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  • Markus Berger, Liliane Wong (Eds.)

    Int AR Interventions and Adaptive Reuse: The Experience…

  • Alexander Reichel, Kerstin Schultz (Hg.)

    Umhüllen und Konstruieren. Wände, Fassade, Dach

  • Kai-Uwe Hemken (Hg.)

    Kritische Szenographie. Die Kunstausstellung im 21.…

  • Oda Pälmke

    Haus Ideal-The Making of: Von der Idee zur Idee.…

  • Christoph Thun-Hohenstein (Hg.)

    Vienna Biennale 2015. Ideas for Change

  • Emanuel Christ, Christoph Gantenbein

    Typology: Paris, Delhi, São Paulo, Athens. Review No. III

  • Idea Document

    R. On The Shoulders of Giants

  • David Hlynsky

    Window Shopping Through the Iron Curtain

  • Felix Guattari, Antonio Negri

    Neue Räume der Freiheit

  • Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau (Hg.)

    das prinzip coop: Hannes Meyer und die Idee einer…

  • Eugen Blume, Matilda Felix, Gabriele…

    Black Mountain. Ein interdisziplinäres Experiment 1933 -1957

  • Hannes Meyer

    Co-op Interieur (Wohnungsfrage)

  • Stefan Goldmann (Hg.)

    Presets – Digital Shortcuts to Sound

  • Behnke, Kastelan, Knoll, Wuggenig (Eds.)

    Art in the Periphery of the Center

  • Martin Wagner

    Das wachsende Haus (Wohnungsfrage)

  • Bauwelt Fundamente 154

    Urban Commons. Moving Beyond State and Market

  • Peggy Deamer

    The Architect as Worker

  • Alan Moore, Alan Smart (Ed.)

    Making Room. Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces

  • Filip Springer

    Kopfgeburten. Architekturreportagen aus der Volksrepublik…

  • David Jourdan, Yuji Oshima

    1%. 2CD

  • Armen Avanessian, Helen Hester (Hg.)

    dea ex machina

  • Jens Hoffmann

    Theater of Exhibitions

  • C. Cox, J. Jaskey, S. Malik (Eds.)

    Realism, Materialism, Art

  • Kerstin Stakemeier, Susanne Witzgall (…

    Fragile Identitäten

  • Mark von Schlegell

    Sundogz

  • Sarah Robinson, Juhani Pallasmaa

    Mind in Architecture. Neuroscience, Embodiment, and the…

  • Rob Stone

    Auditions. Architecture and Aurality

  • Paolo Magagnoli

    Documents of Utopia. The Politics of Experimental…

  • Arne Blum, Wolfgang Gnida (Hg.)

    Moondog, eine Sammlung zum 99. Geburtstag

  • Florian Ebner (Hg.)

    Fabrik. Jasmina Metwaly / Philip Rizk. Olaf Nicolai. Hito…

  • Julia Voss

    Hinter weißen Wänden. Behind the White Cube

  • Ingrid Böck

    Six Canonical Projects by Rem Koolhaas Essays on the…

  • Antje Krause-Wahl, Irene Schütze (Hg.)

    Aspekte künstlerischen Schaffens der Gegenwart

  • Christoph Grafe

    People's palaces. Architecture, culture and democracy…

  • Ales Erjavec (Ed.)

    Aesthetic Revolutions and Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde…

  • The Invisible Committee

    To Our Friends

  • Stuart Braun

    City of Exiles. Berlin from the outside in

  • Max Bruinsma, Ida van Zijl (Eds.)

    Design for the Good Society. Utrecht Manifest 2005 - 2015

  • Olaf Gisbertz (Hg.)

    Bauen für die Massenkultur: Stadt- und Kongresshallen der…

  • Pascal Gielen, Niels Van Tomme (Eds.)

    Aesthetic Justice. Intersecting Artistic and Moral…

  • Andres Lepik, Hilde Strobl (Hg.)

    ZOOM! Architektur und Stadt im Bild. Picturing Architecture…

  • Silke Steets

    Der sinnhafte Aufbau der gebauten Welt. Eine…

  • SendPoints

    Art of the Book. Structure, Material and Technique

  • Anne Huffschmid

    Risse im Raum. Erinnerung, Gewalt und städtisches Leben in…

  • Markus Rathgeb

    Otl Aicher

  • Robin Mackay (Ed.)

    When Site Lost the Plot

  • Roberto Gigliotti (Ed.)

    Displayed Spaces. New Means of Architecture Presentation…

  • Vladimir Belogolovsky

    Conversations with Architects. In the Age of Celebrity

  • Deimantas Narkevičius

    Da capo. Fifteen Films

  • Günter Pfeifer, Per Brauneck

    Wohnhäuser. Eine Typologie

  • Valerio Olgiati (Ed.)

    The Images of Architects

  • Klaus Ronneberger

    Peripherie und Ungleichzeitigkeit. Pier Paolo Pasolini,…

  • Le Corbusier

    Städtebau

  • Lovink, Tkacz, De Vries (Eds.)

    MoneyLab Reader. An Intervention in Digital Economy

  • Ezio Manzini

    Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design…

  • Paulina Olowska

    Alphabet

  • Diogo Seixas Lopes

    Melancholy and Architecture: On Aldo Rossi

  • Eva B. Ottillinger (Hg.)

    Küchen / Möbel. Design und Geschichte

  • Clog 13

    Guggenheim

  • Thomas Düllo, Studiengang Gesellschafts…

    texturen Nr. 2 — Spielen

  • Emanuele Piccardo

    Beyond Environment

  • Yona Friedman

    Architecture with the people, by the people, for the people

  • Gin Müller

    Possen des Performativen. Theater, Aktivismus und queere…

  • Dougal Sheridan (Hg)

    Translating Housing: Berlin - Belfast. Innovative Housing…

  • Jörg H. Gleiter, Ludger Schwarte (Hg.)

    Architektur und Philosophie. Grundlagen. Standpunkte.…

  • IGBK (Hg.)

    Dreams of Art Spaces Collected

  • Frances Holliss

    Beyond Live/Work. The Architecture of Home-Based Work

  • Marc Angélil & Sarah Nichols (Ed.)

    Reform! Essays on the Political Economy of Urban Form – Vol…

  • Tilman Baumgärtel

    Schleifen. Zur Geschichte und Ästhetik des Loops

  • Maurizio Lazzarato

    Governing by Debt

  • Slavs and Tatars

    Mirrors for Princes

  • Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

    Formalism and Historicity. Models and Methods in Twentieth-…

  • Blaine Brownell, Marc Swackhamer

    Hypernatural. Architecture's New Relationship with…

  • David Maroto, Joanna Zielińska (Ed.)

    Artist Novels. The Book Lovers Publication

  • Franco »Bifo« Berardi

    Der Aufstand. Über Poesie und Finanzwirtschaft

  • Monika Rinck

    Risiko und Idiotie. Streitschriften

  • Kristien Ring, AA Projects, SenStadtUm…

    Urban Living. Strategien für das zukünftige Wohnen

  • Lou Cantor, Clemens Jahn (Eds.)

    Turning Inward

  • Ina Conzen (Hg.)

    Oskar Schlemmer. Visionen einer neuen Welt

  • Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, Hans…

    The Age of Earthquakes. A Guide to the Extreme Present

  • Lisa Lee (Ed.)

    Isa Genzken (October Files)

  • John Miller

    Mike Kelley. Educational Complex

  • David Adjaye

    Form, Heft, Material

  • Joseph Vogl

    Der Souveränitätseffekt

  • Marco Ornella

    9999. An Alternative to One-Way Architecture

  • Manuel Herz (Ed.)

    African Modernism

  • Lisa Smirl

    Spaces of Aid. How Cars, Compounds and Hotels shape…

  • Louise Bourgeois

    I Have Been to Hell and Back

  • Marc-Camille Chaimowicz

    Madame Bovary

  • Philipp Felsch

    Der lange Sommer der Theorie. Geschichte einer Revolte 1960…

  • Luis Carranza, Fernando Lara

    Modern Architecture in Latin America. Art, Technology, and…

  • Adrian George

    The Curator's Handbook. Museums, Commercial Galleries…

  • Anne Waak

    Hartz IV und wir

  • Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne…

    Fantasies of the Library

  • Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne…

    Land & Animal & Nonanimal

  • Raumlaborberlin (Ed.)

    Art City Lab. Neue Räume für die Kunst

  • Jean-Paul Martinon (Ed.)

    The Curatorial. A Philosophy of Curating

  • Ulrike Gerhardt, Susanne Husse (Hg.)

