Pamphlet Architecture 20: Seven Partly Underground Rooms and Buildings for Water, Ice, and Midgets by Mary Ann-Ray
8vo. pp. 80. b/w illustrations. paperback (very good - covers scuffed & rubbed, small surface loss to right edge of front cover). New York: Princeton Architectural Press, [1997].
ISBN-10: 1568981031 / ISBN-13: 9781568981031
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The latest in the Pamphlet Architecture series, Seven Partly Underground Rooms and Buildings investigates unusual spaces in Italy, ranging from a honeycombed and mazelike series of rooms and stairs for midgets, to the dining chambers of a Pompeiian estate, to a half-buried sphere that serves as a place for ice storage. Ray reveals these quixotic spaces through constructed drawings, collaged photographs, and insightful text.
Mary-Ann Ray is a principal, with Robert Mangurian, of the architecture firm Studio Works in Los Angeles. A fellow of the American Academy in Rome, she is also a professor at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Her projects have received various awards, including the Progressive Architecture Urban Design Award (1991). Her work also appears in "Re: American Dream".
Pamphlet Architecture, begun in 1978 by William Stout and Steven Holl, has become a popular venue for publishing the works and thoughts of a younger generation of architects. Small in scale, low in price, but large in impact, these books present and disseminate new and innovative theories.