Publication

  • Didier Fiuza Faustino: Misarchitectures
    Didier Faustino
    Author
    Pedro Gadanho, Steven Matijcio, Mathieu Potte-Bonneville, Brett Steele, and Philippe Vasset
    Contributors
    Architectural Association Publications, 2015
  • GRANTEE
    Didier Faustino
    GRANT YEAR
    2015

Didier Faustino, Stairway to Heaven, 2001, Castello Branco, Portugal.

Didier Fiuza Faustino: Misarchitectures brings together for the first time the entire work of Didier Faustino and his office, Bureau des Mesarchitectures. Through drawings, diagrams, photographs, and essays this part-monograph part-manifesto explores the ideas that drive Faustino's architectural and artistic works: the political and ethical conditions for constructing sites and spaces within the sociocultural layout of the city, and in particular how to critically approach the problem of the body in both private and public space. At the same time, the book revisits Faustino's projects—from sculptures and installations, to public art, architectures and books—up to his most recent work, offering new insight into the architect's perspective.

Didier Faustino is an architect and artist working on the relationship between body and space. He started his own practice at the crossroad of art and architecture just after graduating in architecture in 1995. He has been developing since then a multi-faceted approach, ranging from installation to experimentation, from visual art to the creation of multi-sensorial spaces, mobile architecture and buildings. His first iconic work, Body in Transit, a minimal space critiquing the transport of illegal immigrants, was presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2000. It was the starting point of critical and code free projects questioning the political role of creation and our own position as a subject and a citizen. Stairway to heaven —a public space for individual use built in Castello Branco in 2001—was another early project which marked his ability to make us reconsider the boundaries between private and public, between personal and communal. Faustino's work has been honoured by several prizes and shown in collective and solo exhibitions. He is frequently invited for lectures at major universities and institutions as well as international events. Faustino is currently dedicating his time between architecture, art, and teaching). He is as well the new editor in chief of the French architecture and design magazine CREE.