This beautifully illustrated monograph chronicles the architecture of David C. Hovey, FAIA, and his influence on the discipline, as well as the story of his life and career. David Hovey founded Optima in 1978, with the goal of reinventing multifamily housing by combining development and design in a single company. Over the forty-plus years the company has existed, Hovey has built nearly 6,000 residential units. In the process, he has elevated the design of a building type that has, with a few exceptions, been left to developers to produce indifferent work. He challenges the market with something better, something worthy of enfolding families and individuals. Hovey is a modernist, steadfast in his belief in the future, in technology, in material honesty, in structural expression, and in architecture’s ability to improve the lives of people. His work has captured attention, winning critical acclaim as well as many national and regional awards for architecture. The dozen representative projects in this book range from single-family homes to towers and from the company’s early years to the present. Also showcased is Hovey’s work as an abstract sculptor, whose monumental work is installed at some of the multifamily projects examined here. A serious art collector of mostly twentieth-century art, Hovey’s acquisitions are detailed in an illustrated catalogue at the end of the book. AUTHOR: Cheryl Kent is a journalist and editor who has been writing about architecture and cities for 35 years. The most recent of Kent’s thirteen books-Millennium Park Chicago and Santiago Calatrava: Milwaukee Art Museum Quadracci Pavilion - tell of heroic efforts to realise monumental urban projects. In 2013, she was visiting architecture critic at the Chicago Tribune. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure, Architectural Record, and Metropolis. She has acted as a consultant to historic preservation organisations and was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for her research on government architecture. SELLING POINTS: . Introduction is by Helmut Jahn, FAIA, who has known Hovey since 1974. Jahn’s building have been described as having had a staggering influence on architecture
Essays by Cheryl Kent and Alex Marshall examine respectively the architectural achievement, and secondly, trace Hovey’s life and describe how he successfully combined the roles of architect and developer . A beautiful collector’s edition, this book also covers Hovey’s work as an abstract sculptor, whose monumental work is installed at some of the multifamily projects examined in this book . A serious art collector of mostly 20th-century art, Hovey’s acquisitions are detailed in an illustrated catalogue at the end of the book 400 colour, 10 b/w illustrations
