Non-Referential Architecture
Ideated by Valerio Olgiati – Written by Markus Breitschmid
The new revised edition of Valerio Olgiati's and Markus Breitschmid's widely acclaimed manifesto for a new approach in architecture in a world free of ideologies and, therefore, references: a must-read for anyone interested in architecture today
More than ever, architecture is in need of provocation, a new path beyond the traditional notion that buildings must serve as vessels, or symbols of something outside themselves.
Non-Referential Architecture is nothing less than a manifesto for a new architecture. It brings together two leading thinkers, architect Valerio Olgiati and theorist Markus Breitschmid, who have grappled with this problem since their first encounter in 2005. In a world that itself increasingly rejects ideologies of any kind, Olgiati and Breitschmid offer Non-Referential Architecture as a radical, new approach free from rigid ideologies. Non-referential buildings, they argue, are entities that are themselves meaningful outside a vocabulary of fixed symbols and images and their historical connotations.
For more than a decade, Olgiati and Breitschmid’s thinking has placed them at the forefront of architectural theory. Indispensable for understanding what the future might hold for architecture, Non-Referential Architecture will become a new classic.
The book's first edition, published in May 2018 by Simonett & Baer, was sold-out within months. This revised and slightly redesigned new edition makes this key text available again.
“A rare readable and intriguing contribution to architectural theory.” Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times Summer Books 2019