M3: modeled works [archive] 1972-2022 by Morphosis and Thom Mayne

Thom Mayne founded Morphosis as an interdisciplinary and collective practice involved in experimental design and research in 1972. Mayne is co-founder of the Southern California Institute of Architecture and Distinguished Professor at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. Mayne's distinguished honors include the Pritzker Prize (2005) and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (2013). He was appointed to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 2009. With Morphosis, Mayne has been the recipient of 26 Progressive Architecture Awards, over 100 American Institute of Architecture Awards and numerous other design recognitions. Morphosis works have been published extensively. The firm has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and over 33 monographs.

Thom Mayne is a deeply theoretical and conceptual architect whose built work and that of the firm Morphosis can be seen worldwide. On the cutting edge of exploration and discovery in design, the architecture is marked by complexity, disruption, ambiguity, and power. In each case, prior to the building came the model, which may serve as a key to understanding and appreciation; models express purely the basis of Mayne’s theory and intention. This volume offers, for the first time ever, an exhaustive look at the models upon which all the rest has been built, and is, as well, an essential history of the work of Mayne and Morphosis. A forty-plus-year office retrospective and a love letter to models, their process and concepts, and those that made them, the book considers at once the evolution of the model and that of the work of the firm. It features small-scale dwellings, such as the early and award-winning Sedlack Residence in Venice, California—a single room and study set atop a one-car garage—to Unicorn Island, a mixed-use master plan including a transit station, university campus, commerical and office buildings, parks, and green space in Chengdu, China.

In addition to models never before documented, the book includes outside commentary from architecture historians, critics, and practicing architects, such as Kenneth Frampton, Steven Holl, and Wolf Prix.