TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY? THAT IS THE QUESTION!

(DETAILS TAKEN FROM http://www.phaidon.com)



I read the 10X10 book before and it is available in the library too. However, it is one of the biggest and heavist books I ever touched!



Now, Volume 2 is out! I am considering whether to get this one. Quite expensive for a poor Malaysian like me! Sigh! S$95 is the offer price! Original price is approximately S$119 after NUS Student discount. So Basheer is willing to give a total of approximately S$35 discount from the original price of S$129 at the store. That is an attractive offer, but I will be damn poor after buying it! HELP ME!!! I don't want to eat grass for the next few weeks!

One of the lecturers in my university, Erwin John Viray, is one of the ten critics in the book. This illustrated volume presents 100 of the world’s most exceptional emerging architects, selected by 10 internationally prominent critics, architects, and curators. Arranged alphabetically by architect, the book features more than 1,500 illustrations and approximately 250 buildings and projects of the past five years, including recently built work as well as competition entries, theoretical projects, and works under construction.

Who are the ten critics?

1. Miquel Adrià is a practicing architect based in Mexico City and the editor in chief of the international architecture magazine Arquine.

2. Alberto Campo Baeza is an acclaimed Spanish architect who has built widely for both the public and private sector. His work has been published and exhibited internationally. Campo Baeza is a prominent lecturer on both sides of the Atlantic.

3. Kurt Forster is director of the 2004 Venice Biennale’s 9th International Architecture Exhibition. Until 2003 he was director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, and from 1984 to 1993 was the founding director of the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

4. Zaha Hadid is an Iraqi-born, London-based architect who this year was awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest distinction. Best known for her seminal built works—Vitra Fire Station, Bergisel Ski Jump, Strasbourg Tram Station, and Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art—her central concerns involve a simultaneous engagement in practice, teaching, and research. Before establishing her own practice, Hadid was a partner of Rem Koolhaas’s OMA.

5. Davina Jackson was born in New Zealand and is now based in Sydney. She is the former editor of Architecture Australia (1992–2000), and the principal author of Australian Architecture Now (2000). Jackson is a lecturer, commentator, and exhibition curator, as well as an urban development consultant to government entities.

6. Jong-kyu Kim is the founder of the Seoul-based Metropolitan Architecture Research Unit (MARU), and an associate professor of architecture at the Korean National University of Arts.

7. Frédéric Migayrou is chief curator of architecture and design at the Pompidou Center in Paris, where he recently organized the acclaimed exhibit “Non-standard Architectures.” Trained as a philosopher, Migayrou was an advisor to the French Ministry of Culture from 1992 to 2000, and Curator of the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1996.

8. Toshiko Mori is a practicing architect and chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She has lectured widely throughout North America and has served on numerous international juries. Mori is principal of Toshiko Mori Architects in New York.

9. Deyan Sudjic is an architecture critic based in London. He was the founding editor of Blueprint magazine and, in 2003, the editor of Domus, the prestigious architectural magazine published in Italy. Sudjic is currently architecture critic for The Observer newspaper and has written several books, including John Pawson: Works, published by Phaidon in 2000.

10. Erwin Viray is the coeditor of the Tokyo-based architectural journal A+U, and a professor in the National University of Singapore’s Department of Architecture.

Contributor’s Locations: Sydney, Paris, London, New York, Mexico City, Seoul, Singapore, Madrid, Como (Italy)