Deep Veils

de Grit Vltavsky, Erik L'Heureux

Deep Veils is an architecture monograph on veils, thickness, and envelopes in architecture as a counter narrative to transparency, openness, and clarity that underpin orthodox Modern architecture. The book features ten small projects completed in South East Asia between 2007-2012 that explore various architectural ideas under the rubric of "deep veils". Each project responds to questions of envelope, surface, skin, form, atmosphere, perception and topicality. The projects represented within the book define in various ways how deep veils in architecture are manifest utilizing opaque and solid materials to produce forms of translucency, depth, and hazy atmospheres. Traced through the artistic legacies of Gertrud Arndt to Optical Art, the architectural theories of Gottfried Semper, Adolf Loos and the work of Le Corbusier, Kahn and Durell Stone a new direction for architecture, perception and thickness is put forth. Exquisitely crafted drawings lay clear the thinking behind each of the works in exploded axonometric and worm's eye views. Beautifully shot photographs depict the complexity the projects while various texts highlight the theoretical underpinnings of the architectural thesis.