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  • SCALE

    Einrichten und Zonieren. Raumkonzepte, Ausbau, Materialität

  • Susanne Hauser, Claus Dreyer (Hg.)

    Das Konkrete und die Architektur

  • Harald Bodenschatz, Piero Sassi, Max…

    Urbanism and Dictatorship. A European Perspective

  • Chris Tedjasukmana

    Mechanische Verlebendigung. Ästhetische Erfahrung im Kino

  • Isabell Lorey

    State of Insecurity. Government of the Precarious

  • Robert Delaunay

    Sonia Delaunay. Fashion and Fabrics

  • Maria Zinfert (Hg.)

    Siegfried Kracauer. Fotoarchiv

  • Christian Thun-Hohenstein (Ed.)

    Wege der Moderne. Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos und die Folgen…

  • Olivia de Oliveira

    Lina Bo Bardi. Built Work. Obra construida

  • Eduard Sancho Pou

    Function Follows Strategy. Architects' Strategies from…

  • Orit Halpern

    Beautiful Data

  • Stephanie Kloss

    Weltausstellung

  • Andrea Büttner

    Immanuel Kant. Kritik der Urteilskraft

  • Andri Gerber

    Metageschichte der Architektur. Ein Lehrbuch für angehende…

  • Florian Böhm, Annahita Kamali

    Everything is Connected. Home Collection (Vitra)

  • Eva Diaz

    The Experimenters. Chance and Design at Black Mountain…

  • Honore De Balzac

    The Physiology of the Employee

  • Francesco Spampinato

    Come Together. The Rise of Cooperative Art and Design

  • Marc Bedarida (Ed.)

    Le Corbusier. Aventures Photographiques

  • Ricardo Flores & Eva Prats

    Thought by Hand. The Architecture of Flores & Prats

  • Sylvain Margaine

    Forbidden Places, Volume 2: Exploring Our Abandoned Heritage

  • Mark Leckey

    On Pleasure Bent

  • Axel Wieder, Florian Zeyfang (Eds.)

    Open Form. Space, Interaction, and the Tradition of Oskar…

  • Maria Zinfert (Hg.)

    Sigfried Kracauer. Photographic Archive

  • Clog

    World Trade Center

  • Marta Herford (Ed.)

    Der entfesselte Blick. The Unfettered Gaze: Die Brüder…

  • Hubertus Butin (Hg.)

    Begriffslexikon zur zeitgenössischen Kunst (Ausgabe 2014)

  • Peter Blegvad

    Kew. Rhone

  • Reinhard Seiss

    Harry Glück: Wohnbauten

  • Matthew Gandy

    The Fabric of Space. Water, Modernity, and the Urban…

  • Catherine De Zegher

    Women's Work. Is Never Done

  • Sophie Berrebi

    The Shape of Evidence. Contemporary Art and the Document (…

  • Simon Denny

    New Management

  • Henning Schmidgen

    Hirn und Zeit. Die Geschichte eines Experiments 1800 - 1950

  • Thomas Crow

    The Long March Of Pop. Art Music and Design 1930-1995

  • Chris Kraus

    Torpor (Roman)

  • Gerald Raunig

    DIVIDUUM. Maschinischer Kapitalismus und molekulare…

  • Marc James Léger (Ed.)

    The Idea of the Avant Garde And What It Means Today

  • Jean-Luc Godard

    Jean-Luc Godard/JLG: Selbstporträt im Dezember

  • Dombois, Fliescher, Mersch, Rintz (Hg.)

    Ästhetisches Denken. Nicht-Propositionalität, Episteme,…

  • Emily Pugh

    Architecture, Politics, and Identity in Divided Berlin

  • Markus Grob

    Dächerstreit: Flachdach/Steildach

  • Klingan, Sepahvand, Rosol, Scherer (Eds…

    Textures of The Anthropocene. Grain Vapor Ray

  • Siegfried Kracauer

    The Past's Threshold. Essays on Photography

  • Philip Jodidio

    Cabins. Hütten. Cabanes

  • Space Caviar (Eds.)

