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  • Anselm Franke, Nida Ghouse, Paz Guevara…

    Parapolitics. Cultural Freedom and the Cold War

  • Seng Kuan (Hg)

    Kazuo Shinohara. Traversing the House and the City

  • Moisés Puente (Hg)

    2G 82. Ensamble Studio

  • Daniel Mettler, Daniel Studer (Hg) BUK…

    Konstruktion. Manual. ETH Zürich - BUK

  • Andrea Long Chu

    Females. Alle sind weiblich

  • Susan Schuppli

    Material Witness. Media, Forensics, Evidence

  • Hiroshi Sugimoto, Tomoyuki Sakakida

    Old Is New: Architectural Works by New Material Research…

  • Cathy Lane, Angus Carlyle

    Sound arts now

  • Federica Bueti, Antonia Alampi,…

    We Have Delivered Ourselves from the Tonal — Von, mit, zu,…

  • Jakob Schoof (Hg)

    massiv robust bewehrt. Stahlbetontragwerke

  • TVK. Pierre Alain Trévelo, Antoine…

    The Earth is an Architecture

  • Helmut C. Schulitz

    The Turning Point in Architectural Design. A Historical…

  • Giulia Mensitieri

    Das schönste Gewerbe der Welt

  • Robert McCarter

    Carlo Scarpa

  • Deborah Chambers

    Cultural Ideals of Home. The Social Dynamics of Domestic…

  • Peggy Blum

    Circular Fashion. Making the Fashion Industry Sustainable

  • Gruppe Panther & Co

    Rebellisches Berlin. Expeditionen in die untergründige…

  • Dominique Laleg

    Kritik der Perspektive

  • Hans-Jörg Rheinberger

    Spalt und Fuge. Eine Phänomenologie des Experiments

  • Anthony McCosker, Rowan Wilken

    Automating Vision.The Social Impact of the New Camera…

  • Klaus Englert

    Wie wir wohnen werden. Die Entwicklung der Wohnung und die…

  • Nikolaus Hirsch, Jason Waite (eds)

    Don't follow the Wind (Critical Spatial Practice 12)

  • Philipp Oswalt (Hg)

    Hannes Meyer's New Bauhaus Pedagogy. From Dessau to…

  • Torsten Blume, Claudia Perren, Stiftung…

    Ludwig Grote und die Bauhaus-Idee. Zur Westddeutschen…

  • Vitra Design Museum

    Deutsches Design 1949-1989. Zwei Länder, eine Geschichte

  • Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato…

    Materialism and Politics

  • Sandra Meireis

    Mikro-Utopien der Architektur. Das utopische Moment…

  • Elna Matamoros

    Dance & Costumes. A History of Dressing Movement

  • George Monbiot

    Verwildert. Die Wiederherstellung unserer Ökosysteme und…

  • Iris Därmann

    Widerstände. Gewaltenteilung in statu nascendi

  • Thomas Piketty

    Pandemie und Ungleichheit. Ein Gespräch über die Ideologie…

  • Max Dax

    Dissonanz. Ein austauschbares Jahr. Roman

  • Marianna Dobkowska, Krzysztof Łukomski…

    Things We Do Together. The Post-Reader

  • Mark Fisher

    Postcapitalist Desire. The Final Lectures

  • Julia Jamrozik, Coryn Kempster

    Kinder der Moderne. Vom Aufwachsen in berühmten Gebäuden

  • Sebastian Felix Ernst, Jonas Tratz/FAKT

    Berlin Maps

  • Leonhard Laupichler, Sophia Brinkgerd (…

    New Aesthetic 2. A Collection Of Independent Type Design

  • Beatrice von Bismarck

    Das Kuratorische

  • Friedemann Kunst; Deutsche Akademie für…

    Berlin & Berlin. Stadtplanung und Städtebau nach dem…

  • Nicolas Nova, Nicolas Maigret, Maria…

    A Bestiary of the Anthropocene

  • Lutz Koepnick

    Resonant Matter. Sound, Art, and the Promise of Hospitality

  • Jenny Odell

    Nichts tun. Die Kunst, sich der Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie zu…

  • Bénédicte Savoy

    Afrikas Kampf um seine Kunst. Geschichte einer…

  • Reinier De Graaf

    The Masterplan (A Novel)

  • Antoine Picon

    The Materiality of Architecture

  • Katherine McKittrick

    Dear Science and Other Stories

  • Lisa Marei Schmidt, Kerstin Wittmann-…

    Werner Düttmann. Berlin.Bau.Werk. / Building Berlin.

