July 19, 2004

{ Content - edited by Rem Koolhaas and Brendan McGetrick, published by Taschen }

Imagine a book that is more like a magazine that is also an architectural journal that still manages to be visually engrossing and is ultimately entertaining as hell. Now imagine this publication is 544 pages long, and that it weighs almost as much as a severed human head. Imagine that when reading it, you occasionally laugh, that you sometimes frown, and that every once in a while you simply close the page and wonder how something like this ever even came to be. Content is the kind of transcendent brain and eye candy that usually finds itself spread out over a series of smaller, much less interesting publications. These are the ravings of insane maniacs, made relevant by the insane and maniacal world in which we find ourselves living. Content represents a vision for architecture that encompasses not only the physical interaction between humankind and the structures we dwell in and upon, but also the mental and spiritual environment that inform and shape that physical interaction. It's post-ironic End Times feel-good meta-architecture for the masses. It's a movement that only has Leaders, becase Followers just bog things down and never really seem to get it anyway. Published magazine-style, with advertising included to keep the costs low, Content is a collection of essays, pulp post-modernist rants, charts, graphs, photos and diagrams that attempt to explicate our modern dilemma. It's the kind of information overload that only those of us who've metriculated in the Information Age can truly appreciate- an overdose of detail that will have you fiending for more. As always, publisher Taschen scores points for an excellent-looking product, and for being progressive enough to put it out there in the first place. At less than $15, this is a text that everyone should encounter, if just to absorb for the moment all that has been condensed and compiled here.

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By Adam in Reading | Comments: