Reinier de Graaf: Four Walls and a Roof Book Signing

"Once buildings are identified as a means of return, modern architecture’s economy of means is no longer a way to reach the largest number of people but a way to maximize profits" - Reinier de Graaf

Dutch architect, writer & partner at OMA, Reinier de Graaf will host a book signing at reSITE2018 ACCOMMODATE following the release of his acclaimed book "Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession" named best books of 2017 by both the Financial Times and The Guardian.

Reinier is a partner in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), where he leads projects in Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He is also a co-founder of OMA’s think tank AMO and a visiting professor in Architecture and Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Architecture, we like to believe, is an elevated art form that shapes the world as it pleases. Four Walls and a Roof challenges this notion, presenting a candid account of what it is really like to work as an architect.

Drawing on his own tragicomic experiences in the field, Reinier de Graaf reveals the world of contemporary architecture in vivid snapshots: from suburban New York to the rubble of northern Iraq, from the corridors of wealth in London, Moscow, and Dubai to garbage-strewn wastelands that represent the demolished hopes of postwar social housing. We meet oligarchs determined to translate ambitions into concrete and steel, developers for whom architecture is mere investment, and the layers of politicians, bureaucrats, consultants, and mysterious hangers-on who lie between any architectural idea and the chance of its execution.

Four Walls and a Roof tells the story of a profession buffeted by external forces that determine―at least as much as individual inspiration―what architects design. Perhaps the most important myth debunked is success itself. To achieve anything, architects must serve the powers they strive to critique, finding themselves in a perpetual conflict of interest. Together, architects, developers, politicians, and consultants form an improvised world of contest and compromise that none alone can control.