Architecture, Not Architecture: Diller Scofidio + Renfro

DS+R has spent more than four decades working in the space between architecture and art, and most monographs about the studio settle for a straightforward chronology. This one does not. Phaidon has made two volumes into a single object: the books are joined at the spine, each readable alone or together when opened flat, with layouts that cross between them at shared preoccupations. Design consultancy 2x4 handled the typography, and the structural binding was conceived by the studio itself. That decision makes the book an argument rather than a catalogue.

The practice's range is unusual. The High Line in New York, now the most visited public park in America, sits in the same body of work as the Blur Building, a fog structure built for the 2002 Swiss Expo, and the forthcoming V&A East Storehouse in London. Over 100 projects are covered, built and unbuilt, permanent and temporary, spanning four decades. Iwan Baan and Matthew Monteith took most of the photography, and the 2,000 illustrations include working drawings, models, and process material.

What distinguishes the book from its peers is the commissioned conversations. Edmund de Waal, Paola Antonelli, Hans Ulrich Obrist, William Forsythe, and Alan Cumming were each asked to speak with the studio. The result is a set of perspectives from outside architecture that the typical practice monograph never attempts. The AIGA Best Book Design award for 2024 reflects how seriously the physical making was treated.

At 792 pages and 290×250mm, it is a substantial presence. It will suit anyone seriously interested in how a practice thinks and makes, rather than simply what it builds. Readers who found the High Line a piece of urban design worth arguing about will find plenty here to take that argument further.