Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space

Available in bookstores and at Stroom Den Haag, Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Online orders through: www.valiz.nl


- This unconventional, dazzling and multilayered book on one of the most idiosyncratic architects/artists of the past forty years, broaches many pressing social issues.

Since founding T.O.P. (‘Turn On Planning') office in the 1970s, Belgian architect and artist Luc Deleu (born 1944) has been working on a critical, sociological and ecological approach to urbanism that he has named ‘orbanism': an eco-centric global urbanism that has anticipated such contemporary concerns as environmental pollution, overpopulation, food production and the conflict between the individual and the community.

Luc Deleu - T.O.P. Office: Orban Space traces Deleu's work and practice through a conceptual topography defined by seven terms: architecture, imitation, depiction, sculpture, scale, mobility and manifesto. Each term will be dealt with in a critical text and visual essay by seven authors and seven artists.

Next to these essays, the book contains an autobiography of T.O.P. office and an interview of Hans De Wolf with Isabelle De Smet and Steven Van den Bergh, staff since 1997. The book situates the work and practice within a broader theoretical and historical framework, where they emerge from the lineage defined by such idiosyncratic utopian visionaries as the Metabolists, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Superstudio, Yona Friedman and Constant Nieuwenhuis.

Luc Deleu - T.O.P. Office: Orban Space is published by Valiz, book and cultural projects i.c.w. Stroom Den Haag, VU University Amsterdam, Ghent University. Supported by Flemish-Dutch House deBuren, Creative Industries Fund NL, SNS REAAL Fund, Mondriaan Fund, Vlaamse Gemeenschap.

This publication accompanies the exhibition Orban Space: Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office at Stroom Den Haag (20 January-24 March, 2013).

Later in 2013 the exhibition will travel to Extra City, Antwerp, Belgium.
www.extracity.org


Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven
Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven
Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven
Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven
Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven
Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven
Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven
Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven
Publication Luc Deleu - T.O.P. office: Orban Space
photo: design: Metahaven