The House of Doctor Koolhaas - (The Gumshoe) by Françoise Fromonot (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Investigates the history of the Villa dall'Ava in the playful style of a detective novel.

Gumshoe is a new series of architectural books that introduces an original approach to the writing of architectural history. It returns the focus of architectural discourse back onto buildings in a style and form that is fresh and scholarly but also easy and enjoyable to read. It emulates the detective novel--a form of writing beloved by many, but also one that has enjoyed a parallel academic life in disciplines and by writers in fields as diverse as psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud), film (Sigfried Kracauer), and art history (Carlo Ginzburg)--but, significantly, not yet by architecture. Each volume will investigate a singular building as if it were a mystery waiting to be solved.

Written by distinguished French architectural critic and historian Françoise Fromonot, the first case--The House of Doctor Koolhaas--is about the Villa dall'Ava, a private residence in Saint-Cloud, a suburb of Paris. Fromonot brilliantly unpicks, explains, and interprets this very first building completed by Rem Koolhaas, who is universally regarded as the world's most celebrated architect, and his Rotterdam-based firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture. The house is resolutely part of a modern architectural canon, but until now has not been the focus of a dedicated book or analysis.

Review Quotes

"Much like a detective, Fromonot questions everything--everything that has been said, written, drawn, and photographed by Koolhaas and his collaborators around the villa. She delves into history, art, cinema, literature, and even cartoons, peeling away the layers and digging beneath the "false leads" to discover Villa dall'Ava's hidden meaning. It's an enjoyable book that is as much about the journey as the destination. And it has me looking forward to the next book in the Gumshoe series: Lytle Shaw's 'investigation' of Oscar Niemeyer's French Communist Party Headquarters, also in Paris."-- "A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books"

About the Author

Françoise Fromonot is professor of design, history, and theory at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-Belleville and William Wayne Caudill Professor of Architecture at Rice Architecture Paris. Thomas Weaver is an architectural writer, educator, editor, and lecturer at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland.