Tom Kundig: [Working Title]

by Tom Kundig

Overview

Striking, innovative, and dramatically sited, the twenty-nine projects in Tom Kundig: Working Title reveal the hand of a master of contextually astute, richly detailed architecture. As Kundig's work has increased in scale and variety, in diverse locations from his native Seattle to Hawaii and Rio de Janeiro, it continues to exhibit his signature sensitivity to material and locale and to feature his fascinating kinetic "gizmos." Projects range from inviting homes that integrate nature to large-scale commercial and public buildings: wineries, high-performance mixed-use skyscrapers, a Visitor Center for Tillamook Creamery, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and the Wagner Education Center of the Center for Wooden Boats, among others. Tom Kundig: Working Title includes lush photography, sketches, and a dialogue between Tom Kundig and Michael Chaiken, curator of the Kundig-designed Bob Dylan Archive at the Helmerich Center for American Research.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616898991
Publisher:	Chronicle Books
Publication date:	06/23/2020
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	1,126,625
Product dimensions:	11.30(w) x 12.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA, is a principal and owner of Seattle-based Olson Kundig. In 2016, he was elected to the National Academy of Design as an Academician in Architecture, and he received the AIA Seattle Gold Medal in 2018. Kundig's work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Architect, Architectural Record, and Architectural Digest.

Editorial Reviews

"Architectural monographs offer us a vehicle for traveling to places as far off as Hawaii, Korea, Australia and Costa Rica, along with places closer to home, such as Seattle and Kelowna. Such has not been lost on Seattle architect Tom Kundig, who here in Working Title has provided a stunning photographic tour of all of the above and more, including several repurposed buildings among the usual single-family subjects. Kundig is now a world-celebrated architect, with Working Title capturing a proper snapshot of his 190 person office and what they have achieved in its forty-five-year existence."
– Spacing (Canada)

"Now, Kundig has just launched a new monograph, celebrating his wide-ranging portfolio and 29 recent works that are set to make you sit and take pause. Entitled Tom Kundig: Working Title... is a hefty, carefully designed, immersive tome."
– Wallpaper.com (UK)

"A crew of 17 photographers loaned their work to this fourth volume by Princeton Architectural Press on Northwest architect Tom Kundig. The result is a large-format, lavish, full-color catalog of 29 projects...exploring an understated use of steel, plywood, glass, and concrete-all employed in their natural, unfinished texture and color." 
– Library Journal

"With the release of his fourth monograph featuring 29 projects, the principal of Seattle architectural firm Olson Kundig once again proves that there’s no comparison, although many imitators, to the spectacular homes, innovative cultural institutions, and terroir-enhancing wineries that he conceives."
– Galerie

"The book’s subtitle may seem a bit coy, but there’s nothing coy about Kundig’s work. It is strong, clean, practical, wise, rich, and imaginative but also unpretentious, appropriately varied, impeccably and subtly detailed, and independent of trends or fashion. To a rare and welcome degree, his descriptions are as clear and direct as the projects themselves, which speaks to Kundig’s humility and down-to-earth demeanor." 
– Interior Design

"When considering Kundig’s buildings, one is struck by how palpably they express, and how cannily they frame, the relationship between design and environment. Each project reminds us how complex—beautiful, thorny, open to constant reinvention and reinvestigation—that relationship is." 
– Air Mail

"Art is the filter through which [Kundig] assembles what’s around him into a coherent whole. “Listening to the client and the climate influences me with a poetic heart and drive, but outwardly I’m gathering and solving a functional problem artistically,” he says. Tom Kundig: Working Title, then, is a 10-inch-by-12-inch case history of what that process yields."
– Architects + Artisans

"Principal of Seattle-based Olson Kundig, Tom Kundig discusses 29 projects that include high-performance mixed-use buildings, a museum and a winery in the Pacific Northwest, and private houses in Switzerland, Australia, and Brazil. Sumptuous large-scale photos convey his love of materials and the craft of his architecture, and, every now and then, one of his kinetic 'gizmos' shows up."
– Architectural Record

"Working Title brings to life 29 memorable projects by his Seattle-based design practice Olson Kundig with photography that teleports to museums and wineries, rural retreats and contemporary glass-lined villas."
– Financial Times

Tired of your cramped environs? Then allow this new monograph from Tom Kundig transport you to the woods of the Pacific Northwest, the foothills of the Rockies, and beyond....This richly illustrated tome highlights more than two dozen additional works..
– AD PRO

"Tom Kundig may be best known for his monolithic Pacific Northwest homes cast in concrete and weathered steel—but his body of work is much broader than that. Working Title, explores 29 projects in diverse landscapes, locations, and typologies—from a jewel box home in Hawaii to an office tower in Seoul and a natural history museum in Seattle."
- Dwell

“Working Title is a welcome addition to Kundig’s bibliography, which already includes two monographs published under his supervision. This collection provides enthusiasts with never-before-published works.”
– Aesthetica (UK)

"From commercial high-rises to wineries, from museums to private homes, the Seattle-based architect has seemingly done it all, translating the organic sensibility of his work for a variety of typologies with his AD100 firm Olson Kundig. [Tom Kundig: Working Title] allows an intimate look at these projects, including seven unpublished works, and his unique process of making architecture."
– Architectural Digest

"In his fourth book, Seattle-based architect and designer Tom Kundig proves that his dauntless design instincts are reaching new heights. Across 29 residential and commercial projects, breathtaking landscapes mingle with raw architectural designs that expertly incorporate rustic industrial elements—iron beams, glass, unfinished wood—with modern lines."
– Business of Home

From the Publisher

08/01/2020

A crew of 17 photographers loaned their work to this fourth volume by Princeton Architectural Press on Northwest architect Tom Kundig. The result is a large-format, lavish, full-color catalog of 29 projects. Prefatory matter suggests a certain editorial slant toward pop-culture glamour, with a foreword by Vanity Fair contributor Mark Rozzo, the architect's uninspiring University of Washington Distinguished Alumni Award acceptance speech, and an interview with Bob Dylan Archive curator Michael Chaiken. Celebrated for its use of mechanical hardware to operate louvers, doors, and windows and to modulate light and heat gain, Kundig's work exhibits a modernist preference for rectilinear form and dramatic expanses of glass. In combination with sidebar text, one or two short paragraphs describe each building and introduce full-page or double-spread images exploring an understated use of steel, plywood, glass, and concrete—all employed in their natural, unfinished texture and color. A reverse chronology of the oeuvre, situated mostly on the West Coast, completes the volume, which would add up to more than a promotional vehicle if evident sources of inspiration, such as Mies and Pierre Koenig in the luxurious Los Angeles villa Collywood, were acknowledged. VERDICT For large, comprehensive architecture collections.—Paul Glassman, Yeshiva Univ. Libs., New York

Library Journal