    The Forgotten Pioneer Movement: Guidebook

Cover The Suspense of Architecture

The Suspense of Architecture. The Necessity to Shine

In a way, this book can be regarded as a manuscript. A bundle of translated texts, essays, interviews, and images selected from among the numerous suggestions and various submissions from the author, which in the end failed to receive his authorisation. It is the culmination of the final project undertaken by Rotterdam-based architect Maurice Nio before losing a long-running battle with cancer in July 2023. Designed by Thomas Buxó, the book is a white version of what Nio calls his black bible. Instead of writing on that which is secret, obscure, black, and elusive, he now addresses that which is shining, clear, whiter than white, and obvious.

Whether a designer, and the architect in particular, chooses for the literal virtuality of a model that is made by a computer or for the metaphorical virtuality of a conventional model, is of no sense since it is the very borderline between both design processes that is interesting.
THE INGENIOUS INFECTION:
The trick is to stay somewhere between real and virtual, dogmatic and ambiguous, organisation and self-organisation, stable and unstable, straightforward and curved, hard and soft, and crystalline and liminal. That is my dream.
CITY FOR ANGELS:
‘The spoon and the city’ is the famous phrase of Walter Gropius that became the motto of Bauhaus. He intended an architect to be the ordering force and demiurge of all physical space. I think, as an architect, it is also important to get a grip on the virtual or, let’s say, mythological space, which cannot be determined in traditional architectonic terms. An architect always has to consider a non-human space, an angelic space, and make room for this extra dimension, where a human being can get in contact with something inhuman – the 90% dark matter of our universe. We understand only a very small part of our universe and therefore, we need to reserve in each project a large part for that other dimension, for dark matter, for angels ...
THE DETERMINATION OF AN ARCHITECT:
A large object produces its own laws – laws of a unique thing. You can obey them or not. Every director, conductor, or architect has trouble submitting the blind laws of such objects. The idea of autonomy has always been a ballast for designers. Only after giving in, one can speak of the sovereignty of subject.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMATION:
At the start of a design process there is always either a phrase, a photo, a film scene, a sudden impulse or, something trivial in the location, a trigger, something coming from outside of architecture bringing life to the whole – that is the breath. Then the choice of material follows, texture and touch – that is the body. Next, colours, sounds, scents, sometimes flavours, light, and details (sharp, angular, flowing, or flat) – that is the character. Only later, when the program of requirements and the available budget are fed into making process, the forms and spaces are created – that is the dimension. This four-step process can succeed in one try, but it may have to be repeated a hundred times. Form is what it ends up being. Messing with that has not much use. Form is adornment. It seduces or it does not.
THE SUSPENSE OF THEORY:
Never trust what you see. Do not trust analysis, and trust interpretation even less. Do not trust the free space between thought and things. Rely only on what comes to mind, thought from elsewhere. (...) Confront sense, play inversely and eccentrically; simply, follow the rule of the game and the ellipsis of theory.
THE SUSPENSE OF THEORY:
As philosophy is about contemplating, theory is about envisioning. Theory does not aim to contemplate an essence, whether veiled or revealed; instead, it aims for the absolute envisioning of an appearance – a superficial appearance behind which the abyss looms. For example, a misconception or a prediction, an anecdote devoid of a moral or the gestures of a stripper, a screenshot or an animal’s eye, a distorted image in a funhouse mirror or an event taken out of context.
THE DOMAIN OF METAMORPHOSIS:
Metamorphosis as a bet against the pretentious omnipotence of thought, of philosophy, of systems of thought. Let us tear down those systems, these models and sacrifice them to the faceless god of metamorphosis.
THE DETERMINATION OF AN ARCHITECT:
One thing is for sure: architecture is haute couture. It is always personal, made to measure, unrepeatable and, of course, more precious than a standard product.
HEAVY, MURKY, AND OILY:
I want to design on the basis of a code with an internal coherence, a coherence that is not directly visible. And that process of designing is whimsical, intuitive, impulsive, and implicit.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMATION:
Both animating and designing have nothing to do with the linear and academic process going from function towards form nor of the rational process from concept towards icon. You – with your soul – are solely there to initiate interlinking, to spur on the evolution of things. You, designer, you are developer of a soul stirring; and development is completely dependent on your limitations, your handicaps, your capriciousness, your deep rooted irrationality, in short your original imperfection. That is the principle of animation.  


Maurice Nio
The Suspense of Architecture. The Necessity to Shine
1001 Uitgeverij Duizend & Een, 2024, 9789071346552
30,00 €