Publication

  • Slow Manifesto: Lebbeus Woods Blog
    Clare Jacobson
    Editor
    Lebbeus Woods
    Author
    Princeton Architectural Press, 2015
  • GRANTEE
    Pamphlet Architecture
    GRANT YEAR
    2014

Lebbeus Woods, Metastructure. Courtesy of the artist's estate.

From the fall of 2007 until the summer of 2012, architect and educator Lebbeus Woods kept a blog. Through more than three hundred entries of articles, drawings, anecdotes, poetry, interviews, and photographic essays, it became a repository for topics ranging from architectural theory and criticism to education and politics. The blog consistently engaged a dedicated readership that found it a platform for thoughtful, cross-disciplinary community exchange with one of the most revered architects of our time. His commitment to the discourse, social conscience, and, above all, to the humanism of architecture was a lifelong central tenet made manifest in the content he presented. In this volume, editor Clare Jacobson compiles a selection of the archive into a collection that distills Lebbeus's prolific repertoire into a singular vision of architectural possibility.

Lebbeus Woods (1940–2012) was an architect whose pursuits in experimental and theoretical projects made a profound impact on architectural thinking. He began his career in the offices of Eero Saarinen before cofounding the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, an organization dedicated to the advancement of experimental thought and practice within architecture. His body of work is a prolific exploration of topics related to social crisis and possible realities through writings, drawings, and installations. Woods taught at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and the Cooper Union in New York City.

Clare Jacobson, a Shanghai-based writer, editor, and curator, is a longtime editor of Lebbeus Woods's publications. She oversaw many of his books, including Radical Reconstruction, The Storm and the Fall, and OneFiveFour. Jacobson is currently a contributing editor to Architectural Record. Her recently authored book New Museums in China was released in October 2013.

Since 1977, Pamphlet Architecture has given voice to known and unknown authors alike, asking designers to present their bold ideas in a manner as visually provocative as it is intellectually compelling.