Caryatide / Cosa Mentale

Caryatide is a platform for reflection on architecture, art and design. Using different media, it promotes a curious and open attitude based on sharing and exchange. Whether through objects, images or words, it always seeks to extend the debate, to expand it. Collaborative, Caryatide weaves links between people, disciplines and knowledge.
Caryatide has its roots in Cosa Mentale, whose continuity it ensures, and is keen to continue along the path of rigour and high standards, in terms of both form and content.
Caryatide is directed by Claudia Mion, accompanied by Simon Campedel, Antoine Stevenot and Thibault Lambert. The scientific committee of the editorial project Cosa Mentale is composed by: Simon Campedel, Fréderic Einaudi, Mathias Gervais de Lafond, Baptiste Manet, Claudia Mion, Giacomo Ortalli and Simon Vergès.
 
Paris
caryatide.org
 
48 titles
Series:
 
Ordinary Beauty - An Italian Scenario
Ordinary Beauty – An Italian Scenario
2025
bilingual edition (English / Italian)
forthcoming
Rehabilitating the concept of the ordinary in Italian architecture: a journey across an imaginary landscape composed of examples of ordinary beauty, accompanied by reflections by scholars and professionals.
Félix Candela - L\'intelligence de la forme
Félix Candela
L'intelligence de la forme
2025
French edition
forthcoming
This first collection of texts in French by Félix Candela (1910-1997), a major figure in twentieth-century modern architecture, brings together writings and interviews published in the specialized press, as well as lectures and speeches delivered on various occasions by the Spanish-born Mexican architect and engineer between 1953 and 1994.
Truwant + Rodet + - Dixit - Conditions / About Condition
Truwant + Rodet +, Fuminori Nousaku & Mio Tsuneyama
Dixit #05 – Conditions / About Condition
2025
bilingual edition (English / French)
forthcoming
The fifth issue of the critical journal Dixit, in which the words of the architects Charlotte Truwant, Dries Rodet, Fuminori Nousaku and Mio Tsuneyama confront each other, around the theme of conditions: of society, of life, of architectural practice and uses, etc.
Conversations on Architecture – Swiss Talks – About and Beyond / Conversazioni sull’architettura – Swiss Talks – Intorno e oltre
Conversations on Architecture – Swiss Talks – About and Beyond / Conversazioni sull’architettura – Swiss Talks – Intorno e oltre
2024
bilingual edition (English / Italian)
The richness of cultural exchanges between Italy and Switzerland, especially in terms of architectural culture, is the framework within which this publication was conceived and structured. The editorial project retraces and expands some of the themes addressed during the first seven years of the Swiss Talks, born in 2017 as a cultural partnership between the Istituto Svizzero and the architecture magazine Casabella.
Barrault Pressacco - Wallness - Nature and culture of insulation – Building with hempcrete
Barrault Pressacco
Wallness – Nature and culture of insulation – Building with hempcrete
2024
bilingual edition (English / French)
A polyphonic, hybrid work, somewhere between a fine architectural book and a scientific essay, the result of research into contemporary forms of insulation.
Jan Kinsbergen - Plates
Jan Kinsbergen
Plates
2024
English edition
A visual, experimental research on the architectonic potential of the horizontal surface in building processes.
Ganko - Glasraum
Ganko, Louis De Belle
Glasraum
2024
bilingual edition (English / Italian)
The result of a collaboration in the fields of architecture and photography, Glasraum explores the deliberate ambiguities embedded in a seemingly aloof approach to the construction of both space and image.
Gilles Perraudin - Les jours sont ronds
Gilles Perraudin
Les jours sont ronds
2024
French edition
The story/manifesto of an architect's life: a re-reading of Gilles Perraudin's career by himself, enabling us to retrace the path of a thought in perpetual motion.
Luca Merlini - La traversée de ma bibliothèque
Luca Merlini
La traversée de ma bibliothèque
2024
French edition
An adventure book, written and drawn, by Luca Merlini that takes us closer to the creative process of the architect and the parallel that can be drawn with literature, highlighting the question of the book and its intimate relationship to architecture.
Jesús María Aparicio Guisado - Le mur - Concept essentiel dans le projet architectonique : la matérialisation de l\'idée et l\'idéalisation de la matière
Jesús María Aparicio Guisado
Le mur – Concept essentiel dans le projet architectonique : la matérialisation de l'idée et l'idéalisation de la matière
2024
French edition
Jesús María Aparicio Guisado expounds here his conception of architecture by exploring the notion of the wall in four major buildings through drawing and words.
Laurent Stalder - Un dessin n\'est pas un plan et autres essais
Laurent Stalder
Un dessin n'est pas un plan et autres essais
2023
French edition
This collection does not propose a theory of architectural drawing, but brings together seven essays (written over the last fifteen years), which explore the potential of architectural drawing during the 20th century, through seven modes of representation: plan, section, arrow, grid, images, diagram, drawing.
