‘Architectural Works by OFFICE for the 21st Century’ presents the OFFICE projects through a critical analysis based on archive documents. It also reconstructs the influence of OFFICE’s creative principles among the new generations of architects.

The OFFICE projects appeared in the early 2000s and gained prominence as new forms of digital collage with a cultural engagement. The author traces the evolution of their early ideas developed as paper architecture to the current buildings of a significant scale and presence.

The underlying argument of the book demonstrates OFFICE’s ability to preserve in every project the spark of a theoretical construction, which in most cases is carried out according to a rigorous economy of means. Even the new monuments for public institutions continue to be illuminated by a creative tension of radical superiority.

Published with OFFICE.

OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen was founded in 2002 by Kersten Geers and David Van Severen. Renowned for its idiosyncratic architecture, in which realisations and theoretical projects stand side by side. The projects are direct, spatial and firmly rooted in architectural theory.

Roberto Gargiani has taught the History of Architecture in Florence, Rouen, Paris, Venice and Rome. He is currently a professor of History of Architecture and Construction at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).