  • Joseph Vogl

    Kapital und Ressentiment. Eine kurze Theorie der Gegenwart

  • Kim Charnley

    Sociopolitical Aesthetics. Art, Crisis and Neoliberalism

  • Sammlung Wemhöner (Hg)

    Hasenheide 13

  • AA62

    AA62. LACATON & VASSAL

  • Ursula Müller, Berlinische Galerie

    Anything goes? Berliner Architekturen der 1980er Jahre

  • IDEA Magazine

    IDEA 393. MANGA bridges the world: The actualities of manga…

  • Urs Stäheli

    Soziologie der Entnetzung

  • Roberto Simanowski

    Das Virus und das Digitale

  • Ole Nymoen, Wolfgang M. Schmitt

    Influencer. Die Ideologie der Werbekörper

  • Rolando Vázquez

    Vistas Of Modernity. Decolonial Aesthesis And The End Of…

  • Jayna Brown

    Black Utopias. Speculative Life and the Music of Other…

  • Knut Ebeling, Annette Maechtel, Heimo…

    Never mind the Nineties. Eine Medienarchäologie des…

  • Kathi Hofer

    "Grandma" Prisbrey's Bottle Village

  • Sandra Bartoli, Silvan Linden (Hg.)

    AG8: Berliner Bäume. Eine Bestandsaufnahme

  • Silvia Federici

    Revolution at Point Zero. Hausarbeit, Reproduktion und…

  • Nick Pinkerton

    Goodbye, Dragon Inn

  • Philipp Oswalt with Anthony Fontenot

    Berlin. City Without Form

  • Hans Drexler

    Open Architecture Nachhaltiger Holzbau mit System

  • Joachim Kleinmanns

    Eine Haltung, kein Stil. Das architektonische Werk von Rolf…

  • Keller Easterling

    Medium Design. Knowing How to Work on the World

  • El Croquis

    El Croquis 207. Estudio Gustavo Utrabo

  • Experimental Jetset

    Experimental Jetset. Superstructures. Notes on Experimental…

  • Claudia Mareis, Nina Paim (Hg)

    Design Struggles. Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies, and…

  • Moisés Puente (Hg)

    Kersten Geers. Without Content. 2G Essays

  • Moises Puente, Antje Stahl, Nikolaus…

    2G 81. Brandlhuber+

  • Georges Perec

    Die dunkle Kammer. 124 Träume

  • Kristin Ross

    Luxus für alle. Die politische Gedankenwelt der Pariser…

  • Victor Deupi, Jean-Francois Lejeune

    Cuban Modernism. Mid-Century Architecture 1940–1970

  • Tom Holert

    Politics of Learning, Politics of Space. Architecture and…

  • Eva von Redecker

    Revolution für das Leben. Philosophie der neuen…

  • Nina Prader, John Z. Komurki (Eds.)

    Druck Druck Druck. Print Communities from Berlin and Beyond

  • Herausgegeben:Bundesministerium des…

    70 Jahre Kunst am Bau in Deutschland

  • Philippe Askenazy

    Share the Wealth. How to End Rentier Capitalism

  • Andreas Malm

    How to Blow Up a Pipeline

  • Liam Campling and Alejandro Colás

    Capitalism and the Sea

  • Gerald Raunig

    Ungefüge. Maschinischer Kapitalismus und molekulare…

  • Niki Kubaczek, Monika Mokre (Hg.)

    Die Stadt als Stätte der Solidarität

  • Floris Alkemade, Michiel van Iersel,…

    REWRITING ARCHITECTURE. 10+1 Actions. Tabula Scripta

  • Manuel de la Pena Suarez

    Structuralism and Experimentation in the Architecture of…

  • Anaïs Wiedenhöfer & Lena Wolfart

    Everyday Urban Design 4. Genossenschaftliche…

  • A & P Smithson Hexenhaus-Archiv,…

    Alison & Peter Smithson. Hexenhaus. A House for a Man…

  • Emmanuelle Chiappone-Piriou (Ed.)

    Superstudio Migrazioni

  • Tim Ingold

    Eine kurze Geschichte der Linien

  • Renate Boere

    Beyond Design. Making Socially Relevant Projects Successful

  • Christoph Herndler, Florian Neuner (Hg.)

    Der unfassbare Klang. Notationskonzepte heute

  • Fredric Jameson

    The Benjamin Files

  • Adam Štěch

    Modern Architecture and Interiors

  • Gabrielle Kenndy (Hg)

    In/Search Re/Search. Imagining Scenarios Through Art and…

  • Diedrich Diederichsen, Oier Etxeberria…

    Cybernetics of the Poor

  • Paul Hegarty

    Annihilating Noise

  • John Beck

    Landscape as Weapon. Cultures of Exhaustion and Refusal

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 €