Italy Now?

Does Italian architecture exist? What characterizes it? What values and objectives do you refer to when designing your architecture and why? These are the questions recently put to twenty cutting-edge architectural firms working in Italy today. The answers come together in Italy Now? Country Positions in Architecture, which presents the architects' written responses in parallel with their design work. Edited by Alberto Alessi, the book also contains critical essays by Pier Vittorio Aureli and Gabriele Mastrigli. Noted Italian photographers Gabriele Basilico, Francesco Jodice, Armin Linke, and Alberto Muciaccia have contributed their visions of Italy-the land and people as well as the architecture-to deepen the context of this book. Based on an exhibit held at Cornell University as well as on two related conferences, one in Ithaca and the other in New York City, Italy Now? offers an intriguing look at contemporary Italian architecture-its physical expression and the thinking behind it.