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Radical Reconstruction
Lebbeus Woods is widely regarded as the most exciting and original architectural visionary today. His body of theoretical work and extraordinary drawings have served as inspiration for architects, artists, and legions of students. Radical Reconstruction , now available in paperback for the first time, contains projects that address the relationships between architecture and war, political revolution/reaction, and natural disasters. These projects define new approaches to the reconstruction of buildings and urban fabric damaged by unpredictable and largely uncontrollable forces of both human and natural origin.
212 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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About the author
Lebbeus Woods
49 books29 followersLebbeus Woods was an American architect and artist.
Woods studied architecture at the University of Illinois and engineering at Purdue University and first worked in the offices of Eero Saarinen, but in 1976 turned exclusively to theory and experimental projects. He has designed buildings in Chengdu, China and Havana, Cuba. In 1988, Woods co-founded the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, a nonprofit institution devoted to the advancement of experimental architectural thought and practice while promoting the concept and perception of architecture itself.
He was a professor of architecture at the Cooper Union in New York City and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
The majority of his explorations deal with the design of systems in crisis: the order of the existing being confronted by the order of the new. His designs are politically charged and provocative visions of a possible reality; provisional, local, and charged with the investment of their creators. He is best known for his proposals for San Francisco, Havana, and Sarajevo that were included in the publication of Radical Reconstruction in 1997 (Sarajevo after the war, Havana in the grips of the ongoing trade embargo, and San Francisco after the Loma Prieta earthquake).
"Architecture and war are not incompatible. Architecture is war. War is architecture. I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor you can know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city."
Woods, who envisioned experimental constructs and environments, has stated, "the interplay of metrical systems establishing boundaries of materials and energetic forms is the foundation of a universal science (universcience) whose workers include all individuals"
Woods studied architecture at the University of Illinois and engineering at Purdue University and first worked in the offices of Eero Saarinen, but in 1976 turned exclusively to theory and experimental projects. He has designed buildings in Chengdu, China and Havana, Cuba. In 1988, Woods co-founded the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, a nonprofit institution devoted to the advancement of experimental architectural thought and practice while promoting the concept and perception of architecture itself.
He was a professor of architecture at the Cooper Union in New York City and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
The majority of his explorations deal with the design of systems in crisis: the order of the existing being confronted by the order of the new. His designs are politically charged and provocative visions of a possible reality; provisional, local, and charged with the investment of their creators. He is best known for his proposals for San Francisco, Havana, and Sarajevo that were included in the publication of Radical Reconstruction in 1997 (Sarajevo after the war, Havana in the grips of the ongoing trade embargo, and San Francisco after the Loma Prieta earthquake).
"Architecture and war are not incompatible. Architecture is war. War is architecture. I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor you can know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city."
Woods, who envisioned experimental constructs and environments, has stated, "the interplay of metrical systems establishing boundaries of materials and energetic forms is the foundation of a universal science (universcience) whose workers include all individuals"
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 4, 2014
In Radical Reconstruction, Woods expands upon his ideas from the pamphlet War and Architecture, and discusses how those ideas could assist in creating freespace and more organic buildings in places devastated by not just war, but by economic oppression and natural disaster as well.
He furthers the discussion started in War and Architecture on a radical reconstruction of Sarajevo, but also includes Havana as an example of an area economically oppressed by the embargo, and San Francisco as an area where natural disaster has changed the landscape of the city, in this case due to earthquakes.
The essays are well thought out and are not above the scope of the layman reading about architecture for the first time. The visual images are absolutely stunning, in color and in black and white. Woods used words such as scab, scar, tissue, and wound to describe buildings and his architecture, and there's an organic quality to the images that make them seem alive and growing over the buildings, though obviously made of metal, concrete, and wood. Of the three studies, Sarajevo is the most compelling, followed by San Francisco with its shard houses and seismicity, moving in waves with the earthquake instead of fighting it. In contrast, the Cuban sketches seem a bit bleak, done mostly in black and white, and pixelated in a way you'd imagine Jackson Pollock would have done had he had the benefit of a Mac.
Stunning, beautiful, futuristic in its ideas and images.
He furthers the discussion started in War and Architecture on a radical reconstruction of Sarajevo, but also includes Havana as an example of an area economically oppressed by the embargo, and San Francisco as an area where natural disaster has changed the landscape of the city, in this case due to earthquakes.
The essays are well thought out and are not above the scope of the layman reading about architecture for the first time. The visual images are absolutely stunning, in color and in black and white. Woods used words such as scab, scar, tissue, and wound to describe buildings and his architecture, and there's an organic quality to the images that make them seem alive and growing over the buildings, though obviously made of metal, concrete, and wood. Of the three studies, Sarajevo is the most compelling, followed by San Francisco with its shard houses and seismicity, moving in waves with the earthquake instead of fighting it. In contrast, the Cuban sketches seem a bit bleak, done mostly in black and white, and pixelated in a way you'd imagine Jackson Pollock would have done had he had the benefit of a Mac.
Stunning, beautiful, futuristic in its ideas and images.
November 23, 2008
the master of theroretical architecture, get sucked in by the masterful drawings and then learn the theories that make them seem like childsplay.
August 9, 2014
For me, of all of Lebbeus Woods’s books, this one and Anarchitecture are the most important expression of his thoughts. When I reconsider Anarchitecture the point that I find most memorable is that when one chooses to participate in the production of a work, one is essentially saying “Yes, I agree with and support the values it and its initiator(s) represent.”
In this book the point that I consider most important is Woods’s belief that areas that have been destroyed either willfully or through acts of nature should not be rebuilt as though nothing has happened to them; they should express the history that they've gone through. An important component of this idea is that the built environment is the physical manifestation of the social structure that created it. To rebuild areas as they were before denies the fact that the social structure has changed (or should change) due to the destruction.
In this book the point that I consider most important is Woods’s belief that areas that have been destroyed either willfully or through acts of nature should not be rebuilt as though nothing has happened to them; they should express the history that they've gone through. An important component of this idea is that the built environment is the physical manifestation of the social structure that created it. To rebuild areas as they were before denies the fact that the social structure has changed (or should change) due to the destruction.
September 10, 2014
Visionary. Virtuoso draftsman
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews