A new book from Phaidon looks at design on the fringe.
By Rachel Gallaher
As seen in Issue 56
The Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center in Plasencia, Spain, designed by Selgas in 2017, is wrapped in a translucent skin that allows light to enter the building’s interior.
There have always been two camps of architects: those whose work is rooted in practicality and those who break every boundary, and rule in the book, to make seemingly impossible designs a reality. Certainly, there is crossover, but architecture curator and critic Beatrice Galilee’s new book, Radical Architecture of the Future, is focused solely on the latter. Released in January, the publication celebrates some of the most experimental and forward-thinking design practitioners of our time as it explores diverse new ways of seeing, understanding, and building our environment. From a power plant in Copenhagen that also functions as a ski slope and public park (designed by Bjarke Ingels Group) to Ensamble Studio’s monolithic installations at the Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, each project is a mini escape into a world of possibility.
Both a waste-to-energy plant and ski slope, CopenHill was designed by Bjarke Ingles Group in 2019, and is one of the tallest structures in Copenhagen.
