Concrete Houses: The Poetics of Form

Concrete has conviction, strength and directness. It has plasticity, too, which makes the possibilities for form-making almost endless.

Concrete Houses explores the sculptural possibilities of concrete as the material of choice in landmark contemporary houses across Australia, Brazil, Portugal, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands and the USA, from the hands of major international architects including Sou Fujimoto, Tom Kundig, Valerio Olgiati and Marcio Kogan, and Australians such as Peter Stutchbury, Alex Popov, Ian McDougall and Neil Durbach. Illustrated throughout with exceptional colour photography, and selected plans and drawings, Concrete Houses celebrates the incontrovertible fusion of concrete’s versatility and brute force to make timeless architecture of lyric beauty.

Contents List

The Poetics of Form • Camberwell House, Melbourne, Australia • Dovecote, Braga, Portugal • Casa Plana, Porto Feliz, Brazil • Villa Além, Alentejo, Portugal • It Is a Garden, Nagano, Japan • The Pierre, San Juan Islands, USA • Lune de Sang Pavilion, Northern New South Wales, Australia • Indigo Slam, Sydney, Australia • Invisible House, Blue Mountains, Australia • Marama House, Sydney, Australia

About the Author

Joe Rollo is an architecture writer and editor. He reviewed architecture for The Age newspaper, Melbourne, from 1994 to 2015. He has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, including The Australian, The Australian Weekend Magazine, The Spectator Australia, The Australian Financial Review Magazine, The Bulletin and Wallpaper* magazine. He is the founding editor of C+A, an international magazine of concrete architecture, and the author of four previous books: Contemporary Melbourne Architecture; Concrete Poetry: Concrete Architecture in Australia; Beautiful Ugly: The Architectural Photography of John Gollings; and Harry Seidler’s Umbrella: Selected Writings on Architecture and Design in Australia. He holds a Master of Architecture degree (Honoris Causa) from RMIT University. He was born in Sicily and lives and works in Melbourne.