In Enric Miralles's work, the site - whether natural landscape or urban grid - is always at the forefront of the final design. At the Igualada Cemetery, situated on the outskirts of Barcelona, the topographical order is framed by sinuous curves and trenches, yet the concrete embankments, overhanging parapets and converging edges relate to the setting as the initially perceived elements within the overall perspectives of the space.
The disciplines of architecture and landscape are here fused to create a place of tremendous force: burial riches are ranked and stacked to form great funerary walls incised deep into the landscape, and rising to culminate in the entrance marked by great sculptural forms and the mortuary and chapel buildings.
'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.
