Architecture___Books
Exhibition Opening
The Berlage is pleased to present “Architecture Books,” an installation exploring the book as a vehicle for architectural theories and ideas. It puts on display a series of hands-on exercises using both digital and analog mediums based on a two-week master class led by Swiss-American scholar and designer Reto Geiser.
Participants analyzed György Kepes’s canonical Vision + Value series, researching its context and design, and creating a text-free illustrated book to offer a new perspective on the material. They then used these insights to design and construct a small architectural publication inspired by Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium, with each participant focusing on one of the memos and acting as both editor and designer. Together, the participants defined the format and materials, ultimately producing a compendium of seven unique volumes.
The installation emphasizes the development of critical, editorial, and bookmaking skills, with the aim of producing books that communicate primarily through visual means.