Small Architecture

Saving space: Big ideas for small buildings

Over the years, talented architects have occasionally indulged themselves with thechallenge of designing small but perfectly formed buildings. Today, with reduced budgets, many architects have turned in a more focused way to creating works that may be diminutive in their dimensions, but are definitely big when it comes to trendsetting ideas. Whether in Japanese cities, where large sites are hard to come by, or at the frontier between art and architecture,small buildings present many advantages, and push their designers to do more with less.

A dollhouse for Calvin Klein in New York, a playhouse for children in Trondheim, pop-up stores for fashion stars, vacation cabins, and housing for victims of natural disasters are all part of the new rush to develop the great small architecture of the moment. The 2013 Pritzker Prize winner Toyo Ito is here, but so are emergent architects from Portugal, Chile, England, and New Zealand.Alvaro Siza and Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA) display their eye for tiny detail alongside artistsDoug Aitken and Olafur Eliasson. From world-famous names to the freshest new talent,come discover architectural invention on a whole new, small scale.

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About the Author

Philip Jodidio (born 1954) studied art history and economics at Harvard, and edited Connaissance des Arts for over 20 years. His books include TASCHEN’s Architecture Now! series, and monographs on Tadao Ando, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, and Zaha Hadid. He is internationally renowned as one of the most popular writers on the subject of architecture.