Neil Leach is an architect and theorist who has taught at a number of institutions worldwide, including the Architectural Association in London, the Dessau Institute Dessau, Germany, and Columbia University. He is the author, editor, or translator of more than a dozen books, including Rethinking Architecture, The Anaesthetics of Architecture (MIT Press, 1999), and Alberti's On the Art of Building in Ten Books (MIT Press 1991).
This exquisitely designed publication is itself an aesthetic domain, understated and carefully considered. Its cover is subtly seductive. All illustrations are of a young women adapting, assimilating, and blending into various environments. They are hauntingly beautiful and are important to the craft and message of the book, yet they are also mysterious. All we are told is that they are the work of 'the late Francesca Woodman.' One suspects that there is further meaning that is hidden-perhaps through camouflage.-Architectural Record