Speculations On:Neil M. Denari Architects /Work 2000-2010
Consisting of extensive documentation of 40 projects and 12 texts, Speculations On is a multigraphic volume organized around the concept of speculation itself. If the contemporary marketplaces of global life are conventionally thought to be limited by the minimization of risks of all kinds (cultural, economic, social, etc), and if architecture labors under this duress as a medium whose expense, weight, and intended permanence make it the most risk averse medium of all, then questions are raised as to how the attributes (new formalisms, new experiences, unwanted functions, etc) of an experimental architecture can redefine both the logic of capital and also the logic of its own system of production. Speculations On documents on the one hand the emergence of NMDA’s building practice, and on the other, the continuing trajectory of cultural analysis began in Gyroscopic Horizons. Here however, 12 texts offer more pointed and operative investigations into the worlds of functional logic (The System of Architecture, Monster-in-a-Box, Shrinkwrapping Vague Things) , formal discrimination (Formagraphics, Patchworks ), Asian phenomena (The Asian Slipstream, Working for the World’s Largest Bank), and building construction (The Limits of Craft).