COOK: SPECULATIONS

Peter Cook's distinctive drawings have captivated and inspired generations of designers. Freed from stylistic or functional conventions, his graphic speculations have redefined the language of architectural communication. Speculations spans Cook's entire career, presenting some 160 drawings that range from student projects in the 1950s, through Archigram, to new work completed shortly before going to press. Arranged chronologically, these drawings chart the course of what can now be seen as an enthralling architectural adventure. Cook's own observations about the nature of architecture and urbanism, and the concept of the buildable, are complemented by pieces from architects Frank Gehry, Toyo Ito, Thom Mayne and Peter Wilson. This is the first book to document Peter Cook's drawings from student projects, in the 1950s, to work completed just days before going to press in 2022 Presents all of Peter Cook's iconic Archigram drawings Commentaries from architects Frank Gehry, Toyo Ito, Thom Mayne and Peter Wilson place Cook in the Pantheon of great architectural visionaries. As a founder mem­ber of the vision­ary col­lec­tive, Archi­gram, Peter Cook (1936-) pro­ject­ed rad­i­cal­ly new pos­si­bil­i­ties for archi­tec­ture, pur­su­ing his fas­ci­na­tion with ?'the puz­zle­ment of the strange thing' to cre­ate com­pelling forms. The pre-emi­nent archi­tec­tur­al edu­ca­tor in the UK, from 1990 to 2006 he was Chair of Archi­tec­ture (now Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus) at the Bartlett School of Archi­tec­ture, where he trans­formed an aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly sober insti­tu­tion into one of the world's lead­ing cen­tres of cre­ative design. In 2007, he was award­ed a knight­hood for his ser­vices to archi­tec­ture and teach­ing; and in 2004, his achieve­ments with Archi­gram were recog­nised when the group was award­ed the RIBA Roy­al Gold Medal.