Absolute Beginners

One of the great intellectuals among architects: Iñaki Ábalos' reflections on the present and future of the architectural guild

In his new book Absolute Beginners, acclaimed Spanish architect Iñaki Ábalos explores forms of innovation in architecture. Drawing on diverse materials elaborated during the twenty years since the publication of his best-known book, The good life, Ábalos examines questions centered on how and why architectural creationat least the kind that arouses the greatest cultural interestis strongly linked to philosophical thought, especially to the essay and the aphorism. He guides us to an understanding why innovationas happens in philosophyis inextricably linked to a reflection on the past and to the emergence of new ways of appropriating old problems.

Absolute Beginners is a single essay written with effort and passion, made for the pure pleasure of composing a new and complex work and understanding the source materials as necessary fragments, while remaining open to adjustments, changes, and bridges between them. Ábalos organizes his materials like a piece of music into a cohesive composition, to the delight and insight of his readers.

• Iñaki Ábalos presents the quintessence of his thinking about architecture and the future of the trade
• A highly enriching essay about forms of innovation in architecture

• Iñaki Ábalos is one of the great intellectuals among architects and among the most distinguished contributors to international architecture discourse

  Autorentext
  Iñaki Ábalos is founding principal of Ábalos+Sentkiewicz Architects with offices in Boston, Madrid, and Shanghai. He has also been a Professor of Architectural Design and director of the Laboratorio de Técnicas y Paisajes Contemporáneos (LTPC) at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM) since 2002, and Professor-in-Residence at Harvard Graduate School of Design since 2012.