Fentress Bradburn: Selected and Current Works

One principle underpinning the design of Fentress Bradburn is that no consistent look is imposed. The firm's buildings are extremely divergent, depending on place and purpose. In large-scale works such as airports, the architecture often is based on a dramatic structural concept. But whatever the scale, the buildings express the character of the place - in local traditions and materials, in subtle adjustments in their prominence in the landscape or the urban scene. One of the firm's projects, the Denver airport, celebrates advanced technology because that's the essence of air travel, and it proclaims its immense importance on this flat landscape with a silhouette that echoes that of the mountains. On the other hand, another project, The National Museum of Wildlife Art, blends into the local outcroppings as thoroughly as an ancient Native American ruin. IMAGES' Millenium Series was designed to celebrate the arrival of the new millenium. It is a large format publication, filled with photographs, historically tracing the work of a selection of the century's most significant architects. Changes that have occured in design philosophy are also highlighted in words and in visual imagery, demonstrating how each firm has adapted to the changes of the times. Each publication is an exercise in understated elegance, doing justice to the tenacity and design skills of some of the world's best known twentieth century architects.