Strange Primitivism

This book from The Architecture Observer (Dutch architecture critic Hans Ibelings) takes readers through some of the unexpected twists and turns in the mind of the Toronto-based Romanian architect and urbanist Adrian Phiffer. It can be seen as an attempt to produce architecture with images and words – a non-linear flow of images interrupted by text, and vice versa. Its point of view is that of a youngish architect, and at times the book takes the form of a distorted self-portrait. He writes, “The cruelty of our profession is that we always have to imagine something special… we are required to make something sophisticated, slightly complex, preferably very expensive.”