Books published by Edition Axel Menges

Text in English & German. The architect is at all times also an artist. How otherwise would he be able to tame the three-dimensionality of space and subdue the urges of physics and structural mechanics with the creations of his fantasy? This creativity is however mostly restricted purely to its own field. Rob Krier is an exception. Since the beginn

The aim of the study is to analyze and describe in detail one of the most important trends in architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries: the evolution, leading from the closed, hermetic spaces of the early cultures and the Middle Ages to the open space and transparency of the 19, and 20th/21st centuries.

Like literary texts, films often tell stories on multiple levels. Ridley Scott made an ironic reference to this when he called his legendary science-fiction film Blade Runner a »700-layer cake«. These buried structures are created in two ways: by elements that resonate throughout the film itself and by references to other films, texts, myths, paintings, historical events etc. that are adapted in a specific way by the director, the scriptwriter and the production team. The heroine in Hitchcock¿s film The Birds, for instance, is a modern Aphrodite / Venus. Just as Venus, born from the sea foam, was carried to land on a seashell, Melanie is carried across Bodega Bay in a boat that is not much bigger than Venus¿ vessel in Botticelli¿s painting. Mela-nie¿s name is another reference to Aphrodite, who was also known as Melaina, »the black one«. In the fist scene of the film, in which she enters the pet shop where she later gets to know Mitch and buys the love birds, Melanie is also dressed in black. The Venus-like Melanie is felt to be a threat by others within their world, and especially by more conventional women. One of them screams at her hysterically: »I think you¿re evil! Evil!« This creates a particular connection between love and horror in the film. The classical Aphrodite also had a dark side ¿ her union with Ares produced not only Harmonia, but also Deimos and Phobos: »dread« and »fear«. Detecting hidden references is only the first step in creating an analysis; the next step is to elucidate the function of the reference within the film. For instance, what does it mean that Hitchcock¿s heroine is attacked by birds, whereas Venus was depicted accompanied by a dove? And why does Melanie, our »Venus«, wear furs? Kirsch¿s investigations of this and other questions open up new perspectives on a number of films, with extensive illustrations allowing the reader to follow these in detail. The book invites us to take a second look at The Birds, Blake Edwards¿ The Party, Ridley Scott¿s Blade Runner and Gladiator and Stefan Ruzowitzky¿s Anatomy.

Konstantin Melnikov (18901974) is unquestionably one of the outstanding architects of the 20th century in spite of the fact that he fell silent early, leaving behind only limited work that was insufficiently publicized, and restricted almost exclusively to Moscow, the city of his birth in which he spent nearly his entire life and which did not appreciate him. He was raised in humble circumstances, but enjoyed an excellent education. Beginning in the mid-1920s, after the turmoil that followed the war, revolution and civil war, his career soared at almost meteoric speed as he took the lead in the young Soviet architecture movement with completely autonomous, highly artistic buildings that were free from dogmatism of any kind. Even more rapid than his rise to fame was his downfall: Treated with general hostility, he was unable to defend himself against the accusation of formalism when Stalin put an end to architectural ventures and experiments around the mid-1930s. He was expelled from the architects'' association and was banned from practicing as an architect for the remaining four decades of his life. In the late 1920s, at the peak of his career, he had the opportunity to build a house for himself and his family in Moscow, in which he was then able to live until the end of his life. This house, a memorable symbiosis of almost peasant-like simplicity and extreme radicalness, is one of the most impressive, surprising and probably most enigmatic works produced by 20th-century architecture. Its simplicity is only outward; in reality this is a highly complex work which links together the elements of architecture explicitly and inextricably, which takes a clear and completely autonomous stand and which, in a way that little else has done, raises the question as to the nature of genuinely architectonic thinking. In essayistic form the book attempts to follow the paths laid out in the architect''s work from the perspective of an architect.

This book examines the application of the principle of layering in architecture, its mechanics, possible application and meaning. Layering is widely used in the discussions of the 20th and 21st centuries architecture but rarely defined or examined. Layering bridges the tectonics of structure and skin, offers a system for the creation of different architectural spaces over time and functions as a design principle without hierarchy. Three types of layering are identified: a chronological sedimentation of planes materializing changes over time (temporal layering), the additive sequence of spaces (spatial layering), and the stratification of individual planes (material layering). Like a palimpsest, historic cities frequently reveal temporal layering and aspects of change over time, a condition familiar to archaeologists who study layer upon layer of remnants of civilisation, including architectural remains and urban organization. In historic cities, one can read at least the most recent layers to determine a physical chronology of the city''s history; contemporary architects add strata of the 21st century. Cities are composed of several layers, offering a complex understanding of time in which a view of the present includes also the perception of the past. At a building scale, layers can be part of the spatial composition, multiple elements of walls, the skin, the structure or decorative and narrative elements. Just as the position and order of geological strata contain information related to their age, formation, and origin, the position and form of architectural layers come with information about their function, intellectual scope, and provenance. The possible elements of such an architectural strategy include materials, light, water, and color as well as associations, memories, and analogies embedded in the layers or in the voids between them. Material layering is based on a perceived separation of spatial enclosures into floor, wall, and ceiling or roof elements and combinations thereof. Individual elements may consist of multiple planes fulfilling a series of specific functions. The architectural enclosure can represent the physical wrapper of a building and might transport the structure''s narrative, tectonic information, cultural expression, the architect''s design intent, and other topics that might be embedded.

Agreement among all researchers is that the entire cosmos, including the earth, nature animals and people is filled with memory material. In each atom in each molecule and each cell the memory of the origin of the world and to the entire evolution is included.

Aims to trigger wide public debates about the central issues within the 21st-century public challenge to architecture about how contemporary architecture should intervene in an existing urban environment with clear historical values, using the full potential inherent in modern society.