MUIR ARCHITECTS: IT BY BIT. PRESTON MUIR ARCHITECTS

The relationship between theory and practice has always been tenuous and thus ambiguous or circumstantial at best. Just as Le Corbusier's radical juxtaposition of the automobile with the Parthenon, though provocative, did not lead to a specific prescription for design, the book It by Bit is about the work and ideas of Prescott Muir that demonstrate a similar beguiling and serendipitous relationship between a discursive theoretical interest and its implications for a contemporary practice in architecture. The book includes contributions from Dan Hoffman former dean of Cranbrook Art Center, and an essay from the insightful, Juhani Pallasmaa. Rather than romancing and thus further exploiting the western landscape, Muir's work utilizes the desiccating scarcity of the high desert and its resistance to habitation to tease out the situational essence of the place. Projects such as the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Kimball Visual Art Center, Bridge Housing, Swaner Nature Preserve, Pleasant Valley Library and Michigan Avenue Residence illustrate his fifth generational coming to grips with the west and investigative reporting from a certain position.