Aaron Betsky

At its root, modernism is that fundamental. It is a question of having something to represent that is of the moment. In the most radical interpretation, modernism always comes too late. The modern is that which is always new, which is to say, always changing and already old by the time it has appeared. Modernism is always a retrospective act, one of documenting or trying to catch what has already appeared - an attempt to fix life as it is being lived. Modernity is just the very fact that we as human beings are continually remaking the world around us through our actions, and are doing so consciously. Modernism is a monument to or memory of that act, which in its own making tries to remake the world it is pretending to represen

She has revolutionized design

What Europeans see as linear distance, void, emptiness, Oceanic peoples see as a network of islands, connectivity, spatial and social relationships.

UNStudio, led by Dutch architects Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, creates spaces that are surprisingly innovative. Their work doesn`t rehash Modernism but rather embraces the digital age via the invention of new, time-based techniques expanding the imagination, exploding the hierarchy of the design process, and encouraging the input of different disciplines. UNStudio`s architecture is the result of a design strategy that repeatedly and constantly advances in different ways via leitmotifs called "design models." The most important examples of this new kind of architecture are the New Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart and the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam, which has become the town`s new landmark. Another manifest aim is to come up with fundamentally new ideas for complex infrastructure projects and to give these a contemporary structure that fosters future (including urban) development. This can bee seen, for example, at the central train station in Arnhem, at the Ponte Parodi pier in Genoa, and at the Canadian Centre for Architectures (CCA) prestigious "Competition for the Design of Cities." This book presents an overview of UN Studio`s work to date.

An extensive and timely survey of innovative contemporary design in the Netherlands.Aaron Betsky with Adam Eeuwens A timely overview of innovative contemporary design in the Netherlands, an international hotbed of design creativity 1,000 images offer a visual sourcebook of Dutch design in all forms: architecture, urban planning, industrial design and graphic design Features work by acclaimed designers Rem Koolhaas, MVRDV, Ben van Berkel & Caroline Bos, Marcel Wanders, Petra Blaisse and Jop van Bennekom, among others A collaboration with renowned Dutch graphic designer Irma Boom An extensive and timely survey of innovative contemporary design in the Netherlands: always verging on the experimental and recognized universally as a melting-pot of cutting-edge twenty-first century creativity. This overview features work by Rem Koolhaas, MVRDV, Ben van Berkel & Caroline Bos, Marcel Wanders, Petra Blaisse, and Jop van Bennekom, among others. 1,000 images offer a visual sourcebook of Dutch design in all forms including architecture, urban planning, industrial design and graphic design.

Aaron Betsky's study explores how builders and architects are working with the land to produce structures that mirror, or are contained by, their surroundings. Ever since the discovery of the cave humans have made use of nature's geological formations, but only since developments in structural engineering has it been possible to engage the earth's surface as a building element in its own right. With an increasing awareness of our planet's limited natural resources and with landscape architects exerting ever-greater influence on contemporary design, architects around the world are building ...

A timely overview of innovative contemporary design in the Netherlands, an internatonal hotbed of design creativity, featuring work by Rem Koolhaas, MVRDV, Ben van Berkel & Caroline Bos, Marcel Wanders, Petra Blaisse, and /jop van Bennekom, among others. 1,000 images offer a visual sourcebook of Dutch design in all forms including architecture, urban planning, industrial design and graphic design.