    SQM. The Quantified Home: An exploration of the evolving…

  • testcard #24

    Bug Report. Digital war besser

  • T'ai Smith

    Bauhaus Weaving Theory. From Feminine Craft to Mode of…

  • Klaus Dömer, Hans Drexler, Joachim…

    Affordable Living. Housing for Everyone

  • Slavoj Zizek

    Trouble in Paradise. From the End of History to the End of…

  • Renée Green

    Other Planes of There

  • Stephen Grabow, Kent Spreckelmeyer

    The Architecture of Use. Aesthetics and Function in…

  • Manfred Hermes

    Hystericizing Germany

  • Metahaven

    Can Jokes Bring Down Governments? Memes, Design and…

  • Spyros Papapetros, Julian Rose (Eds.)

    Retracing the Expanded Field

  • Felix Denk, Sven von Thülen

    Der Klang der Familie: Berlin, Techno and the Fall of the…

  • Francesco Garutti (Ed.)

    Fairland. Explorations, Insights and Outlooks on the Future…

  • Dante Bini

    Building with Air

  • Birgit Mennel, Stefan Nowotny (Hg.)

    Die Sprachen der Banlieues

  • Precarias a la Deriva

    Was ist dein Streik? Militante Streifzüge durch die…

  • Joseph Becker, Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher…

    Lebbeus Woods, Architect

  • Binna Choi, Maiko Tanaka (Hg)

    The Grand Domestic Revolution Handbook

  • Boris Kralj

    My Belgrade (2nd Edition)

  • Frances Stracey

    Constructed Situations. A New History of the Situationist…

  • Latek, Paviol, Simond, Very (Eds.)

    In situ – de visu – in motu. Architecture, cinéma et arts…

  • Neil Spiller, Nic Clear (Eds.)

    Educating Architects. How Tomorrow's Practitioners…

  • Tsitsi Ella Jaji

    Africa in Stereo. Modernism, Music, And Pan-African…

  • AndresLepik, Very Simone Bader (Hg)

    Lina Bo Bardi 100. Brasiliens alternativer Weg in die…

  • Jenn Joy

    The Choreographic

  • Robert Hamelijnck, Nienke Terpsma (Eds.)

    It's Playtime

  • Nicolas Bruno Jacquet

    Le Langage Hypermoderne de l'Architecture

  • Gertrud Lehnert, Alicia Kühl, Katja…

    Modetheorie. Klassische Texte aus vier Jahrhunderten

  • Katharina Eck, Astrid Silvia Schänhagen

    Interieur und Bildtapete. Narrative des Wohnens um 1800

  • Boelen / Z33, Sacchetti (Eds.)

    Designing Everyday Life

  • Stefan Gandl

    Neubau Forst Catalogue

  • Anthony Downey

    Art and Politics Now

  • Jörg H. Gleiter (Hg.)

    Symptom Design. Vom Zeigen und Sich-Zeigen der Dinge

  • Negative (Ed.)

    Auto - Self-representation and Digital Photography

  • Chloé Griffin (Ed.)

    Edgewise. A Picture of Cookie Mueller

  • Discoteca Flaming Star, J. P. Raether (…

    Zeig her, Führ vor, Tausch ein: Performance - Art -…

  • Daniel Wrana, Alexander Ziem, et al. (…

    DiskursNetz. Wörterbuch der interdisziplinären…

  • Teresa Calonje (Ed.)

    Live Forever. Collecting Live Art

  • Raphaëlle Saint-Pierre

    Villas 60-70 en France

  • Claire Zimmerman

    Photographic Architecture in the Twentieth Century

  • Olesya Turkina

    Soviet Space Dogs

  • Susanne Witzgall, Kerstin Stakemeier (…

    Macht des Materials / Politik der Materialität

  • Jörg H. Gleiter

    Ornament Today. Digital Material Structural

  • Mladen Dolar

    His Master's Voice. Eine Theorie der Stimme

  • Jonathan Crary

    24/7: Schlaflos im Spätkapitalismus

  • Fulcrum (Ed.)

    Real Estates. Life without Debt

  • Sylvie Estrada

    Setting the Scene - Exploring Set Design

  • Andrew Feenberg

    The Philosophy Of Praxis: Marx, Lukács And The Frankfurt…

  • Mark von Schlegell

    Ickles, Etc. Critical Spatial Practice 5

  • François Laruelle

    Non-Photographie / Photo-Fiktion

  • Simon Starling

    Metamorphology

  • Fred Dewey

    The School of Public Life

  • Ronald Rietveld, Erik Rietveld

    Vacancy Studies. Experiments & Strategic Interventions…

  • Jacques Rancière

    Die Lektion Althussers

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 €