BOOKS: Sergison Bates architects buildings

Emmett Scanlon on a monograph exploring the life of buildings before and after the moment of completion.

Care home at Huise-Zingum, Belgium (ph: David Grandorge).

Sergison Bates architects: Buildings

Edited by Heinz Wirz

Quart Verlag, 288pp, £64

A book by an architect is very different to a book about one. With Papers (2000) and Papers 2 (2007), Sergison Bates demonstrated its interest in the book as a valid form of artistic and creative expression on the one hand, and on the other, a critical part of its strategy to engage an audience with its architectural and tectonic intentions.

Those books were literally layered with leaves of changeable covers or with pages carefully composed and replete with saturated images and visually compelling texts, allowing readers to discover their own book within the book, to find new stories in the pages, making an engaging, sustainable read.

In his introduction to Sergison Bates’ new book, Buildings, editor Heinz Wirz quotes Paul Valéry in order to draw parallels between the art of making books and that of buildings and commends the author-architects for their commitment to the reality of this book, which is to be equally enjoyed by the eye and the hand. Intended to evoke the sensation of a brick, Buildings represents a logical step in the development of Sergison Bates’ book-arts-building practice.

There is an elegant logic too in its organisation. Eschewing the narrative structures typically found in architects’ monographs, this book instead echoes the structure of online information, and more specifically recalls the thematically ordered portfolio website. Information on eight individual projects is classified under three distinct headings or themes: Intentions, Impressions and Catalogue. This strategy allows the reader to understand each project one-byone with regard to these themes, or instead to understand the eight projects collectively as variations on the architectural themes presented. This makes reading feel lively and dynamic as one moves across the work and through the book.

Before these themes emerge properly, however, ‘Texts’ gathers three commissioned essays, by Dirk Somers, Irina Davidovici and Martin Steinmann, which together locate the work of Sergison Bates in architectural history, culture and theory in a sophisticated manner.

Spread from Buildings.

‘Intentions’ directly describes the ideas and manoeuvres of each of the eight projects, many of which have not been published before. This section is richly illustrated with imagery rarely found in depictions of the architctural object – of context, work methods and on-site processes – making the finished buildings feel very present-tense and real.

The reality of the built projects, most of which are photographed by David Grandorge, are gathered under ‘Impressions’. Though still, Grandorge’s intense images are very moving in their depiction of the lives of these buildings and their occupants, most notably those of a care home in Belgium. Here it seems the word ‘impressions’ has been carefully chosen in that it refers to the physical and social impact the occupants now have on the buildings. It is also perhaps a further nod to the virtual world, where a visitor to a website is said to leave an impression. By the time one reaches the chronological ‘Catalogue’, a record of all Sergison Bates’ projects, an very good impression has certainly been made on the reader – of a sincere generosity recorded in this book and imbued in these buildings.

Emmett Scanlon is co-founder of Dublin based CAST Architecture and architectural advisor to the Irish Arts Council.