Muoto - Holy Highway
Muoto
Holy Highway
2023
bilingual edition (English / French)
A collection of texts, projects and images by the Parisian architecture studio on the subject of the highway, the most radical public space ever imagined, but also the most divisive and criticized today, questioning our relationship with modernity.
Livio Vacchini - Capolavori - Chefs-d\'œuvre
Livio Vacchini
Capolavori – Chefs-d'œuvre
2023
French edition
Twelve texts on as many architectural masterpieces: pursuing their project to disseminate the work and thought of Livio Vacchini, Caryatide publish a new edition in French of Capolavori, the small (and immense) milestone, full of meaning and poetry, that the architect from Ticino wrote in 2006 just before his death.
Ugo Bienvenu - Lorem Ipsum - French Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2023
Ugo Bienvenu
Lorem Ipsum – French Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2023
2023
bilingual edition (English / French)
An architectural fiction that takes the form of a photo novel, born from the meeting between an author, Ugo Bienvenu, and the architects of the French Pavilion of the 18th International Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Peter Märkli - Dessins, disegni
Peter Märkli
Dessins, disegni
2023
bilingual edition (French / Italian)
An in-depth study of Peter Märkli's work through an extensive body of 700 drawings by the Swiss architect, with eight essays.
Adriano Olivetti - Écrits et discours
Adriano Olivetti
Écrits et discours
2023
French edition
Les presses du réel – Architecture / design / graphic design – Architecture
The first collection of writings and speeches in French by Adriano Olivetti (1901-1960), an Italian entrepreneur and publisher who transformed his writing and calculating machine factory into a laboratory for experimenting with a new model of social, political, and cultural life: a model of "concrete utopia" based on the idea of community and centered on the individual, whose instruments of realization are architecture, urbanism, and design.
Line Fontana & David Fagart - Renewing the City from Within
Line Fontana & David Fagart
Renewing the City from Within
2022
bilingual edition (English / French)
A reflection by the architects of Fagart & Fontana on the renewal of the city from within and more specifically on the processes of transformation and adaptation of existing collective housing to new needs and lifestyles.
Martial Manet - Album Architecture - Abidjan
François-Xavier Gbré, Baptiste Manet, Martial Manet
Album Architecture – Abidjan
2022
bilingual edition (English / French)
An iconographic work on the modern architecture of Abidjan which aims to offer a photographic survey of thirty buildings representative of the chosen moment of architecture that followed independence.
Giorgio Peghin - Voyages en Sardaigne - Nelle miniere di Iglesias / Into the Mines of Iglesias
Giaime Meloni, Giorgio Peghin
Voyages en Sardaigne – Nelle miniere di Iglesias / Into the Mines of Iglesias
2022
bilingual edition (English / Italian)
Voyages en Sardaigne (Travels in Sardinia) is a collection of unconventional thematic guides on the island in the middle of the Mediterranean. This first part proposes an itinerary through the mining landscapes of Sulcis-Iglesiente, exploring soil, excavations, incisions, mutations, transpositions and silence of this territory marked by an industrial history.
Bruno Queysanne - Sur la projettation - Pour une pragmatique architecturale
Bruno Queysanne
Sur la projettation – Pour une pragmatique architecturale
2022
French edition
Through a careful reading and etymology of architectural treatises, from Vitruvius to Vittone, Bruno Queysanne reveals a little-known aspect of these "classical" texts, in which architects leave aside their learned and dogmatic rhetoric to give us pragmatic advice about the realization of the architectural work.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi - Point de vue sur l\'architecture - Dialogue. Protopiro et Didascalo
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Point de vue sur l'architecture – Dialogue. Protopiro et Didascalo
2022
French edition
The first French edition of the theoretical dialogue of the Italian architect and engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), one of the most radical texts in the history of modern architectural theory.
Pier Vittorio Aureli - Less is Enough - Sur l\'architecture et l\'ascétisme
Pier Vittorio Aureli
Less is Enough – Sur l'architecture et l'ascétisme
2022
French edition
Les presses du réel – Architecture / design / graphic design – Architecture
A reflection on asceticism in architecture.
David Klemmer - Dixit - On process
Jan Kinsbergen, David Klemmer
Dixit #04 – On process
2022
bilingual edition (English / French)
The fourth issue of the critical journal Dixit, in which the words of the architects Jan Kinsbergen and David Klemmer confront each other, in the format of a dichotomous visual atlas, around the theme of the process.
Bernard Quirot - Simplifions
Bernard Quirot
Simplifions
2022
French edition
In this writing, French architect Bernard Quirot carries a reflection on his theoretical foundations and evokes, through his architectural journey, a critical vision of the increasing complexity of the world.
