The Infraordinary

More about the book

Bilingual edition (English/German) / Zweisprachige Ausgabe (deutsch/englisch) GAM's twentieth volume is dedicated to the search for the everyday in architecture. Its title, "The Infraordinary," refers to an artistic concept first used by Paul Virilio and Georges Perec: In the 1970s, they introduced the term l'infra-ordinaire to describe the habitual and ordinary--the opposite of the extraordinary. With this in mind, GAM 20 aims to delve more deeply into the unexceptional in architecture. Seeking to go beyond glorifying or emphasizing the banal, the intention is to highlight stories of the repurposing and refurbishment of existing architecture, as well as its day-to-day use. In daily life, after all, architecture tends not to look the way it does in glossy magazines, on the websites of renowned architecture firms, or on Instagram. With contributions by Luigiemanuele Amabile, Beatrice Azzola, Ajna Babahmetovic, Alberto Calderoni, Michael Heinrich, Johanna-Charlotte Horst, Ena Kukic, Thomas Meinecke, Luc Merx, Denise Scott Brown, and others