Wiel Arets: Autobiographical References and featured project Hedge House, Wijlre, the Netherlands, 1998-2001.

Wiel Arets: Autobiographical References (Birkhäuser, December 2012) offers a unique and unparalleled view of Arets, an internationally renowned architect and recently appointed dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Arets’ optimistic outlook towards the future, which he calls ‘A Wonderful World: A New Map of the World’, underlies his global philosophy. This new book presents Arets’ lectures on that topic, debates between him and other thinkers and makers, 60 exemplary designs from his studio, and an extensive series of interviews with Arets. Within these texts his background, education, projects, and teachings are interwoven in a discussion that highlights the evolution of his career.

At this book launch event, a discussion between Arets and Robert McCarters, editor of the book, will offer a comprehensive introduction to the work of Wiel Arets Architects. The talk will be followed by a reception in the Madlener House library where signed copies of the publication will be available for purchase.

Wiel Arets is a Dutch born architect, educator, industrial designer, theorist, and urbanist. Arets’ architecture and design firm, Wiel Arets Architects, has offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, Maastricht, and Zurich, and has been nominated numerous times for the European Union’s Mies Van der Rohe award. Before being appointed dean at IIT, Arets was dean of the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam from 1995-2002 and a professor of building, planning, and design at the Berlin University of the Arts.

Robert McCarter is a practicing architect, author, and Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. He previously taught at the University of Florida, where he was director of the School of Architecture from 1991-2001, Columbia University, University of Louisville, and North Carolina State University. He is the author of Understanding Architecture: A Primer on Architecture as Experience (with Juhani Pallasmaa, 2012); Wiel Arets: Autobiographical References (2012); Frank Lloyd Wright: Critical Lives (2006); Louis I. Kahn (2005); Frank Lloyd Wright (1997), and other books.

This event was originally scheduled for February 1, 2013.