Arata Isozaki is one of the most prolific and creative personalities in contemporary architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma (Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, 1971-74), arguably the architect's masterwork, was the first in a line of commissions for modern art museums on a world-wide scale. Completed in 1974 it was recently extended by Isozaki in 1994.
The museum is located in the rural surroundings of the Gunma-no-Mori park, and is the most complete realisation by Isozaki of a conceptual architectural approach - a pristine, essential structure composed of an arrangement of cubes taking the form of a large rectangular block with projecting wings. The 1994 addition consists of a cube added to the main entrance facade housing the new Highvision Theatre, and a restaurant which occupies part of the area beneath one of the wings.
'Architecture In Detail' is a superbly photographed and technically informative series of monographs which embraces a broad spectrum of internationally renowned buildings, drawn predominantly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each sixty-page volume contains a lucid text by a respected author; a sequence of large-format, high-quality colour and black and white photographs; a comprehensive set of technical drawings and working details; and a complete bibliography and chronology, thus making these books the definitive work on the subject. They are essential purchases for enthusiasts, practitioners and students alike.
