Few artists have dedicated their work to architectural space quite as much as Olafur Eliasson. His objects transform walls by their luminescence; his projections cast structure on structure; his geometry bends over backyards to multiply the qualities of sites. It is without doubt that one can place him on a list along with spatial artists including Dan Graham, Gordon Matta Clark and Kurt Schwitters.

Perhaps the fact that Eliasson's contributions to architectural affect have been historically undermined led to Thames & Hudson's publication of Unspoken Spaces, a monograph of the artist's most architectural work. It begins with an introduction by Eliasson that highlights his innate inability to separate art from architecture: "The artwork in this book are mostly models for space, defined by movement. They are world-makers." 

One of Eliasson's recent architectural projects, for instance, is a bridge that the artist made particularly wide in the hopes that "people will stop for a while on the bridge and use it almost as a public square," by reducing their speed and shifting their focus just as a good piece of public art might intend. 

His 2001 installation at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, The Mediated Motion, had a similar intention while being treated as an art installation: "The work was primarily a staging of movement and people... on the suspension bridge on the top floor, you were forced to negotiate the presence of others, were entangled in a mid-air cha-cha-cha." 

You can get your copy of Unspoken Space from our online shop or in person at Archinect Outpost.