Richard Venlet - Dixit - Still Life / Nature Morte
OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen, Richard Venlet
Dixit #03 – Still Life / Nature Morte
2022
bilingual edition (English / French)
The third issue of the critical review Dixit in which the words of the architectural practice OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen and the Brussels artist Richard Venlet confront each other around the theme of "Still Life".
Roberto Masiero - Une machine à penser - La maison de Paros de Silvia Gmür et Livio Vacchini
Roberto Masiero
Une machine à penser – La maison de Paros de Silvia Gmür et Livio Vacchini
2022
French edition
A reflection on the relationship between architecture, art, philosophy and politics based on the house of Paros by Silvia Gmür and Livio Vacchini, a real "thinking machine" offering a lesson of architecture.
Valerio Olgiati - Architecture Non-Référentielle
Valerio Olgiati, Markus Breitschmid
Architecture Non-Référentielle
2022
French edition
French edition of Valerio Olgiati's and Markus Breitschmid's widely acclaimed manifesto for a new approach in architecture in a world free of ideologies and, therefore, references: a must-read for anyone interested in architecture today.
José Ignacio Linazasoro - La mémoire de l\'ordre - Les paradoxes du sens dans l\'architecture moderne
José Ignacio Linazasoro
La mémoire de l'ordre – Les paradoxes du sens dans l'architecture moderne
2021
French edition
First French translation of the essay of the Spanish architect José Ignacio Linazasoro.
Fosco Lucarelli - Database Network Interface
Mariabruna Fabrizi, Fosco Lucarelli
Database Network Interface
2021
English edition
In an age characterised by the increasing dematerialisation of cultural production and transmission, Database, Network, Interface explores architecture's historical role in representing and organising information and knowledge.
BAUKUNST - Pensées
BAUKUNST
Pensées
2021
French edition
A portrait of the Belgian architecture office BAUKUNST founded by Adrien Verschuere.
Spectre - Contemporary Ruins
Spectre #03 – Contemporary Ruins
2021
bilingual edition (English / French)
After the first two issues Mineral Pornography and Vegetal Trauma, the 3rd issue of Spectre invites contemporary artists to deliver their interpretation of contemporary ruins.
Yony Santos - Dixit - A Matter of Data
Yony Santos, Marina Otero Verzier
Dixit #02 – A Matter of Data
2021
bilingual edition (English / French)
Second issue of the critical journal Dixit in which the words of the architect Yony Santos from the swiss architecture practice TYPICALOFFICE and of Marina Otero Verzier, director of research at Het Nieuwe Instituut (HNI), confront each other around the theme of “A Matter of Data”.
Elisa Valero Ramos - La théorie du diamant et le projet d’architecture
Elisa Valero Ramos
La théorie du diamant et le projet d’architecture
2021
French edition
First publication of the essay of the Spanish architect Elisa Valero Ramos.
Carlos Martí Arís - Variations of Identity - Type in architecture
Carlos Martí Arís
Variations of Identity – Type in architecture
2021
English edition
First English translation of the seminal essay on type in architecture by Spanish architect Carlos Martí Arís.
Carlos Martí Arís - Les variations de l\'identité - Le type en architecture
Carlos Martí Arís
Les variations de l'identité – Le type en architecture
2021
French edition
First French translation of the seminal essay on type in architecture by Spanish architect Carlos Martí Arís.
Laurent Stalder - Dixit - Hyperconfort / Hypercomfort
Bruther, Laurent Stalder
Dixit #01 – Hyperconfort / Hypercomfort
2020
bilingual edition (English / French)
First issue of the critical journal published by Cosa Mentale, in which the words of the architecture practice Bruther and of Laurent Stalder, professor of architecture history at ETH, confront each other around the theme of “hypercomfort.”
Dominique Putz - Les figures architectoniques - La construction logique de la forme architecturale
Dominique Putz
Les figures architectoniques – La construction logique de la forme architecturale
2020
French edition
Architectural shape is the interface where form and meaning meet and communicate. In this perspective the research addresses the decoding of the shape of buildings, cities and landscapes.
Carlos Martí Arís - Eloquent Silences - Writings on Art and Architecture
Carlos Martí Arís
Eloquent Silences – Writings on Art and Architecture
2020
English edition
It is a form of spiritual revolt that Spanish architect Carlos Martí Arís highlights through a transversal analysis of different artistic expressions that combine to enrich his reflection.
Giorgio Azzariti - In Search of a Language - A Journey through Peter Märkli\'s Imaginary
Giorgio Azzariti, Peter Märkli
In Search of a Language – A Journey through Peter Märkli's Imaginary
2019
bilingual edition (English / French)
currently out of stock
A rereading of the work of the Swiss architect.
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