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MACK’s forthcoming architecture collection will publish five titles

Coming Soon

MACK’s forthcoming architecture collection will publish five titles

MACK Books will launch its first collection of architecture-focused titles in Fall 2022. (Courtesy MACK)

London-based publishing company MACK has long been known for its ethereal collections of art, photography, and academic books; now the publisher can add architecture books to that list. Starting this upcoming fall, MACK’s inaugural architecture collection will be available for purchase.

While the publishing house currently has a selection of books that dabble in architecture-related topics, its new line will “focus expressly on the discipline and its many intersections with political, sociological, artistic, and cultural issues,” as stated in a press release.

The new architectural collection will be overseen by an editorial team led by the company’s founder Michael Mack and editor Louis Rogers, who are joined by two architecture editors, Eliot Haworth and Pamela Johnston.

MACK’s first soley architecture collection will comprise five books on a range of topics, from practice to photography to history: Collected Works (volume one of four), a monograph on the architecture practice of Caruso St. John; Material Reform by design and research practice Material Cultures; Huts, Temples, Castles by architectural photographer Ursula Schulz-Dornburg; Modern Architecture in Japan by Italian architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri; The Pliable Plane: The Wall as Surface in Sculpture and Architecture, 1945-75 by curator and historian Penelope Curtis.

Listed below are further details on each work:

bricks
Material Reform by Material Cultures (Photograph © Jess Gough/Courtesy MACK)

Material Reform by Material Cultures
In a collection of short narratives and dialogues, nonprofit research practice Material Cultures explores the traditions and physical organizations that make up and shape architecture. It makes a case for using materials to find new potential in both the built environment and natural landscape.

Collected Works: Volume 1 1990-2005 by Caruso St John
This volume is a reflection on Adam Caruso and Peter St John’s practice Caruso St John from 1990 through 2005 and takes readers from the firm’s early emergence to when it received international recognition for projects such as The New Art Gallery Walsall and the Brick House, which were shortlisted for the Stirling Prize. Caruso and St John give detailed accounts of early projects and competition entries, accompanied by unseen drawings and new commentary.

In addition to Adam Caruso and Peter St John’s perspectives, the book also comprises those of clients, critics, and artists, including filmmaker Wim Wenders, writer and curator Vicky Richardson, and architect Hans Kolhoff.

This prompts authors, and founders of Material Cultures, Paloma Gormley, Summer Islam, and George Massoud to contemplate what better alternatives might look like.

wood house built by children
Huts, Temples, Castlesby Ursula Schulz-Dornburg (Photograph © Ursula Schulz-Dornburg/Courtesy MACK)

Huts, Temples, Castles by Ursula Schulz-Dornburg
German photographer Ursula Schulz-Dornburg’s images transport readers to Jongensland, a space for children in Amsterdam born in the wake of World War II. Located on a remote island only accessible by rowboat, Jongensland was a place of leisure and for young people (mostly boys) to play with little adult supervision. The adolescents ended up building a small settlement, cook and harvest their own sustenance and breed animals. commentary from architectural historian Tom Wikinson from accompanies the visceral images by Schulz-Dornburg’s of the settlement’s intuitive construction and its residents.

The Pliable Plane: The Wall as Surface in Sculpture and Architecture, 1945–75 by Penelope Curtis
Curator and historian Penelope Curtis invites readers to explore the many facets of a wall (figuratively speaking, of course). In her forthcoming work, Curtis examines collections of walls by lesser-known practitioners who no-less defined spatial design throughout the postwar period. The case studies presented in the book exemplify a number of fabrication methods—from carved to cast—and also vary in their settings, which include underground shelters and monuments.

japanese pavilion in black and white
Modern Architecture in Japan by Manfredo Tafuri (Junzō Sakakura, Japan Pavilion in the Paris Exposition (1937), public domain/Courtesy MACK)

Modern Architecture in Japan by Manfredo Tafuri
Modern Architecture in Japan was first written in Italian in 1964 by celebrated architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri. An English translation of the book on Japan’s metabolism movement will now be available for the first time.

Tafuri presents an outsider’s view of the Japanese megastructures and their key figures, most notably Kenzo Tange. This version will also offer a retrospective, with commentary by contemporary architects and experts on Tafuri and Japanese architecture.

The five works will be published in Fall 2022.

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