People, Place, Purpose

People Place Purpose describes the specific architecture that Mecanoo explores, illustrating the way they seek for identity in a globalised world. From the texture of a local stone, to colours of a fruit tree or rituals of inhabitants, Mecanoo is driven to design buildings with strength to earth. A total of seventeen projects, all built in mutually different conditions, show the world according to Mecanoo.

Language: English
Publisher: Artifice, London 2015. 
ISBN 978-1-908967-61-9

Dutch Mountains

Dutch Mountains is more than a book about architecture.

It's about beautiful buildings, all over the world, Dutch designed. It's about a woman who has remained herself in the wonderful and challenging world of international architecture. It's about the unparalleled success of the still idealistically motivated architects, Delft-based architects, Mecanoo.

Journalist Jan Tromp and photographer Harry Cock capture the world of Francine Houben in eight special projects in five different countries.

Language: English/Dutch/Chinese. 
Publisher: Uitgeverij de Kunst. ISBN 9789491196003 
Download Book PDF

Composition, Contrast, Complexity

In the book 'Composition, Contrast, Complexity'  Francine Houben presents a personal account of her experiences.

Text and image convey her original and authentic attitude, views and feelings about architecture. She has made a selection from her many Mecanoo projects for this publication. Each of these projects is exemplary of her vision and illustrates the three core elements of how she conceives architecture: composition, contrast and complexity.

Houben, Francine/Mecanoo Architecten, Composition, Contrast, Complexity, Publ. Birkhaüser, Basel/Boston/Berlin 2001, 260 pages.
ISBN 3-7643-6452-1 Order here

Mecanoo Master Series

In the spring of 2008 the latest monograph about Mecanoo was published.
The book demonstrates through word and image a cross section of Mecanoo architecten's broad oeuvre.

Mecanoo's projects show a passion for landscapes, a pleasure in technology and an undogmatic approach of each assignment.

Text: Ruud Brouwers, Aaron Betsky. Design: Via Vermeulen/ b+w and colour illustrations/ hardback/ 272 pages / 300x223 mm

Language: English/Dutch. Publisher: The Images Publishing Group, Australia.
ISBN 9781864701425 Order here

Revisions of Space

In Revisions of Space, architect Dick van Gameren shows how the spatial quality of architecture is connected with densification and programmatic diversity: in buildings, around buildings and in the urban context. He does this by using a selection of unusual historic examples and his own work.

The book could be described as a manual for architecture - how one can look at architecture and how, as a designer, to deal with it - as well as a personal appeal for more consideration for one of the essential components of architecture.

Design: Simon Davies, Illustrated (colour and b/w), Bound, 168 pages, Size: 17x24 cm, Dutch/English.
ISBN 90-5662-421-0/978-90-5662-421-7 
Order here

A People's Palace

This booklet accompanies the exhibition ‘A People's Palace’ presenting recent projects by Mecanoo at Aedes (Berlin). Over the past three decades, Mecanoo’s highly multidisciplinary approach has resulted in a wide-ranging portfolio of designs that are realised with technical expertise and great attention to detail.

Besides the Library of Birmingham, the Municipal offices and Train Station in Delft, the Kaap Skill Museum on Texel, the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Wei-Wu-Ying), and the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building in Boston are among the projects which make part of this booket.
 

Concept/design: Mecanoo architecten
Publisher: Kristin Feireiss, Hans-Jürgen Commerell
ISBN 978-3-943615-25-8

La Llotja de Lleida

The memorable visit of the King and Queen of Spain on March 23rd 2010, marks the five year period which began in spring 2005 with the winning competition design for La Llotja de Lleida: a large stone complex which seems as if sprouted from the Spanish earth.

An event square begins underneath the great cantilevers, and the stairs of the adjacent building serve as a tribune. The main auditorium has walls of black wood in which trees of light have been cut out, inspired by the fruit orchards of the region.

Lunwerg / Mecanoo / Labb, 'La Llotja de Lleida', Lunwerg, S.L., Barcelona 2010 (Catalan/Spanish/English), 104 pag.
ISBN 978-84-9785-656-0

St. Mary of the Angels Chapel

This book was published because of the opening of the new RC Chapel St Mary of the Angels for the cemetery St Lawrence in Rotterdam.

It contains texts from varies sources: three dissertations regarding the architecture of the chapel, a dissertation of the polyptych that decorates the rear wall of the choir and the sermon that the bishop gave for the consecration of the chapel.

The book is illustrated with pictures of Christian Richters and Jeroen Toirkens.

Houben, Francine, Mgr. A.H. van Luyn S.D.B., Jan van Adrichem, Max van Rooy, Frederick Tack, ‘En het eeuwige licht verlichte haar’, Publ. R.K. Begraafplaats St. Laurentius, Rotterdam 2004 (Dutch), 47 pag.

TU Delft Master Plan

The terrain of Delft Technical University reflects the ideas of the sixties of the previous century – optimistic, large-scale, mainly isolated buildings situated along a long wide axis, with no public space of any significance. 

It is based on the notion of ‘integrated engineering’, with a multidisciplinary approach to the different faculty courses.

The Master Plan creates the spatial conditions for the University in which Technology, innovation, education, research and the social application of all these aspects will in future increasingly converge.

DUP Satellite, imprint van/of Delft University Press, Post bus/P.O. Box 98, 2600 MG Delft.
ISBN 90-407-2269-2

Toneelschuur

The well-known cartoonist Joost Swarte designed the new Toneelschuur theatre in the historic city centre of Haarlem in his own characteristic style. Mecanoo elaborated his outline drawing and turned his sketch into a functional building.

This book documents the unique and experimental project with sketches, drawings and photographs of the building, interior and many details.

Joost Swarte / Mecanoo architects, 'Toneelschuur', NAi Publishers, Rotterdam 2003 (Dutch/English), 220 pag.
ISBN 90-5662-321-4

Constructing vision: the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts

An international jury chose the design of Mecanoo because of its great imagination, one-ness of the arts center with the park, modern theatre techniques and incorporation of the subtropical climate. This book follows the design process and the engineer complexity that a project with this scale demands.

Photos: Christian Richter.Author: Wan-Jen Lin, Ching-Mou Hou/Mecanoo. March 2013.

Mecanoo

Since building the award winning design for social housing on Rotterdam's Kruisplein (1985) Mecanoo has been working steadily at an extensive oeuvre whose combination of idealism, pragmatism and sense of beauty is breathing new life into the modern tradition.

It sets out to document in a surveyable form the work of Dutch architects with an impressive body of work behind them.

Somer, Kees, Mecanoo, (photography: Daria Scagliola, Stijn Brakkee), Publ. 010, Rotterdam 1995 (Dutch/English), 137 pag.
ISBN 90-6450-216-1

Experimental Pragmatism

The book examines 24 buildings and projects that illustrate Mecanoo's contribution to the creation of new types of collective residences-those geared toward integrating functions other than those of mere living within the home.

This extensively illustrated presentation vividly conveys the experimental and functional aspects of Mecanoo's unique vision and offers an affordable introduction to their work.

Author: Pietro Valle. Paperback: 212 pages. Publisher: Skira (June 26, 2007). Language: English.
ISBN 887624655X Order here

Re-Staging the South. A Documentation of founding the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts

Wei wu ying yi shu wen hua zhong xin chou jian shi lu, 2009. 369 pag. (some col.), ports, 23 cm.

Language: Traditional Chinese.
ISBN 978-986-83841-2-5

FOM INSTITUUT AMOLF

The new AMOLF laboratory building was opened on March 18th, 2010 by NWO chairman Jos Engelen.

Dick van Gameren architects published a book about the development of the new AMOLF lab.

Maliebaan 16, een huis om in te werken

In 1998-2000 Mecanoo renovated and extended office villa Maliebaan 16 in Utrecht. Jannes Linders photograped the result. Houben, Francine/Mecanoo architecten, Maliebaan 16, een huis om in te werken, Publ. Andersson Elffers Felix, Mecanoo architecten, Utrecht/Delft 2000.

ISBN 90-9013900-1

Holland Avenue

Mecanoo architecten, Holland Avenue, Research Road Atlas; Holland Avenue, Design Road Atlas, Publ. Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, The Hague 2003 (English).

ISBN 90-369-1862-6

Mobility, a room with a view

This impressive publication explores the impact of mobility on our daily lives, examines how mobility relates to city and landscape, and reveals the consequences for the contemporary culture of design.

Documenting the first International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, of which Francine Houben was director/curator, this book brings together the contributions of university researchers, architects, urban designers, spatial planners and designers.

Houben, Francine, Louisa Maria Calabrese (ed.), 'Mobility, A Room with a View', NAi Publishers, Rotterdam 2003 (English), 447 pag. ISBN 90-5662-257-9

Bibliotheek Technische Universiteit Delft

The central library of Delft Technical University had to become the technical library of the Netherlands, linked by the latest electronic devices to libraries all over the world. 

This book tells the history of this extraordinary library in sketches, drawings, photos and texts.
 

Houben, Francine, Piet Vollaard, Leo Waaijers, Mecanoo architecten, Bibliotheek Technische Universiteit Delft, Publisher 010, Rotterdam 2000 (Dutch/English), 80 pag. ISBN 90-6450-335-4