The Images of Architects

"The Images of Architects" gathers the private image collections of 44 living architects, each asked by Valerio Olgiati to select the pictures that matter to their own way of thinking, turning the book into 44 small, unannotated musees imaginaires rather than a survey of built work.

Published by Quart Verlag, the 424-page volume reproduces each architect's chosen images - drawings, paintings, photographs, film stills, objects - without captions or commentary. The selections stand as evidence of how each person actually sees rather than how they explain their buildings. Olgiati edited the collection, extending his long-running theoretical interest in the raw visual material behind architectural thought into a curatorial project.

Olgiati (b. 1958, Switzerland) trained at ETH Zurich and built a body of spare, conceptually driven work in his native Graubunden, including the School Building in Paspels and the Yellow House museum in Flims, while developing "non-referential architecture," a theory (with Markus Breitschmid) that architecture should draw its meaning from spatial and formal experience rather than historical reference. He has taught at Harvard, ETH Zurich, Cornell, and the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio. "The Images of Architects" applies that same interest in unmediated seeing to other architects' private references.