Big Book of Architecture

Architecture is the adaptation of forms to opposing forces

Resuming the structure and concept of Andrea Branzi’s successful BBD dedicated to design, an essential history of 20th century and early millennium architecture through 20 great authors, arranged in 4 macro-sections: the masters of the Modern Movement (Le Corbusier, Wright, van der Rohe, Gropius, and Aalto), the great interpreters of its overcoming (Kahn, Tange, Tavora, Coderch, and Aldo Rossi), the reinterpretation of architecture’s tasks by educated professionals (Foster, Piano, Gregotti, Ando, and Moneo), and the protagonists of the generation born after the war (Koolhaas, Hadid, Souto de Moura, Kuma, and Chipperfield).

Four counter-stories reconstruct the complex historical dialectic of each period through the account of the decisive contribution of figures and movements not included in the monographic summaries.

GIOVANNI LEONI – Full professor of History of Architecture at the University of Bologna, between 2007 and 2010 he conceived and edited MINIMUM Biblioteca Essenziale di Architettura (Motta Architettura, Sole 24 ORE Group), a series that came out as a supplement to the weekly L’Espresso (2007-09), partially translated into English, Portuguese, French and Chinese. He is the author of numerous monographs on architecture of the 1500s and 1900s.