Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession

It weaves together reflections on design, history, politics, and economics in a seamless and illuminating manner, offering a kaleidoscopic portrait of the state of architecture and its recent history. This is a terrific book. The writing is delightful, always irreverent, and at times exceedingly funny. He seems to have been everywhere and listened to anyone who isor has beenactive and influential in building and planning, from Prince Charles to Buckminster Fuller. Reading Four Walls and a Roof will make you laugh, cry, and so identify. You will not find a better guide to planning, building, and architecture of the last half-century! (Joseph Rykwert, Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania)Ruthlessly honest about what it is like to work at architecture and wickedly cynical about how power works in our current economy, Reinier de Graaf’s vantage point from a top architectural firm doesn’t make him crow

Reinier de Graaf is Partner at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rotterdam.

Four Walls and a Roof challenges this notion, presenting a candid account of what it is really like to work as an architect.Drawing on his own tragicomic experiences in the field, Reinier de Graaf reveals the world of contemporary architecture in vivid snapshots: from suburban New York to the rubble of northern Iraq, from the corridors of wealth in London, Moscow, and Dubai to garbage-strewn wastelands that represent the demolished hopes of postwar social housing. We meet oligarchs determined to translate ambitions into concrete and steel, developers for whom architectur