An hour north of Rotterdam, Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos lead the 45-person UN Studio, founded in 1998. With a partner's declaration that "the box is dead," they have built a network of researchers and specialists focused on architecture, urban development, and infrastructure, aiming to create projects that integrate brief, construction, infrastructure, circulation, form, and space. Their Erasmus Bridge, a sinuous roadway suspended from a single pylon, has become a symbol of modern Rotterdam. The science center for Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh features a Euclidean grid of beams and columns, described by van Berkel as "a sock being pulled back on itself." Following the success of their three-volume publication Move, UN Studio seeks new perspectives with UNFOLd. This work includes documentation of recent projects and a critical examination of previously unpublished designs, such as the Arnhem station area, a generating station in Innsbruck, a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance laboratory in Utrecht, and the winning design for Ponte Parodi in Genoa. With a personal touch, UNFOLd immerses readers in the firm's design process through texts by Bos and innovative architectural photography.
Ben van Berkel Bücher
The Pavilion examines both the history and the contemporary state of pavilion architecture, something of a niche genre in the field, but with a long history of masterpieces. It consists of two parts: first, the examination of a group of twentieth-century pavilions, and second, a collection of essays that survey historical and more recent examples. This outstanding analysis was produced by students of architecture at Frankfurt's St�delschule. In the theoretical section, well-known authors discuss the materials used in pavilions, starting with influences from the Orient, India and Asia, and moving on to significant twentieth-century pavilions and recent temporary buildings that seem to occupy a space between art and architecture. In addition, the book documents the research and development of a summer pavilion for the garden at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt produced by the offices of Barkow Leibinger and Werner Sobek.