CONTEMPORARY CONCRETE BUILDINGS

Concrete? That characterless stuff of parking lots or Communist tower blocks, right? Well, yes. And no. Concrete is actually a name applied to a remarkably wide range of building substances, and, when properly handled, is one of the noble materials of contemporary architecture. A kind of "liquid stone" at the outset, it is malleable, durable, and capable of prodigious feats of engineering.

This Bibliotheca Universalis edition highlights the best work done in concrete of recent years. It includes such stars as Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, and Steven Holl, but also surprising new architects like the Russians SPEECH and artists such as James Turrell, who turned the famous concrete spiral of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim in New York into the setting of one of his most remarkable pieces.

Otrora sinónimo de monstruosos puentes en las autopistas y decrépitos muros abandonados, el hormigón está viviendo un resurgir en el que es considerado intrépido y sexi. Esta edición resaltan las minuciosas proezas y prodigiosas obras de ingeniería de cuanto se ha construido en hormigón durante los últimos años, e incluyen trabajos de arquitectos consagrados como Tadao Ando y Herzog & de Meuron y también de estudios recién creados como el de los rusos SPEECH.