Architecture of Rasem Badran Cl

A complete overview of the work of the most important architect in the Middle East today. Rasem Badran's influence is rapidly spreading throughout the developing world. His work involves the full spectrum of the built environment, from urban planning to individual residences. He concentrates on making architecture that meets the social and cultural requirements of the people who use it, as well as being place-specific in response to environmental conditions. Born in Jerusalem in 1945, Badran was educated in Ramallah and then in Germany, which had a profound impact on his approach to design. His well-balanced education, beginning with a traveling apprenticeship with his father and continuing through a fertile and exciting time of experimental architecture in Europe, has allowed him to weave a systematically rational, Western methodology with the intuitive traditions inherent in his own cultural background. Badran designs buildings and environments that stand in stark contrast to self-conscious, anonymous architecture devoid of any reference to people, place, or culture. He offers a humane option to the deliberately commodified, blatantly branded, aesthetically objectified, and environmentally inarticulate architecture that is becoming the norm in the developed world today. 300 illustrations, 250 in color.

James Steele is Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California.