Italy. Also featured is Asymptote's award-winning design for the Los Angeles West Coast Gateway, a national monument commemorating Pacific Rim immigration. Their work has been exhibited in Paris, Berlin, London, Kyoto, Montreal, Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York.
Hani Rashid and Lisa Anne Couture, Asymptote's principal's, introduce the book with a lyrical essay, an appeal for "a new architecture that is anticipatory, imperfect, and precisely misaligned." A critical essay by Frederic Migayrou discusses Asymptote's practice in the context of contemporary architectural theory and practice.

Genres: Architecture

160 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 1995

About the author

Hani Rashid is an architect and educator. He co-founded the New York-based architecture firm, Asymptote Architecture with Lise Anne Couture.

Reviews

[Mike Bularz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Architectural and design attempts at blending the real and the digital. Primarily inspired by digital art's effect on art world, a lot of the projects are semi-online semi-real-life museums. There were interesting parts spun around things like "airport urbanism" or adopting sports/athletic design for offices but they were short.
In all reality, the conceptualization and/or creation of structures to accomodate a hyper-real future at this point and time leads to a bunch of walls of hdtv's put into about 2/3 of the projects in this book, and a indecisive use of barriers (glass walls in just about every structure that adjust to sunlight or project images on or through or inside themselves.

If you're still with me and this all sounds appealing to you, think of it like reading the back of a book and then being disappointed - I just about pointed out a lot of the interesting things but what I wrote here is about how much you'll leave with after reading this architecture book.