An Architect's Guide to Fame

This lively text provides a candid inquiry into the contemporary means by which architects get work and (for better or worse) become famous. In response to the reciprocal relationship between publicity and everyday architectural practice, this book examines the mechanisms by which architects seek publicity and manage to establish themselves and their work ahead of their colleagues. Through the essays of specialist contributors, this book enables the reader to understand the complex relationship between what they see as the built environment and the unwritten stories behind how it came about.

Foreword; Prologue; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I Paper Architecture; What is it about the Smithsons?; The Archigram Group; Boyarsky and the Architectural Association; Fame and the Changing Role of Drawing; Part II Bricks and Mortar; Switzerland – Botta: Fame and Scale; Italy – Rossi: Fame and Familiarity; The Netherlands – Koolhaas and the Profession at Play; Germany – (Un)edited Architecture; Wettbewerbe Aktuell; Spain – The Fame Game; USA – Ground Zero: 1,776 ft into Thin Air; Part III Conduits; Editors – Architectural Design in the 1970s and 1980s; It’s not About the Work!; All The Kings Men; All The Kings Men and a Few Women; Part IV Portraits; The Portraits; Art, Architecture, Artists and Architects; A-List Architects; The Fall and Rise of Craig Ellwood; Situating Dalibor Vesely; The Psyche of the Unit Master; The Psyche of a Depressed and Disappointed Unit Master; Seeking Peter Zumthor; Kit Allsopp; The Chapter According to St John