From Rules to Constraints: Luis M Mansilla + Emilio Tunon

From 2008 to 2010, Madrid based architects Luis M. Mansilla and Emilio Tunon held the Jean Labatut Visiting Professorship at the Princeton School of Architecture. More than a collection of student work, From Rules to Constraints is a wide ranging reflection on teaching, design practice, history and the city. Focusing on three sites at three distinct scales, this book examines the constraints of the architectural project-social, political, historical, and environmental-in order to create new rules for working. Examining both their teaching methods and Mansilla + Tunon’s own design work, the book presents the design process as an ongoing conversation between the building and the environment, between freedom and limits, and between the decided and undecided. AUTHOR: Madrid-based architects Luis M. Mansilla and Emilio Tunon, winners of the 2007 Mies van der Rohe Prize, are best known for their influential cultural buildings throughout Spain. They trained at the studio of Rafael Moneo before founding their own practice in 1992. Mansilla + Tunon’s work exposes the constraints of the architectural project-social, political, historical, and environmental-in order to create new rules from which to play. It is an ongoing conversation between the building and the place. 242 illustrations