informal
Cecil Balmond with Jannuzzi Smith

informal has a typographic elegance that makes it look like no previous engineering book…its glimpses of a hidden order of things, of the occult properties of numbers and shapes, suggest it could be the next Brief History of Time – but with pictures.” Deyan Sudjic, The Observer

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Cecil Balmond’s theory of the informal is explained with reference to 7 seminal projects in collaboration with architects Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Alvaro Siza, Ben van Berkel, and Peter Kulka with Ulrich Königs, ranging from a Villa in Bordeaux to a large Transport Interchange in Arnhem; from a large canopy in Lisbon to the V&A Spiral in London and an Exhibition Centre in Lille.
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“I was introduced to Michele Jannuzzi and Richard Smith” Balmond says, “as people who would help me resolve a difficult problem – how to communicate the essence of something.” The results of this collaboration – a seamless innovation of text and image – mirrors Balmond’s own creative collaboration with leading architects, a blurring of the boundaries between one discipline and another.
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Published by Prestel, 2002 (ISBN 3-7913-2400-4). Edited by Christian Brensing, with prefaces by Charles Jencks and Rem Koolhaas. Additional information about the book and downloadable resources for review purposes are available here.
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