Elements of Architecture

Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’s Elements of Architecture totals an impressive 2,600 pages.

The book, initially published in fifteen smaller pamphlets for Koolhaas’s contribution to the 2014 Venice Biennale, studies the fundamental elements of buildings, from their entirety down to minutiae. Koolhaas called on fellow Dutch designer Irma Boom to assist in the redesign of this hefty tome.

For Elements, unusually, the introduction is placed at the centre of the book rather than the beginning, as Boom’s innovative introduction of a split spine forces the book to fall open flat – and therefore at the middle – despite its immense thickness.