Architecture: First Thinking, Then Building

Here's the best evidence I know of that the past 10 years have witnessed a revolution in architecture. Diller and Scofidio are getting work. For decades the husband-and-wife designer team of Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio was known mostly--make that entirely--as architectural theorists, deadpan funny conceptual artists and intellectual bomb throwers. In all those roles, they made a name for themselves by questioning the most basic premises of architecture. It would be hard to imagine, for instance, a more thorough rethinking of what makes a building than a project they completed for the Swiss Expo 02. The Blur Building, as it...