Exuberance: New Virtuosity in Contemporary Architecture (Architectural Design March April 2010, Vol. 80 No. 2)

It is entirely fitting that in 2010, in the year of our 80th anniversary (AD was founded in abasement in Bloomsbury in 1930), we should launch the redesign of AD with the Exuberanceissue. Not only because the word ‘exuberance’ reflects our general excitement, enthusiasm,energy and high spirits, but also because the richness of its contents suggests much thathas been strong, unique and potent about AD. This title, so adeptly guest-edited by MarjanColletti, is highly visual. At a time when many architectural journals have taken a knockingin the current economic climate, AD remains one of the most image-rich publications, inrecognition that architecture needs to communicate visually as well as verbally. It is printed inItaly to a high standard and illustrated throughout with high-quality colour images undisruptedby advertising. With the redesign, the art director, Christian Küsters of CHK Design, andthe designer, Andrea Bettella of Artmedia, have put a great deal of effort into both ensuringcontinuity of style throughout the journal while maintaining the discrete identity of eacharticle. The intention is to have a design that is both elegant and distinct, which gives space tothe images: so that the images can both illustrate and enrich the meaning of the text, creatingeffectively a truly integrated page design. Exuberance celebrates the aesthetics of architecture. This to some degree addresses the recent emphasis that has been placed on techniques and technologies in architecture. For here, most notably in the work of Colletti himself, Ali Rahim, Hernan Diaz Alonso and Tom Wiscombe, the formal overlays become integral to the digital. There is an understanding that architecture can become nuanced and remain creative only with a conscious development of form and aesthetics. You cannot design with techniques alone. This continues a rich seam in AD’s history, as reflected by the presence of Peter Cook ...... This title of AD heralds a new era of exuberance in digital design. Having overcome the alienation and otherness of the cyber, having mastered the virtual qualities and protocols of the parametric, having achieved the intricacy and elegance of the digital, and having fully embraced the potential of 3d computer software and cad/cam manufacturing technologies, it is now time for architects to show off! Conjure up the extravagance of furniture design, the abundance of cgi in Hollywood, the profuseness of bio-techno ornamentation or the lavishness of Middle-Eastern and Asian super-urbanism. Exuberance not only celebrates new Baroque theatricality, formal sophistication and digital virtuosity; it also debates a plethora of joyful and intelligent ways in which experimental architecture manages to cope with the contemporary turmoil in global politics, economics and ecology.