 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Perfect Architect for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘Joso maintains a fine balance between the intellectual and the emotional in this promising, character-rich work.’ Publishers Weekly, New York
‘A humorous and entertaining journey through the world of architecture.’ The Midwest Book Review, USA
‘A work of stunning originality and deftness of prose, in which Jayne Joso explores with delicate skill and rare empathy what becomes of the broken hearted.’ Cathi Unsworth
‘Joso uses all the devices of modern fiction... -The name of Coover [one of the architects]- recalling the American postmodern writer Robert Coover, who specialises in elaborate parodies and disrupting myths - is perhaps revealing.’ ICON Magazine (issue 099) Agata Pyzik
‘Full of originality... Joso applies an otherworldly curiosity to a basic but universal question: what is it to live somewhere?’ The Times Literary Supplement
Product Description
A love letter to architecture, Perfect Architect is set in the dazzling and eccentric world of the star architect (starchitect) and is a passionate meditation on what it means to find the ideal dwelling. Following the death of her architect husband and the discovery of intimate correspondence with another woman, Gaia Ore is set to learn some harsh but rewarding lessons on the nature of erotic and artistic obsession.
A competition emerges to design her perfect home, and the private world of international architects is opened up. Flowing between Spain, Italy, the US and the UK, four world class architects take up the challenge, the ultimate leveller, and set out to design the ideal dwelling for the widow of one of their greatest adversaries. But will they truly understand what is required of them? Accustomed as they are to large scale projects such as skyscrapers, bridges, museums and galleries, will the request for a modest home ultimately get the better of them?
A joyous read filled with houses, architects - translucent concrete, and hand-carved penguins...
A competition emerges to design her perfect home, and the private world of international architects is opened up. Flowing between Spain, Italy, the US and the UK, four world class architects take up the challenge, the ultimate leveller, and set out to design the ideal dwelling for the widow of one of their greatest adversaries. But will they truly understand what is required of them? Accustomed as they are to large scale projects such as skyscrapers, bridges, museums and galleries, will the request for a modest home ultimately get the better of them?
A joyous read filled with houses, architects - translucent concrete, and hand-carved penguins...
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I recently read Jayne Joso's joyous novel about the architecture of the human heart. A beguiling and layered story that weaves together hearts and houses in order to turn what begins as a set of suspicions and setbacks into the affirmation of knowledge and love. Four architects are given a chance to design a new house for Gaia, the grieving widow of Charles, an internationally known architect himself. Coincidences and misunderstandings are resolved in unusual and moving ways, and in the end, I was moved to weep and laugh at the same time. I recommend this novel to anyone interested in contemporary architecture and to anyone who needs reminding that the human comedy sometimes is really funny.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I couldn't wait for Joso's next book to come out, I feared it might be longer in the waiting to be honest, and I was then anxious about reading this because I loved Soothing Music for Stray Cats and was concerned this might not measure up. I have to be honest, it totally threw me, firstly because it's not written in the first person and secondly because you get a vast array of very eccentric characters. But it's totally brilliant. It's quite amazing to see the contrast in structure (this novel is partly told through letters exchanged between two women, occasionally by another character) and the novel is put together very cleverly, reflecting in on itself at first and then opening out onto this brilliant cast of characters - the eccentricity put me in mind of Captain Corelli's Mandolin or perhaps Alessandro Baricco's characters - colourful, engaging, rounded, funny and warm. This book, as everyone keeps saying, is beautifully written; it's also full of wit and is a real celebration of modern architecture - embracing all kinds of wonderful materials with which to build and full of the essence of what it means to create something: the thought processes, the creative insight, and the practical and emotional considerations of what a `house' might mean to any of us. It's a kind of celebration of shelter, of friendship, and the home, and is written in a style that is at once sensitive, funny, clever, and full of heart.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this after seeing Jayne Joso at a reading in London. The first 40 pages sucked me in so hard that I missed entering a bus I was waiting for. After that it gets a bit weird: It's mostly characterisation of various people, no real story, characters replying to observations form the narrator. To summarise: It is a very enjoyable book, the first 40 pages are brilliant, after that it's still good.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Grand Designs and a damn fine read
This book is a rare gem. It's like a fabulously constructed opera, shifting between the intimate letters between two women and the incredible and eccentric lives of the architects... Read more
Published 12 months ago by G. D. Flaherty
Joso shapes up
A genre-mashing novel which folds the archetypal setting for the form - a dwelling from which the protagonist departs on an adventure - back on to itself, by making the setting the... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Vinculum
The Perfect Architect
It's so nice to read the letters in this book that form part of the plot, it made me want to stop emailing and go and pick up a pen! But that aside, this book is wonderful. Read more
Published 12 months ago by xxxx
"Less is more"
... as one of my favourite architects Mies van der Rohe put it, this intriguing short novel is rich in its minimalism: beautifully constructed and plotted. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Blodger
Architect-Author
First thing to say is that I have also read Joso's Soothing Music for Stray Cats which I didn't upload a review for but which I highly recommend. Read more
Published 12 months ago by EmT
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
