Higher Knowledge: SANAA'S Rolex Learning Center at EPFL Since 2010

Christophe Van Gerrewey

$18.00

Publication Date: May 23rd, 2022

Publisher:

EPFL Press

ISBN:

9782889154227

Pages:

Available in 3-7 business days

Description

A unique book about one of the most famous buildings in Switzerland.

The Rolex Learning Center at EPFL Lausanne opened in 2010. Designed by Pritzker Prize laureates SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) from Japan, it soon became one of the more well-known buildings of recent times. In this book, akin to an architectural novella, Christophe Van Gerrewey tells the variegated story of this piece of architecture—from many points of view, with some unexpected twists, and accompanied by unusual images. Through Higher Knowledge, the Rolex Learning Center emerges not only as a remarkable architectural achievement, but also as a building that contains knowledge, and that can speak to us in different ways.

About the Author

Christophe Van Gerrewey is assistant professor of architectural theory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He is a member of the editorial teams of the art criticism magazine De Witte Raaf and the architecture magazine OASE. He is the author of critical essays on contemporary European architecture published in AA Files, Log, The Journal of Architecture, Architectural Theory Review, The Architectural Review, San Rocco, A+U, and L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, among others. He has compiled a collection of critical essays on the work of OMA/Rem Koolhaas entitled OMA/Rem Koolhaas: A Critical Reader from Delirious New York to S,M,L,XL. Since 2012, he has also published, in Dutch, three novels and a collection of literary essays.

Praise for Higher Knowledge: SANAA'S Rolex Learning Center at EPFL Since 2010

"It is a quick read, in other words, but it is not short on ideas. Van Gerrewey explores a myriad [of] aspects of the distinctive undulating building completed in 2010 (the same year Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa won the Pritzker Prize): from the campus's origins and the building's programmatic requirements, to situating the project's flowing spaces within other open-plan buildings and how the undulating slabs of concrete are structured."

— A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books